The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. 16 This is what you requested of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: “If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.” 17 Then the LORD replied to me: “They are right in what they have said – Deuteronomy 18:15-20
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Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. 2 Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them. 3 Full of honor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. 4 He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds; the LORD is gracious and merciful. 5 He provides food for those who fear him; he is ever mindful of his covenant. 6 He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the heritage of the nations. 7 The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy. 8 They are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. 9 He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name. 10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever. – Psalm 111:1-10
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They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching– with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. – Mark 1:21-28
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Our readings today focus on a battle we’re all involved in: the battle between good and evil.
There are some people in the world who believe that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ depends on how you define them, that it’s a matter of opinion. This is NOT what the Bible teaches. And when we get down to it, it’s not really what any of us believes. We may disagree over which things are right and wrong, but we all believe that there is such a thing as right and wrong. When we look at the world around us, we can see so many things that are wrong: over 100 million people homeless right now, displaced by war or famine; in many parts of the world it is difficult to find drinkable water, and yet in other parts of the world people are recovering from floods; in many parts of the world, rape has become a weapon of war – while in other parts of the world men are proclaiming themselves ‘appointed by God’ while they organize the deaths of millions… I could go on. There is no denying there is evil in this world.
In fact, when non-religious people are asked why they don’t believe in God, the most frequently-given answer is because there’s evil in the world and God isn’t stopping it. People say, “I can’t believe in a God who would let such things happen.”
What our scriptures tell us today is that God IS doing something about it. They also tell us God is including human beings in the work of setting things right.
Scripture tells us that evil came into the world when the first human beings were deceived into thinking they knew better than God what was right and what was wrong. From that point on we see people trying to do things their own way, committing murder and robbery and violence. But there were also people who loved God and wanted to live in a world where God’s love was the gold standard.
It’s not long before the Bible introduces us to Moses. Moses was a man who talked with God face-to-face. We all know his story: how he was saved from the Nile River by Pharoah’s daughter, and raised in the palace, but was then called by God to lead Israel out of slavery and into the Promised Land.
Now, as today’s scripture reading from Deuteronomy begins, the people of Israel are about to enter the Promised Land; but Moses won’t be going with them. It’s time now for Moses to rest – to go home and be with God, to be “gathered to his people” as it says in the scriptures.
The people of Israel were terrified at the thought of losing Moses. Forty years Moses has been leading them: two generations. Most of the people can’t remember a time when Moses wasn’t there for them.
I imagine it’s kind of how people in England felt when Queen Elizabeth passed. Most Brits can’t remember a time when Elizabeth wasn’t queen, and they’re almost feeling like “King who?” But it was also clear, for those of us who watched, that Queen Elizabeth planned her own funeral down to the last detail. She even picked the hymns that were sung.
In a similar way, Moses needs to get God’s people ready to move on without him. He needs to plan those final details. He tells the people that he’s going to be dying. He tells them that God will still be there and will be faithful to them, and that God will support them along the way.
Most importantly, Moses tells them there will be another – another leader like Moses. God will provide someone who will be a “shepherd of the people”. He will be one of the people, and he will be a prophet who will teach God’s word faithfully, and the people will be accountable to follow his teachings.
In a way, God fulfilled this promise through Joshua, Moses’ successor. But God will also fulfill this promise a second time, in a much broader context, when the Messiah comes. This Messiah would be someone who:
- Is from the Jewish people
- Is a good shepherd
- Is a redeemer
- Is a miracle worker
- Is a teacher of the Law
- Who challenges the kings of the earth
- Who is mediator between God and human beings
As it happens, the name Joshua and the name Jesus mean the same thing in Hebrew: “God is our deliverer” – or to put it more succinctly, “Saviour”.
This reading from Deuteronomy is not only a comfort to the people of Israel: it is also a prophecy of someone else who is coming, whose arrival will signal the beginning of a new age – which leads us directly into today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark.
