The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

With Authority
Mark 1:21-28

The Gospel passage appointed for today comes very early in Jesus public ministry. In fact, in Mark’s Gospel this is the first appearance of Jesus after his Baptism and temptation in the wilderness. Two things happen. Jesus and his disciples have come to the synagogue in Capernaum. First, Jesus teaches. And second he casts out an unclean spirit. Whether you think of it as an exorcism or a healing, Jesus brings wholeness to a man who was there.

But we have this reading during Epiphany season not so much to focus on Jesus’ actions, but on the effect of those actions on the bystanders. What was the impact on the people who witnessed Jesus’ actions?

The people recognized an authority in Jesus that was astonishing. And apparently totally unexpected. They saw divine authority in Jesus.

I don’t think Jesus did these things deliberately to prove his authority, but it was an inevitable result. The people around Jesus had epiphanies, literally. When Jesus taught, the people recognized divine authority. Jesus brought God into their lives.

Recently in the adult Sunday School class, the question came up: What miracles would Jesus do if he came back today and wanted to do miracles since so many of the old ones don’t really work anymore? As I reflected a bit on this, I came to think it is the wrong question to ask… for several reasons. First because Jesus didn’t do miracles just to make a statement or to prove his divine status. But more importantly, the question is not what would Jesus do if he were to come again, but what does Jesus do now. What does Jesus do now to bring the presence of God into our lives?

In the synagogue Jesus’ teaching communicated God’s presence and purpose with authority to the people who were there. Jesus’ teaching, Jesus’ words in the Bible, speak with a recognizable authority today. Bringing God’s presence and purpose directly into our individual lives. Or at least the Bible can speak with that sort of personal immediacy. For me, that happens most often reading the Bible at home on my own. If Jesus’ words in Scripture don’t speak directly to you in your life, ask yourself why not? What do you need to do differently about how you read or study the Bible?

Can you imagine what it was like for the people around Jesus to recognize for the first time that Jesus’ bore God’s divine presence? To see the divine Jesus in the human Jesus?

C. S. Lewis reminds us that the greatest miracle is the incarnation. The greatest miracle isn’t a healing or walking on water. It’s the fact that God took on human flesh and came among us. That Jesus’ presence is God’s presence.

 Of course, we might say. Because the Jesus we know is a divine presence. Maybe one of the challenges for us is recognizing that the divine Jesus who is with us today really impacts our individual, human lives just as immediately and profoundly as the Jesus who stood next to them in the synagogue was a part of the peoples’ lives back then.

The brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, a group of Episcopal monks, publish a reflection on a word each day. Brother, give us a word. You can subscribe online. This morning’s word was life. Brother Curtis Almquist writes: “Jesus doesn’t show any interest in people’s spiritual lives. Jesus is interested in people’s lives. Their whole lives: body, mind, and spirit. It’s all one. It’s all meant to be one.”

It isn’t like there is a spiritual Jesus who is a part of our spiritual lives. Jesus brings God’s interest and care into our whole lives.

I will admit I don’t always see it. I’m not constantly aware of God’s presence, God’s care, God’s guidance in the daily activity of my life. After all, if God were really involved every minute of every day, why doesn’t he do more? Fix more of the things I would like to see fixed. I suspect the people in Jesus day may have actually felt much more like we do than we sometimes imagine. After all, Jesus didn’t fix their political situation, either. There were undoubtedly many people whom he didn’t heal.

In today’s collect we affirm that God rules all things in heaven and on earth. And, although I’m not aware of that governance at every instant in my life, I have known it often enough to trust that it is true. To trust that God’s care and presence and guidance do, in fact, rule all things. In the collect we also pray: in our time, grant us your peace. I have known God’s peace in my time.

I have come to trust that Jesus brings God’s presence, care and guidance into our physical, human lives just as surely today as he did in that synagogue in Capernaum so many centuries ago.