A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on January 31, 2021 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Mark 1:21-28. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Mark, the first chapter:
They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath [Jesus] entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. 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.” And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Jesus has the authority to cast out the demons. Now, if you're paying attention, in our Old Testament lesson, where Moses says that God will raise up a prophet like me, then you would notice in that moment that there was no mention of this kind of power. There is no mention that this man, Jesus Christ, the high prophet of God, being the Son of God, would have the power to command the demons. And so the people gathered there in the synagogue that day must have been astonished. They must have truly been astonished, because they were expecting a prophet, a man like Moses, able to give the law of God in all of its sternness, and to deliver the gospel, the freedom of God, the Forgiveness of sins, in all of its sweetness.
And yet, this Jesus, gathered in front of them this day, cast out a demon and merely with a simple word, not with any kind of ritual or any kind of sacrifice nor any kind of prayer nor any kind of fasting, with a simple word. He cast this demon out of the man and you must imagine that the demon came out of him Kicking and Screaming. Imagine in your mind's eye as this demon left, he was grabbing onto the soul of the man, trying to stay there, and as he was grabbing and thrashing at being cast out, he sent the man into convulsions. Still, the demon came out and the people were astonished. It’s an incredible thing when we think about it, that Jesus is able to look at the demon and command this thing of the spiritual word world to do exactly what he desires.
What an amazing thing, but if you paid attention to the Gospel reading today, that's not the first time they were amazed. The first time they were amazed was at Jesus's teaching. At his teaching, they heard it and said This truly must be a prophet of God. He teaches as one who has Authority, and not like one of the scribes. Now what in the world could that mean, one who has Authority and not like one of the scribes? The scribes of Israel at this time or men who knew their scriptures backwards and forwards. They not only copied every single letter of the scriptures so carefully that if ever they made a mistake they’d have to throw out the whole page, but they studied the commentaries and the senses of each page of scripture. They knew every word, every phrase, and they were highly respected and revered. When they spoke, they spoke with an authority that came from studying the word of God, but when Jesus spoke, He spoke with an authority that came, not from study, a good thing, but from the authority of God himself.
This would have been surprising. Last week, we heard about this itinerant rabbi, this redneck, hillbilly preacher from Nazareth. And the people here in Capernaum knew the Nazarenes. How could one of those folk be this kind of man? How can he speak with an authority that hits us so hard, it goes beyond even the greatness of the scribes?
Imagine what that study must have been like that morning. That's really what synagogues were there for. They were set up as mini-temples, if you will, in all the towns where the people would gather together to pray and hear the scripture. The main worship of Israel happened in the temple, where they were required to go and make their offerings, and there they would find the forgiveness of sins. This wouldn’t be all the time, however, and they saw a need arise of spending time int the word of God, so they build synagogues, places were bible study would happen all the time for them when they weren’t at the temple. And so as they gathered in this place to hear the sense of the word of God, to hear about the God who would forgive their sins when they came into the temple, making their sacrifices, to have this Jesus come in and teach with an authority that showed that he truly is the Son of God, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, to preach the law to them in such a way that it convicted them and broke them down and Destroyed them that they had no hope of standing before a holy God, and then to realize that the holy God was standing right in front of them forgiving their sins must have been an incredible thing. And in fact, it says that they were astonished at him.
They were astonished at him. They joined together in this holy place to hear God's word and they heard it like they had never heard before. But, you hear it every single week. Have you thought about that that? The teachings of Jesus that they were so astonished at you hear. I think sometimes we’re tempted to kind of pass it off and say well I've heard this before, Oh, this is familiar. Yeah, this is good. I like this story. We’re tempted to miss the prophet that people had been waiting centuries to see. What he says on every page of the scripture, they heard for the first time that day. Are you astonished today? You should be. We have a tendency to kind of push that down, to ignore it, to hear what we want to hear, and yet Jesus would come to you with his word and teach you with the same Authority.
I would like to point out very quickly that in this holy Place, in the church, notice that there are unclean things coming into it. Just because a place is Holy like the church, or just because you are holy through your baptism, does not mean that you are immune to the evil actions of the Demonic world. This place can easily be influenced by the Demonic, you can be easily influenced by the Demonic. Certainly a Christian cannot be possessed like the man we heard of today. We have the holy spirit, we have no room for other spirits. But, if we turn away from God, if we seek after worldly things and not the things of God, if we allow sins to rule our lives and take root in our souls, we will forsake God and the demonic will easily come into us.
But, even though impure, evil things can come in, we’re not always in immediate danger. This man came into the synagogue, and as he did, it’s not as if every person was possessed as he was. Instead, he came in trying to distract the people from the teachings of Jesus. Does that not happen to you? Does that not happen here? Does that not happen all the time? The demons wish you to turn away from Christ, they do it without your even knowing about it sometimes. But, this should give us pause to look for it.
Might it be in your heart that the demons are influencing you to not listen today? To not listen tomorrow? How have they influenced you in the past? You know that cartoon, where the angel is sitting on one shoulder and the demon on another? I think this is the way the demonic hits us, except that we have two demons whispering to us, while the angels are working to destroy them, while the word of God, Jesus, is speaking to us. I think the demons are whispering in your ears, and they're guiding your eyes, and they're trying to move your hearts and your minds away from the things of God to focus on those things of this world.
But Jesus breaks through with the authority, not only to teach God's word, but to cast out these demons and to turn the hearts of the people back to their God. What an amazing thing it is. And Jesus is doing that today for you. It's an easy thing, I think, to get distracted as we go through our worship, is it not? To not pay attention as the word is read? To let our minds wander a little bit while pastor’s involved in one of those longer prayers, so as to not really hear the words? To wander off while we’re singing hymns or, God forbid, to not pay attention during the sermon? It’s too easy, but Jesus is constantly working on bringing us back to himself. He's constantly bringing us back to himself with the same Authority and he does it by declaring that your sins are forgiven. When he speaks, we should listen. And Jesus still speaks today by coming to you with the very word that he inspired His prophets to write down. And when he speaks we should listen. And he comes and he reminds us of our baptisms, and he comes and he brings us his body and his blood in the supper, and he comes in all of these ways that with authority. He turns your hearts and your minds and your bodies all the way back to him that, ultimately, all of you may be redeemed. When I say all of you, I don’t mean every person gathered, but that every part of you, all of you, would be redeemed. Jesus comes in with authority to save you from all of your sins. He comes in with an authority to rescue you from the Demonic. He comes in with an authority that breaks through the darkness and brings to you The Marvelous Light Of God that shall never be diminished. He comes in with authority. He speaks peace to you, that though you are broken by the law, though you are broken in all of your words and all your works and all your ways, though you are separated far from God, Jesus comes in with authority, to stand in front of you in all of these ways, his word, baptism, the supper, and in doing so brings you peace and brings you the news that you have been reconciled to God and that shall never go away. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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