Extra! Read All About It!!

Mark 1:21–28 NRSV

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 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.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 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.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

The headlines are splashed across the cover of the magazine in bold type: “SECRET AFFAIR REVEALED!!! story on page 6”. Or online you would see the title: “You Won’t Believe How (fill in the blank) Has Changed. Click to see.” On TV, the anchors tell us of some new developing story that we will not want to miss and that we should tune in for the next news cycle. In the papers it used to be that one would see the headline EXTRA! and when the newsboys called out, they would say “Extra! Read all about it!!” when referencing a breaking news story. These headlines are all there to get us to read, or listen to, the latest story that is breaking or, more often, the latest gossip of the day.

Mark is a gospel that advertises that there is something extra coming up in the story. It is short and to the point. There is something about this Jesus that hints that he is more than what he appears to be. And what is that? Mark begins by telling us that he is the Son of God and the Messiah. Then we are told of the baptism of Jesus where the Spirit descends upon Jesus and the ripping open of the heavens above.

Jesus is then sent to the wilderness where he is tested by Satan. Unlike Matthew and Luke, we are not told what the testing was, only that it occurred and that Jesus was waited upon by the angels and was with the wild beasts.

But Jesus must have passed with flying colors as the next time that we see him, he is preaching the good news of the kingdom and beginning his ministry after John has been arrested. His next step in this mission is to call the disciples to him. They come and the mission is a go.

All this in the first 20 verses of chapter one of Mark! It is like a novel that is a page turner: we cannot wait to see what happens next and Mark does not want to make us wait. In fact, the word “immediately” is used so often in the book that it gives us the sense that Mark’s story is of the utmost importance and needs to be told with the greatest haste.

So, now we are to today’s text. It is another story that tells the basics and is more focused on what Jesus does rather than what he says. The word immediately appears three times in the text and is followed by action. Let’s follow the example of Mark and jump right in.

We are told that Jesus went to the synagogue where he began teaching. This was not that unusual as, being an up and coming preacher, he would have been asked to bring the sermon for the day. And so, he does. We are not told what the sermon was or what the teaching was. What we are told is that the people were amazed. Not just amazed, but thunderstruck. Here was one who was teaching not as the scribes taught but rather one who taught with authority, whose teaching was coming straight from God and not from the usual sources that the scribes used to teach.

Before we go and bash the scribes, it is important to know who they were. Scribes were not just ones who did writing for other people. They could, and did, do that. But they were so much more. They were really scholars, lay people who knew and interpreted the Torah and the rest of Hebrew Scriptures and the commentaries that came with them. Their teaching comprised of speaking about what the Scriptures meant and what the authorities said they meant. A lawyer today who is citing case law and precedents would be a close approximation to what the scribes were. They were not doing anything wrong nor were they leading the people astray. They were just citing and basing their arguments and teachings on those who had come before them.

But Jesus comes with a sense of urgency. He is direct and does not base his teaching on those who have come before him. While we do not know what Jesus taught, one can be sure that it was the good news of the immanence of the Kingdom of God. And the people listened. We can almost see them sitting forward in their seats. Here was a new teaching, one that came with authority and with an urgency that told them that there was something new here. And they recognized this. Yet, they, and even the disciples, did not recognize that the one sitting in front of them for what he was, the Holy One of God.

But there was one there who did recognize Jesus for what he truly was. The text tells us that “…immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit.[1]” How this man came to be in the synagogue with an unclean spirit is unknown. We know not his name, his occupation, his standing in the community, nothing except that he has an unclean spirit. But the spirit recognizes and shrieks, not just cries out, asking Jesus why he is there. In the Greek it is asking why does Jesus not leave them (notice the plural) alone. The plural of this seems to imply that the spirit is speaking for itself and all those in the spirit world. They are asking if Jesus is there to destroy them. It is an indication that Jesus won his battle with Satan in the wilderness and that those who keep the humans imprisoned have been put on notice that their time of defeat is at hand. The spirit knows who Jesus is and what he is capable of doing. And the spirit wants to be, as stated before, left alone. Any of us would want the same if we knew that someone was there who could do what Jesus is about to do.

The spirit even tries to assert dominance over Jesus. Using someone’s name is thought to give control over them in the spiritual realm. The spirit uses Jesus’ human name (Jesus of Nazareth) and his spiritual name (Holy One of God) in an attempt to bind Jesus and have him do the will of the unclean spirit. It is as if the spirit recognizes the Spirit of God in Jesus and wants to make sure that it can control Jesus.

But this is Jesus. If he can teach with authority and not like the scribes, then what make this spirit think that he can be bound just by saying his name? Jesus tells the spirit to be silenced or even to be muzzled. To come out of the man and set him free. We don’t know if he spoke these words in a loud or soft voice, but it is certain that the tone was a commanding one. One that showed Jesus’ authority over the spirit and those that were a part of the “us” that is referred in the earlier verse. And with this authority spoken, the spirit comes out of the man after screaming and causing him to have a seizure. Then we hear nothing more of the man. One wonders what happened to him after this moment in the synagogue. Was he able to live his life as he had before the spirit possessed him? Did Jesus ever follow up on what happened? These are all questions that Mark does not answer because he is more interested in what Jesus has done.

The synagogue was a place where things and people were clean according to the law. For something in the synagogue to be unclean would have been unheard of. There would have been a commotion that would have scandalized the entire village. Yet, it is here that we meet an unclean spirit. Mark is showing us a theological place rather than a geographical place. Jesus is taking on a spirit that is in a place that it should not be and showing that he is over the law and can make things clean that were unclean before (the man with the spirit.)

The people are again amazed, thunderstruck, by what has just happened. Typically, in any exorcism, the person trying to drive the spirit out would call upon a higher spirit than the one with whom they were doing battle. In other words, the person would not say, “By my authority, come out of that man!” but rather “By the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I command you to come out!” Do you see the difference? Jesus did not call on any name. He just said, “Be silent, and come out of him!” [2] There was nothing else to say.

And why did Jesus tell the spirit to be silent? It could have been like when a dog is trained to be quiet when told to. It most likely, however, was that Jesus did not want his identity be revealed by such a spirit. And the spirit was silent by the authority that came from the one who spoke the words.

The people are amazed. Their reaction, according to Mark, is rather…subdued. They ask who this man is. Or they could have been asking what this man is. He teaches with authority and he commands the spirits with authority. There is something about him that they have never seen before. Yet, again, they seem to miss who he really is. They have heard what he says and seen what he can do. They have even heard the unclean spirit claim who this Jesus of Nazareth really is and yet they still do not understand. In fact, their reaction is one of shrugging their shoulders and commenting on what they have just witnessed. With these actions, a report goes out “immediately” to all the surrounding areas. People want to know what is happening and what took place in the synagogue. While some translations speak of Jesus’ fame spreading, news or a report would be a better word to use. The report could have been a bad one. Here was a man who did things in the synagogue that no one else was doing and he was doing it on the Sabbath! And he is casting out unclean spirits in a clean place?! What kind of example is he showing to those who are gathered around? But there is the issue of the authority. And so, you can hear the news being spread like the headlines that we see today, Extra! There is something new and amazing that is coming from Capernaum! Come and see what is happening. You will be astounded.

Now I want you to imagine what this would be like if Jesus came to our church. Would he be welcomed? (yes) Would he be allowed to give the sermon? (hopefully, though there may be someone who asks about his credentials and whether he has gone through the examinations committee to be allowed to preach in the presbytery) Would he find that our teaching was with authority or would he find that we relied on those who came before us? Would he meet an unclean spirit? Now that is a question. Unclean spirits are all around us. They do not have to be ones that possess us as they did man in the text for us today. But they do possess us. They can be anything that turns our minds from God and turns our attentions to other things. These unclean spirits are called idols and what they bring is idolatry. We can make idols out of anything. Calvin said that the mind is a perpetual factory that makes idols. And we are possessed by them. If Jesus came into our church would he call out those unclean spirits? Hopefully he would. But what would our reactions be? Would we be amazed at the authority that he had or would we be upset that someone altered our nice and neat service? What would we say? Who or what is this man?

Brian Blount says this about Jesus using his authority in a world that wants to keep people possessed: “In such a world you either go with the man and help him create the holy chaos he’s creating or you find a way to do everything you can to stop him so you can get your people back in line.”[3] Jesus comes to us with authority and upsets our preconceived notions of what is to come. Come and read all about it. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016. Print.

[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.

[3]Brian K. Blount and Gary W. Charles, Preaching Mark in Two Voices (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 33.