Let me set the scene:
We find ourselves in the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath Day. It is a breathtakingly beautiful location: warm and sunny, at the top of a gentle hill, with the village of Capernaum surrounding on three sides. As we sit in the synagogue, we can hear the waves of the Sea of Galilee lapping on the shore. The scent of flowers drifts in between the pillars of the synagogue. As we look around at those pillars, we are reminded of what our neighbors have told us: that the local Roman centurion built this synagogue for us, for our town. The local centurion is a Gentile believer in God, and this synagogue is here because of him. (The people don’t know it yet, but that same centurion will one day ask Jesus to heal his servant, and he will say, “Lord I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but say the word and my servant will be healed…” And Jesus will answer he has not found such faith even among the people of Israel. But that day is still in the future…)
Today, in the synagogue, the local rabbi gets up and leads us in prayer. Then he motions to any young men who would like to share a thought, and Jesus gets up and comes to the front. Mark doesn’t say which scripture Jesus was teaching on that morning, but he says the people were captivated, because Jesus taught them with authority “and not like the scribes”. (I don’t think that Mark meant to slam the scribes; I think what he was meant was that, in Jesus’ day, Jewish scribes and teachers frequently taught by quoting other teachers – a technique still used today.)
But Jesus didn’t need this. Jesus teaches God’s word directly. He had no need to quote anyone else because he was the authority. And the people are enjoying his teaching immensely! They’re loving every moment of listening to him.
Suddenly a deranged man, who Mark tells us ‘had an unclean spirit’ breaks in to Jesus’ teaching. The gentle voice of the Savior is interrupted by a man with a harsher voice, and an attitude that has none of God’s love in it. And he says:
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
Imagine how troubling this would have been to Jesus’ listeners – first, for Jesus to be interrupted; and second to hear Jesus accused of wrongdoing – in a voice that is so sure of the accusation.
I’d like us to step back for a moment and notice how clever this accusation is. It’s in three parts. Part one: a rude and accusatory question: “What do you have to do with us?” There is no right way to respond to a question like that, because it’s not really a question; it’s an accusation.
Part two: “Have you come to destroy us?” Why would this question even make sense? Anybody who’s listening to Jesus can feel the life that’s in his words. Listening to Jesus speaks to something deep within each person and brings life. The question is posed to cast doubt on a man who is not only innocent of the charge but is in fact working to do exactly the opposite of destroying life – he is bringing life.
So we have a rude and accusatory question, followed by an outright lie. Then part three: a truth: “I know who you are – the Holy One of God.” God’s enemies know exactly who Jesus is, and they will even admit it if it works to their advantage.
So again the progression is: accusatory question – outright lie – absolute truth. The intended result is confusion, disarray, and questioning on the part of the listeners… and eventually, if people listen long enough, a loss of faith; a loss of trust. It’s impossible to mix truth with lies and be faithful to God.
This same progression can be seen in the temptation of God’s first people in the Garden of Eden. The snake leads off with an accusatory question: “Did God say ‘you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” Followed by an outright lie: “you will not die”. Followed by an absolute truth: “you will be like God, knowing good and evil”.
Same progression, same technique! Watch for this pattern – accusation, lie, truth – in conversations, at work, in politics, watching the news, you name it. Watch for this.
Back to the synagogue in Capernaum… Mark tells us this man who is speaking ‘had an evil spirit’. We in the 21st century in America don’t usually put much stock in talk about evil spirits and things like that. We see movies like The Exorcist as entertainment, as fantasy – not as fact. And there are a lot of good reasons for that.
But I can also tell you that our Christian brothers and sisters in Africa often see things differently. I suspect that’s because they’ve been eyewitnesses to more in-your-face evil than we have. They have seen, some of them, with their own eyes, the violence in Darfur, the burning of villages in South Sudan, the genocide in Rwanda, the decades-long civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They know that pure evil exists; and they know that sometimes people give in to it.
Not that I recommend going and reading up on evil spirits – I do not! – but there might be something more to the subject than we are typically led to believe. And let’s face it – even without evil spirits there are plenty of death-dealing forces in our world: addiction, racism, xenophobia, uncontrollable anger, envy, pollution of our air and water, and so much more. One scholar writes that these things:
“move through the world as though by a kind of cunning. They resist, sidestep, or co-opt our best attempts to overcome them. [Trying to solve these problems is] less like figuring out a puzzle and more like wrestling with a beast.”[1]
It would be too easy to throw up our hands and say “What can we do?” But we follow a God who is greater than all of that. And God calls us to share in the daunting task of restoring this world – bit by bit, acre by acre, neighborhood by neighborhood.
Going back to that morning in the synagogue… notice how Jesus handles the situation. He doesn’t argue with this man. He doesn’t try to reason with him, or make him feel better about the situation. He doesn’t try to find some middle ground. There are times when listening and asking questions are the right things to do – but not when evil is right up in your face.
Instead, Jesus says: “Be silent and come out of him!”
Jesus isn’t even speaking to the man; he’s speaking to the spirit inside the man. What we are witnessing here is a healing. The evil spirit is gone and the man is free! And the people in the synagogue have just witnessed Jesus’ first healing miracle.
We were talking at Bible study this past week about the gifts of the Holy Spirit – the miraculous ones, that is – things like speaking in tongues, or healing, or prophecy. There are some churches where these things seem to happen all the time, like everyday occurrences. But in other churches, like the one I was raised in, people don’t quite know what to make of the gifts of the Spirit. Are they really for real? Do miracles really happen? Have you ever seen one?
For me the answers to these questions are: yes, yes, and I’ve seen evidence of it. Yes, the gifts of the Spirit are real. Yes, miracles really happen. And I’ve never actually witnessed one (that I know of) but I know a woman whose eyes were healed – after the healing she never wore glasses again. The spiritual world is real, and spiritual gifts are real.
As we read this passage in Mark, the first spiritual gift that Jesus uses on this day is teaching. A lot of people in the world teach – but teaching in the Spirit, as a spiritual gift, comes with a power and authority that is otherworldly. Mark comments that the people were: “astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority.” This is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence.
The second gift of the Spirit Jesus displays is the gift of Discernment – sometimes called Prophecy. It’s ability to know something with absolute certainty, that you couldn’t possibly know unless God told you. Jesus uses this gift when he perceives that the man is being held captive by an evil spirit. He does not see the man as evil; he sees the man being held captive by something stronger than himself. Jesus perceives the evil spirit, and he speaks to it directly.
The third gift of the Spirit Jesus displays is Healing – which in this case might also be called Exorcism. He commands the evil spirit to leave; and the man is free. He is healed, forgiven, and no longer enslaved by evil.
The people who were there that day, as Jesus said these things, would have felt deep within themselves a sense of both the rightness of his words, and the compassion in his words. They would have sensed within the synagogue a feeling of peace and well-being – shalom. And when this man interrupted the teaching, it would have been so jarring people would have immediately known something was wrong; but they see Jesus confront the evil spirit and dismiss it with just a few words. Jesus brings a new reality: a reality in which people who are deeply ill can be healed; in which people who are deeply sinful can be forgiven; in which people – all people – are deeply loved by God.
Ruins of the ancient great Jewish synagogue at Capernaum or Kfar Nahum at the shore of Galilee lake northern Israel
Needless to say, back in Capernaum, word got around. As Jesus once said, you can’t light a lamp and put it under a bushel. Jesus – just by being who he is – is fulfilling the promises Moses made all those years ago. By the next morning, all of Capernaum and the surrounding area had heard what Jesus had done.
For us today, to follow Jesus means to trust that he is who he said he is; and to join Jesus in confronting evil wherever we may find it. This is also why we pray: to bring Jesus’ healing power into those parts of the world that touch our lives. This is also why we worship: because it is impossible to witness what Jesus does, in love and in power, without talking about it! We worship a God who answers prayers, and who sets prisoners free.
Wherever we see needs in this world, we are called to bring them to Jesus; and listen to see if Jesus would like us to help set things right. But wherever we see evil in this world, whatever it may be, bring it to Jesus in prayer. As the people in Capernaum learned that morning, Jesus’ power is real and his love never ends. AMEN
[1] SALT
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