Text: Mark 1:21-28
Date: January 31, 2021
Event: The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B
Mark 1:21-28 (EHV)
Then they went to Capernaum. On the next Sabbath day, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22They were amazed at his teaching, because he was teaching them as one who has authority and not as the experts in the law. 23Just then there was a man with an unclean spirit in their synagogue. It cried out, 24“What do we have to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
25Jesus rebuked the spirit, saying, “Be quiet! Come out of him!”
26The unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions, and after crying out with a loud voice, it came out of him. 27Everyone was so amazed that they began to discuss this with each other. They said, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits, and they obey him!” 28News about him spread quickly through all the region of Galilee.
Jesus’ Authority Is Your Certainty
“Um, well, I don’t know...” Those words can be both refreshing and frustrating. It can be refreshing because it’s honest. We’d probably rather someone admit that they don’t know the answer to a question or the best method to accomplish a goal than just make something up, pretending to have the information we needed. But, on the other hand, when it’s information we want or even need, to run into the a lack of knowledge from someone you hoped could help is frustrating.
This morning as we move deeper into the season of Epiphany, we see the completion of a change that has been happening over the last couple of weeks. In our Gospels we’ve seen a shift from revelation of who Jesus is coming other people to those revelations coming from Jesus himself. And this morning is kind of completeing that shift as Jesus’ teaching and his actions prove his authority. Jesus doesn’t run into a situation where he has to say, “Well, hmmm, I’m not sure...” Jesus has his own complete authority as God, and that authority is eternal certainty for you and me.
We meet up with Jesus again early on in his ministry. He’s in the northern region of Galilee, in the town of Capernaum. Jesus wastes no time and as soon as the Sabbath day rolls around, he goes to the local synagogue to teach. The people were amazed at how Jesus taught. Maybe as a relatively young man, it would have been surprising to hear him teaching at all. But it was more the tone and how he taught. Mark records that the people’s amazement was because Jesus was teaching as one who has authority, evidently a stark difference from the scribes, the experts in the law.
That’s not as big of a dig on the scribes as we might read in the first place. These men would teach, but often teach on the basis of history and tradition. They would teach about a certain section of God’s Word and bring many other opinions and interpretations from previous generation’s great teachers to help explain things. It’s the same sort of teaching you might have experienced when a pastor quotes from a Bible commentary to supplement and explain using God-given insight recorded from other faithful teachers.
But even the prophets throughout the Old Testament taught and preached with borrowed authority. A familiar refrain throughout the prophetic books is, “This is what the Lord says...” In other words, the prophets were not bringing their own ideas; they were telling the people what God had sent them to speak, often times with direct quotations and verbatim recountings of what God had said. There’s certainly nothing to scorn or scoff at there. They were doing exactly what God had called them to do.
But then put yourself in the position of those people in Capernaum’s synagogue. After all your life hearing “This is what the Lord says...” from the scriptures and commentary and insight from many different, respected teachers, here comes a man who teaches and speaks with no adherence to anyone else. Jesus doesn’t have to say, “This is the message God sent me to deliver,” because he himself is God. Jesus doesn’t have to rely on other teachers’ insights to expound on his teaching because all of those teachers, illumined as they might have been by the Holy Spirit, were still restricted in their understanding of God’s divine Word by their their human natures and their sin. But not so with Jesus. He teaches with authority with no deference to anyone else. He doesn’t say, “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand” because he has been the author of the Word from the beginning. This is God teaching his people.
As if the authority in his words was not enough, Jesus underscores his authority with a miracle. A man possessed by an unclean spirit approaches Jesus and testifies the truth about him, and yet we might well suppose that Jesus doesn’t really want an endorsement from a demon. So Jesus’ authority is directed at this spirit possessing this man, “Be quiet! Come out of him!” At that moment, the words stop and the spirit cannot help but come out of the man. The Creator of the universe commanded him; he had to obey. The spirit didn’t stand a chance against Jesus.
The crowd is further rightly amazed at Jesus as they begin to understand that Jesus is doing something new and spectacular, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits, and they obey him!” Jesus is not just teaching about these spirits, and he’s not unsuccessfully giving them directions. He commands and they obey.
The people recognized the authority, they recognized the new teaching, but that is something a little bit different than trusting that the teaching is true. This is not necessarily faith in the promises of God.
How do we approach Jesus’ authority? For those of us who have known these truths for a long time, it can be easy to slip into apathy. The truths of God can easily slip and become just pieces of information we know like we know the plot of a movie rather than the promises we cling to with all of our being for rescue from sin and hell. Do we put God’s promises into practice? We might know that God promises to work good in all things for us, but when something bad is actually happening to me, do I trust that he’s doing that or do I treat my troubles as if they are beyond the scope of God’s promised help?
My conscience also screams at me daily. It is all too ready to remind me of my failings to God, that I have not been the perfect person that God demands that I be. And my conscience is not wrong. Luther made this clear in his Small Catechism’s explanation to the faith petition of the Lord’s Prayer when he wrote, “We daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment.”
But do I live as if I’m unforgiven? Do I live as if that sin can never be taken away? Do I live as if my conscience is correct and the only thing I have to look forward to is an eternity of hell as the just punishment for my sins? May it never be! May Jesus’ authority be your certainty, not just of who he is, but of what he has done for you! Jesus is clear that he came to this earth not primarily to teach but to lay down his life as the payment for your sins and mine.
So what should we do with the guilty conscience that screams out at us every day? Let Jesus treat it like the unclean spirit. His death and resurrection says to the fretting conscience, “Be quiet!” Our worries about things in life might lead us to start thinking that God can’t or at least won’t follow through on his promises to us. They make us start thinking that he can’t or won’t work all things for our eternal good to care for us as his dearly loved people. Jesus’ authority says to those misleading worries and fears, “Come out of [them]!”
God’s authority is absolute, and nothing, not worry and fear, not sin and Satan, not our own emotions can make God’s promises untrue or leave them unkept. Jesus, who had the authority to drive our the unclean spirit from that man, has the authority to forgive sins and has, in fact, forgiven your sins by living and dying for you. Jesus who taught with astounding authority to the crowd gathered in Capernaum teaches with that same authority through his Word as he teaches that the forgiveness of sins means eternal life for us. He teaches that as we have been baptized, so we are members of his eternal family, that as we receive his true body and blood with the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, we are given his forgiveness directly and clearly. Nothing from inside of us or outside of us can invalidate Jesus’ authority.
Jesus’ authority is absolute which means we can be absolutely certain that every promise he’s made for us will be kept. When he promises your troubles will be worked for good, they will. When he promises that he will always be at your side to guard and protect you, he will. When he promises that by his life and death and resurrection he has forgiven your sins, they are gone. When he promises that at the end of your time in this life, he will bring you to that eternal, perfect life with him forever, he will.
My brothers and sisters, your authoritative Savior can be trusted. We can have certainty in him unmatched by anything else in this life. You are loved, cared for, and forgiven. Thanks be to God! Amen.
