Today

Mark 1: 21-28; Luke 4: 31-37

Mark 1

²⁷They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ 

Have you ever thought what would bring the story of Jesus and His liberation good news to the attention of our neighbours and our communities? Let’s face it this is exactly what Jesus asked us to do. Our life purpose is to share the story of Jesus and make disciples. People seem to reject the teachings of Jesus without even knowing them. How can we tell them the authentic story and have them recognise it as relevant in the 21^st century?  Perhaps it’s stating the obvious but we could look to the life and witness of Jesus and what he taught His disciples and take that for an example? After His rejection in Nazareth Jesus moved His ministry to Capernaum; literally ‘the village of Nahum’. This was a busy centre of commerce and community life and again we see Him in the Synagogue putting into practice the fulfilment of the scriptures He read and was rejected for in Nazareth. Jesus taught but with one big and important difference ‘He taught with authority’. He taught the scriptures as they are written. He didn’t teach the rabbinical teachings of the various denominations; He taught directly from the scriptures and explained them. He didn’t dodge the scriptures and use allegory to get out of the tight spot of confronting life styles, economic systems and systems of governance that were oppressing the people. He taught the Truth. This amazed people; they had never heard the scriptures taught like this. The teaching of the truth of scripture causes the powers that rage against God hiding in the community of believers to expose themselves and challenge Jesus. What are the powers that hide in the community of God’s people and why are they there? Let’s keep to the story; Jesus is in this synagogue teaching what he taught in Nazareth. The year of the Lord’s favour has arrived? Remember? The forces that rage against God want to teach an ‘anti-social’ gospel. They teach two types of false gospel. Firstly they teach that the people of God can live like everybody else in the culture; Jesus is a belief system, believe He is God’s son that’s enough, be as good as you can but join in the culture; ‘don’t live like some sort of radical fanatic’; it’s all about grace isn’t it?. Secondly, they teach legalism, that is, we are to live like some sort of fanatics, make as many rules as you can and live rigidly by them, don’t have anything to do with the culture; the gift of grace is the gift of the law.

Both extremes either have us collude with what is wrongly taught and unfaithful about whom God has created us to be as revealed in scripture, or teaches us that we can only be the people God has created us to be in the teachings of Jesus in the future ‘Heavenly Kingdom’ after Jesus comes and uses His transporter to remove us to Kingdom bliss. In other words both ignore the teachings of Jesus in the here and now; grace is cheap as no life changing power is available in the here and now to demonstrate our hope to come. Jesus cast out both these demons in the Capernaum synagogue. How do we know? Because the text tells us that Jesus is identified by the demon as ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. This Jesus, the Nazarene is the fulfilment of scripture:

¹⁸ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free, 
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ 

Jesus is the fulfilment; the Promised One who has come to liberate TODAY.

The reason the forces that range against God take up residence in the synagogue is to silence this message with the untruth that ‘our culture is good enough to be accepted the way it is,’ or ‘our culture is too wicked to offer its participants redemption and for us to practice freedom among them’.

We follow Jesus of Nazareth who is the fulfilment of the Kingdom in our lives now! This Jesus makes Himself known through the transformed lives of disciples and communities of disciples. This places a profound responsibility upon us to live as transformed individuals in transformed gathered communities of believers.