Discuss: Have you had your 15 minutes of fame? What was it like? What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a famous person? Would you swap the relative anonymity you currently enjoy for fame?
1. When Jesus teaches at the Capernaum synagogue, what was the impact and impression of his teaching? (vv. 21-22)
2. What was Jesus’ response to his rapidly spreading popularity and why? (vv. 28, 34, 35-39, cf. 44-45)
3. In the face of Jesus’ popularity, what are Jesus’ priorities? (vv. 35, 38-39, cf. v. 34)
4. What does the evil spirit know about Jesus?
5. Why does Jesus silence the evil spirit?
6. What is amazing about Jesus?
Note: What is described as a ‘fever’ in the first century was an often fatal affliction.
7. How would you describe Jesus’ success as a doctor?
8. What is Peter’s mother-in-law’s response to Jesus?
9. What is the crowd’s response to Jesus?
10. What things does Jesus have authority over?
11. What opposition does Jesus face?
12. Who is Jesus?
13. Why has Jesus come?
14. What are the costs of following Jesus?
Our passage today immediately follows on from the summary of Jesus’ teaching—the time has come, the kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the good news. Jesus has come out as a teacher. Moreover, he is quite successful at attracting followers, for Peter and Andrew and James and John have left everything to follow him. They went with him to Capernaum. Jesus’ teaching attracts people, this much we can see.
But maybe Jesus just had the gift of the gab. Hitler likewise was a powerful rhetorician and orator. We know that powerful rhetoric, the ability to mobilise people with words, can be used for evil, as well as good. In fact, that is why we have democracy and a free media, to have at least two sides who will throw convincing words at each other. Greek culture saw the ability to move people by words as true power. And we see it, too. We recognize that when someone in politics or religion is a good speaker, we are much more likely to like and follow them if they are. That’s why we are warned on A Current Affair about false religious teachers. And we know that true power and authority in our society is to gain people to your cause, to have people hang on your every word, to become their leader.
Is that all Jesus is? Someone with a charismatic personality, who can speak well, but has nothing behind it?
Our passage today tells us, ‘What Jesus is in his words, he also is in his works’. Jesus’ works have all the authority that Jesus’ words have because of who he is and what he came to do. Jesus' words are arresting and authoritative, not just because he is a skillful rhetorical manipulator, but because he is the Christ, the promised Son of God who pleases God, and now comes to preach God's message. The time of waiting is over. The one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and who resisted Satan and all the temptation he could muster has come.
Jesus Christ is Lord. And just as Jesus Christ showed his mastery of Satan in the wilderness by resisting temptation, so Jesus Christ has authority over two key areas of brokenness and suffering in our broken world –the terrible experience of demon possession, and the universal experience of sickness. Jesus’ authority over demon possession and sickness is closely linked with his authoritative teaching.
I believe that there are angels and demons. There is a devil. There are spiritual realities, good and evil, that I cannot see. I think that such beliefs as mine are becoming more popular.
Generally, modern Australian, indeed Western, society is skeptical about such things. Post-Christian modern culture rejects such things. They seem difficult to verify. They elude modern scientific enquiry. In short, such things seem ‘pre-scientific’ and ‘superstitious’. It is interesting, however, that with our society’s movement toward new age spirituality, that it is becoming more acceptable to express belief in angels, demons, and the demonic. In some societies and in some religions, the demonic holds a great fear over people. Buddhist monks conduct ceremonies to cleanse areas from demons, and so do some Aboriginal people. In Islam, there are the ‘jin’ from which we get ‘genie’, like “I Dream of Genie” or “They’ve let the genie out of the bottle.” In other societies like ours, there is no fear or acknowledgement of the demonic. It is an irrelevance. Probably Satan and his demons like it that way, because an unexpected enemy who is not believed to exist is more dangerous than one known and feared.
In our reading, we see our Lord Jesus face to face with the demonic world, and he shows his complete power over it. There is no fear, only calm authority and power. Jesus is teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum in Galilee. This highlights Jesus’ priorities in ministry—he has come to teach (vv. 21-22, 27). But Jesus’ arrival has provoked opposition from the underworld, this time with an ‘unclean spirit’ (vv. 23-24). It is interesting that the demons know who Jesus is and about his mission. The demon knows more than the crowd, but not more than us as readers of Mark’s Gospel. By naming Jesus, the demons hoped that they would have power over him. But Jesus won’t even let them speak, even though they know the truth. Even when they speak truth they are silenced. And their resistance is futile. There is no battle, no struggle, just Jesus as Lord and master, and the demons in submission to him. He is Lord of all, even of Satan and his angels.
