Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

We are met together on Remembrance Sunday

The day in the year when we remember the great conflicts that convulsed our planet in the first half of the 20th century, claiming millions of lives and wrecking villages, towns, cities and whole countries

They prompted nations to devise ever more hideous ways to destroy life and were the context for acts of appalling depravity and brutality as well as courage and sacrifice

They were conflicts in which the outcomes were by no means a foregone conclusion

There were times in the two conflicts when the freedom of Europe and beyond lay in the balance

There was also a real sense in which those wars were conducted at two levels

There was a surface level conflict that was visible to all

There were the aircraft flying overhead, increasingly swift and powerful, and deadly - as cities like Dresden in Germany and Coventry and London here in the UK shockingly learned

There were the massed ranks of soldiers on the ground, armed to the teeth, dug into their trenches, accompanied by tanks and field guns

These were the parts all could see - but there was more

Behind the scenes, out of public gaze, were the secret operations

Famously here in the UK there was Bletchley Park, where dedicated and brilliant men and women devoted themselves to deciphering enemy code so that his next moves could be known and, it was hoped, this titanic struggle be brought to an end

Those who worked there were sworn to secrecy, and kept their word.

Day after day they carefully listened, calculated, and produced amazing machines that could help them in their work.

Much of it has been preserved, and we were privileged to visit it some time ago and it was well worth it.

A visit gives a great feel for the ingenuity of those who worked there and for the sense that there was everything to lose in that great struggle, which for so long was very finely balanced.

We are thankful today that victory was secured, for the sacrifices that were made, that freedom was preserved for generations to come, including ours.

Today we are going to think about a greater victory over an even greater enemy in a conflict that brings greater freedom

And like the World Wars, there was an outward, visible aspect and an unseen, hidden one

A confrontation in a synagogue

What comes most readily to mind when you think about Jesus and his public ministry?

Is it nice warm miracles when he healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, made the blind see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk?

Is it the dramatic miracles of raising the dead, stilling the storm, feeding the 5000?

At our small fellowship in Culcheth, we have been making our way through Mark’s gospel

One of the interesting features of it is that while it does indeed record miracles of this kind, the very first one, in ch 1, is of a very different kind

It is an aspect of Jesus’ ministry that we in the secular, materialist West perhaps tend to screen out as a bit awkward

In ch 1, we read of an occasion when on the Sabbath, Jesus and his disciples went into the synagogue in a small town on the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum

He began to teach the people.

They were ‘astonished at his teaching’, we are told, ‘for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes’

Then something happened that demonstrated that authority in a powerful and remarkable way

We read, And immediately 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 out with a loud voice, came out of him.

And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this?

A new teaching with authority!

He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

This the first of Mark’s miracles is describing a confrontation

The confrontation is between Jesus and a dark, evil, unseen reality that had come to live in this poor man and had in effect taken him over, to such an extent that what he said was in reality this evil spirit speaking through him

And it knew very clearly what many people - including the disciples - struggled to work out.

It knew exactly who Jesus was, and said so

Not only that, but it said something really important and interesting in the form of a question

It said, ‘have you come to destroy us?’

Not only did it know accurately who Jesus was, it seemed to instinctively know that Jesus was on a mission that would end in the destruction not only of one, but all such evil powers - have you come to destroy us?

This evil spirit does not give up its residency in this poor man easily.

It convulses him, shrieks loudly, but then does what Jesus had commanded

What does it mean?

Jesus’ public ministry in Mark opens with Jesus announcing, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

That was controversial, subversive talk

This was the land of Palestine under Roman rule, at the surface level - with their powerful, well-drilled legions on hand and Caesar enthroned as emperor

Proclaiming a kingdom on his turf could lead to trouble - it had done before, and could do so again

To Caesar, there was only one lord - and it was him.

To go around saying that Jesus is Lord, and talking of establishing his kingdom was highly risky

There were also the Jewish religious authorities, who thought they were the king of the hill when it came to the temple and matters spiritual

And Jesus quickly found himself in conflict with both of these external, visible powers

And at surface level, it was these powers that condemned him to die

But beneath the surface there was an invisible conflict going on that was even more deadly

That shadowy figure Satan - described by Paul as ‘the prince of the power of the air’ and ‘the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience’ had to be reckoned with

And when Jesus began his ministry, doing powerful acts that showed what true authority looked like, showing what life in his kingdom would look like, the fight was on

Jesus had come to reclaim his territory and destroy the usurper who was bent on opposing God and wreaking death and destruction in his world

The question was - how would he do it, and would he succeed?

This opening confrontation in the synagogue in Capernaum showed that the battle was on, horns were being locked - and that the real power and authority lay decisively with Jesus

But the power of sin and Satan was going to take more than one exorcism to root it out of this world once and for all

The Cross

This brings us to the cross

Here again we need to see things at two levels - the surface level, and behind the scenes

At surface level the cross was a disaster

At that level, Jesus was simply betrayed by an insider to the Jewish authorities and then ground under the heel of the mighty killing machine of Rome

But when we read the gospels with care we see that far more was going on than that

First, it was something that Jesus saw coming.

He made more than one allusion to the fact that he was not going to be around for ever

And on 3 occasions in Mark he spoke with startling clarity to his disciples about the fact that he was going to be cruelly treated, killed, and on the 3rd day would rise again

And as the cross began to loom ever larger, he did things that seemed calculated to provoke the authorities to act

And then at his trial before the high priest, at the decisive moment when in frustration that things were not going the way he wanted, the judge turned prosecutor and demands, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

And Jesus deliberately reached into a passage in Daniel 7 that amounted to an express claim to be the Messiah and prompted the immediate verdict of blasphemy - as he surely knew it would

And from there on it was a swift journey to the cross

The point is that the cross was not an unfortunate accident

Jesus was in total control

He was making those forces of evil - visible and invisible launch themselves against him in all their fury so that he could take it all upon himself

And yes, it meant his death.

But he knew something they did not.

They did not know that in hounding him to his death, they were signing their own death warrant

They did not know what he knew - that on the 3rd day he would not merely step back into the life he had before

No - he would step out on the other side of death, quite beyond the reach of those powers whose doom was now sealed

We have thought of things that are secret - and God kept this plan secret from the powers he had come to destroy

Paul puts it like this in 1 Cor 2: “But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

Of course they wouldn’t - as we have said they signed their own death warrants

The Victory

Jesus saw his mission as being the destruction of an enemy

John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation.

But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

By ‘the world’ Jesus means the world in its organised hostility to God - which includes both his visible and his invisible enemies

The cross at surface level looked like a disaster.

It looked like defeat, a victory for his enemies, for whom death is always the end.

That is how it seemed, and that is how it was meant to seem.