Monday, January 23rd, 2006
A Man with an Evil Spirit
Jesus and his disciples went to the town of Capernaum. Then on the next Sabbath he went into the Jewish meeting place and started teaching. Everyone was amazed at his teaching. He taught with authority, and not like the teachers of the Law of Moses.
Suddenly a man with an evil spirit in him entered the meeting place and yelled, “Jesus from Nazareth, what do you want with us? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are! You are God’s Holy One.” Jesus told the evil spirit, “Be quiet and come out of the man!” The spirit shook him. Then it gave a loud shout and left. Everyone was completely surprised and kept saying to each other, “What is this? It must be some new kind of powerful teaching! Even the evil spirits obey him.” News about Jesus quickly spread all over Galilee.
Footnotes: Mark 1:23 evil spirit: A Jewish person who had an evil spirit was considered “unclean” and was not allowed to eat or worship with other Jewish people.
Mark 1:21-28 (Contemporary English Version) (CEV)
© 1995 by American Bible Society
I’ve come across a few people who want to tell everybody else they’re God’s holy one. Or the Son of God. Or the new Christ. But to have people on the edge of psychological/spiritual stability yell out who Jesus is… that’s another thing. My first reaction when reading this as a young person was one of appreciation of the capacity of Jesus to deal with destructive and oppressive forces in the lives of people he met.
I had regular encounters with people who demonstrated the kinds of behaviours being described here. I was keen to see what Jesus did, and perhaps follow in his footsteps. I noticed, for example, that Jesus didn’t deal with shouting people by shouting back at them. His authority was not based on the using the ‘correct words’ or the ‘loudest voice’. Nor was it based on physical shaking.
In the 1980s I went through my own shaking. I was involved in a number of deliverance ministry sessions in which deeply wounded people sifted through the crisis points of their lives and claimed spiritual victory. In some cases there were deep sighs and cries of agony as painful memories were resurrected and dealt with in the name of Jesus. I began to wonder if what we were doing was really all that helpful for those in the ‘inner healing/deliverance’ sessions. The physical expressions of ‘release’ may not have been due to evil spirits leaving. They may have been just expressions of deep hurt.
I was deeply impressed by the advice given at a Vineyard Ministries conference around that time. The common sense approach he advocated involved honouring normal medical procedures including physical, psychological and psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. If it became clear that there was something more, something sinister, involved in the oppressed person’s life, then would be the time for spiritual discernment and careful ministry of deliverance. But again, no need for shouting, shaking or magic formula.
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Saturday, January 21st, 2006
Jesus Begins His Work
After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee and told the good news that comes from God. He said, “The time has come! God’s kingdom will soon be here. Turn back to God and believe the good news!”
Jesus Chooses Four Fishermen
As Jesus was walking along the shore of Lake Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew. They were fishermen and were casting their nets into the lake. Jesus said to them, “Come with me! I will teach you how to bring in people instead of fish.” Right then the two brothers dropped their nets and went with him. Jesus walked on and soon saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in a boat, mending their nets. At once Jesus asked them to come with him. They left their father in the boat with the hired workers and went with him.
Mark 1:14-20 Contemporary English Version (CEV) Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society
It’s fascinating to read the beginning of the good news according to Mark. What does this account tell us about the gospel that Jesus talked about? How does it compare with the news we tell about Jesus? Who’s telling the story?
Last question first. Tradition has it that Mark’s gospel was written by John Mark in Rome while working with the apostle Peter. That would certainly explain the way this story starts - with the recruitment of four travelling disciples: Peter and his workmates. And what’s the good news about? The kingdom of God - the announcement of a time in which people would be living together the mandate given by God. Jesus was calling people to join up with the new way of living.
So what’s going on here as Jesus recruits his co-workers? He’s clearly expecting them to leave their jobs and join in his itinerant lifestyle. That was the reality wasn’t it. Jesus didn’t have the luxury of staying in one place and commuting to other places. To move around the country he had to make his home the place where he’d just arrived. Problem is that when we read this now we can unconsciously take on the same expectations. The highest calling is for people who follow Jesus by leaving home and going anywhere in the world. The itinerant missionaries. The people who make themselves for pastoral ministry wherever the Church might call them. The people who pack up and go.
What about the people who are called to make the kingdom of God a reality where they live now? People who are called to bring in people, in their neighbourhood and not someone else’s?
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Sunday, January 15th, 2006
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. There he met Philip, who was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. Jesus said to Philip, “Come with me.” Philip then found Nathanael and said, “We have found the one that Moses and the Prophets wrote about. He is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael asked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip answered, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said, “Here is a true descendant of our ancestor Israel. And he isn’t deceitful.” “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” Nathanael said, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God and the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Did you believe me just because I said that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see something even greater. I tell you for certain that you will see heaven open and God’s angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man.”
John 1: 43-51 (Contemporary English Version)
I wonder what Jesus saw under the fig tree. Who would break out into an acknowledgement of leadership just because he’d been seen before. This has the hallmark of someone’s actions being seen with insight into the most inner thoughts. Jesus must have seen something that showed integrity and cunning.
Israel, or Jacob, was known for being deceitful. He’s the guy who tricked his older twin brother out of his inheritance by impersonating him in front of his blind father. He’s the one who built up his flocks at the cost of his father-in-law by organising the livestock gene pool. So if Israel was deceitful, what was Jesus referring to by saying that Nathaniel was a ‘true descendant of Israel, without deceit.’ My hunch is that Jesus was referring to the knack Jacob/Israel had for doing business. The same business sense for which Jewish people seem to have acquired a reputation around the world through history.
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