If you trust in Jesus, you have no reason to fear demons. Jesus has absolute power over them. Fear God and trust Jesus.
It is good for us to remember what sickness is. Sickness is slow death. Sickness is death while you live, telling you that you are dying. Sickness, together with aging, is the process of death working through our dying world. Aging in our broken world brings death in a predictable way to all. Sickness brings the threat of death nearer to some, impairs life now, and sometimes becomes so bad that some people long for death under sickness’ harsh hand.
In the face of our enemy sickness, Jesus shows himself with complete authority. Jesus gets home to where he is most probably staying, at Simon Peter’s house. But there is more healing work to do today. Now for us, fever means a day or two in bed. But in the ancient world, fever was the biggest killer. But again, Jesus’ touch is saving. Out of thankfulness to Jesus, Peter’s mother-in-law waits on Jesus. And that is the way it always is, those saved by Jesus serve Jesus. How can we do anything else, but from now on live for the one who lived and died for us?
But even then, Jesus’ work is not done. For as the shadows lengthen, and when evening descends, so also the needy and the sick descend on Peter’s house: Again, we see the power of Jesus’ word and the authority of Jesus over sickness.
Jesus was already declared to be the Son of God in his baptism. He is the servant who pleases God. Sickness is slow death. And Jesus, by taking on our sicknesses, is slowly heading to his death on the cross. Jesus took on our sicknesses and diseases as he headed to the cross. He bore our experience of sickness and disease in his body, not that Jesus Christ got sick, but that he compassionately looked on our condition of sickness, and he was willing to heal it. The reason sickness came among the people of Israel was that they endured the covenant curses for disobedience. In some way, Christ bore these sicknesses in himself, as part of his bearing the curse of the law for us. Christ went to the cross died for them.
When Jesus Christ enters his world, the King enters his domain, and the King has healing in his hands. He has authority. His teaching shows his authority. His healing shows his authority. Jesus Christ heals showing his authority over sickness.
Jesus Christ still heals long distance. He says to us, ‘Ask and you shall receive’. And we find we still do receive healing from Jesus. I have not yet died of my various sicknesses, and neither have you. Jesus has answered our prayers.
But each of these accounts, these healings, has a tragic sequel not recorded by Mark or the other Gospel writers. That is, the demon possessed man and Peter’s mother-in-law eventually succumbed to death. They eventually became sick and died, because sickness is part of the wages of sin.
Jesus’ healing of the needy humans in his first coming about which we read in the Gospels was the bandaid, the plaster cast, the crutch, and not the final cure. We see glimpses of heaven, in the person of Christ, not the fulfillment of his kingdom. For the final cure only comes through Christ’s death, resurrection, and second coming. We are not yet in the place where there is ‘no more death or mourning or crying or pain’, where ‘the old order of things has passed away’, and ‘he who was seated on the throne’ has made all things new. We still live in the present evil age, where death reigns. We are not yet in that wonderful city with the river of the water of life, with the tree of life on each side, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2-3).
Yes, Jesus still dispenses band aids from his throne in heaven, like stents, and medicines, and weight loss plans, and blood pressure tablets, and chemotherapy, and those healings that doctors would call ‘miracles’ together with those healings that our doctors claim are within their competence and are considered quite unmiraculous. For the sovereign Lord Jesus stands behind all gracious healing, whether he uses the normal means of doctors, medicine, and understood patterns of healing, or the astounding and miraculous.
Yet it is only when Jesus Christ returns that he will finally deal with death, and it’s prequel and prelude, sickness. But in the Gospels, we see Christ’s mastery. We do not yet see everything under our feet. Death that last enemy, has not been finally destroyed. But we see Jesus Christ, risen and ascended, crowned with glory and honour, who during his short sojourn on earth with us had authority over sickness, and who by the grace of God carried our sicknesses all the way to death, and by the cross tasted death for everyone. Only when he comes will sickness be completely done away with, which is why we cry, ‘Come Lord Jesus’.
Let’s pray.
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