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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit inspired the evangelist St. Mark to make great use of the Greek adverb that is generally translated “immediately” or “at once”. Some four fifths of the Greek New Testament’s uses of the word, about 40 of about 50, are in St. Mark’s Gospel account, and three of those uses are in today’s Gospel Reading for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany. As we heard, immediately Jesus was teaching with authority, immediately He rebuked an unclean spirit, and at once (or, “immediately”) His fame spread everywhere. This morning we consider today’s Gospel reading, directing our thoughts to the theme “Immediately Jesus teaches and rebukes, and His fame spreads”.
Today’s Gospel Reading picks up right where last week’s Gospel Reading left off (Mark 1:14-20), narrating events perhaps of the same day or of a day that soon followed. In its vivid and quickly unfolding narrative, today’s Gospel Reading also emphasizes Jesus’s teaching, in only eight verses using the related verb and noun for “teaching” a total of four times. Today’s Gospel Reading does not tell us exactly what Jesus taught—though we might surmise that Jesus taught Who He was, what He was doing, and how people would get the benefits of what He was doing—but the Gospel Reading does tell us how people listening both were astonished at Jesus’s teaching with authority and were amazed at Jesus’s rebuking the unclean spirit. And, surely some of those same people at least initially were responsible for Jesus’s fame’s spreading everywhere, throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
For its part, the unclean spirit perhaps did not need Jesus’s teaching but already seems to know Who Jesus was: the man with the unclean spirit calls Jesus “Jesus of Nazareth”, says he “knows” Who Jesus is, and then identifies Jesus as “the Holy one of God”. Also, although the unclean spirit at least rhetorically asks Jesus both what Jesus had to do with it and others like it and whether Jesus had come to destroy them, in context those questions suggest that the unclean spirit already seems to know what Jesus was doing. And, in the end, the unclean spirit has to heed Jesus’s rebuke, to obey Jesus’s commands.
Now, to be sure, there are obvious differences between beings like the unclean spirit and people—both people like those in the Gospel Reading and people like us today. For example, the unclean spirits’ knowledge would not have been affected by humanity’s fall into sin, and Jesus arguably deals with them then via His bare word, in a way that they would not have been able to resist, which is different than how He deals with us now. Nevertheless, the unclean spirit’s knowing Jesus’s identity and purpose and its obeying Jesus’s commands still can prompt us to reflect on whether or not we know Jesus’s identity and purpose and obey Jesus’s commands. When we both let God’s Word teach us and are honest with ourselves, we must admit that by nature we do not know Jesus’s identity and purpose and do not obey Jesus’s commands. Even taught by God, we still sinfully deny, doubt, and disobey. We break God’s Commandments in regard both to Him and our neighbors. And, as we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Deuteronomy 18:15-20), God promises to hold accountable whomever will not listen to (and implicitly “obey”) the words spoken by the Prophet like Moses Whom God raises up from among His people.
Thus, God calls and enables us to be sorry for our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to stop sinning. As we sang in today’s Introit (Psalm 32:1-2, 5-7; antiphon: v.10), when we acknowledge our sin to the Lord and do not cover up our iniquity but confess our transgressions to Him, then He forgives the iniquity of our sin, and blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered, and against whom the Lord counts no iniquity.
Despite what the people in the Gospel Reading might be taken to say, Jesus’s teaching of forgiveness of sins by grace through faith certainly was not “new” in and of itself, nor was some exercise of authority over unclean spirits necessarily “new”, for Jesus Himself says elsewhere that even the “sons” (or, “pupils”) of the Jewish leaders cast out demons (Matthew 12:27; Luke 11:19). Rather, what apparently was “new” was the way Jesus taught and acted with His own authority—His own right and power—not as, for example, the scribes’ teaching or acting with others’ authority, which likely would not have been as ir‑resistible (confer/compare Matthew 17:14-20; Mark 9:14-28; Luke 9:37‑42; Acts 19:13-17). And no doubt also “new” was Jesus’s identifying not someone else but Himself as the fulfillment of the prophecies and promises of a Savior, Who would take away people’s sins. Indeed, out of God’s great love for us, the God-man Jesus Christ took the sins of the world to the cross, where He died for all people, died in our place, died the death that we all deserved. Yet, as we discussed recently in Midweek Bible Study, the Holy One of God was not abandoned to the grave, nor did His flesh see corruption (Psalm 16:8-11 and Acts 2:25-28), but He rose again from the dead, showing that God the Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf. When we move from simple astonishment and amazement to trust in Him, then God forgives our sinful nature and all of our sins for Jesus’s sake. God forgives and transforms us through His Means of Grace, His Word in all of its forms, including the Sacraments.
In some ways, there is no essential difference in the Gospel Reading between Jesus’s teaching with authority the people who heard Him and His rebuking or commanding the unclean spirit who obeyed Him. Yet, we can and do distinguish between how those whom Jesus sends to forgive our sins read and preach His Word to groups like this one and how they apply His Gospel to individuals: with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and with wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us in the Sacrament of the Altar. We recognize that when God works through such means that His Word is resistible, and we do not resist but permit ourselves to be gathered, on the Lord’s Day, in the Lord’s House, in order for the Lord, through those whom He sends, to teach and act, as He promises to do.
In the Gospel Reading, when Jesus taught and acted, then people were astonished and amazed and spread His “fame” everywhere—no doubt face to face by word of mouth, the original “social medium”! So, all the more so today, with so many more “social media”, we also can and do spread Jesus’s teaching, His Gospel of forgiveness, and what it means to us, such as peace and joy. And, as much as possible, as illustrated in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 8:1-13), we take care not to cause our brothers and sisters in Christ to fall either into sin or from faith. Forgiven and transformed through Word and Sacrament, we at least try to keep God’s Commandments, with our successes ultimately seen as evidence of our faith and with our failures forgiven as we live each day sorry for our sins, trusting God to forgive our sins, and wanting to stop sinning. For, the day is coming when Jesus will say to us ir-resistibly either “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his evil angels” or “Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:41, 34).
In today’s Gospel Reading, “Immediately Jesus teaches and rebukes, and His fame spreads”. There was great urgency then, and there is great urgency now. By God’s mercy and grace, Jesus’s identity, purpose, and means are manifest to us. Let us confess Who He is and what He has done, let us receive the benefits of what He has done in the ways that He gives for us to receive them, and let us spread His Gospel—all both to our salvation and to the glory of His Holy Name!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +