Year B

Mark 1:21-28

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Vulnerable Authority

In the season of Epiphany, what we discover in every nook and cranny of the scriptures is the epiphany of God being revealed. Those “aha” moments when we get to know God. There is no way for us to know the eternal, creator, omnipotent, ever-present God unless God makes God’s self-known to us. It seems that in every story line of the bible, God stands in the wings shouting and waving, seeking to gain our attention to save us. In all the texts for today, we see this all powerful God hoping to get our attention. We see this most dramatically in the gospel text today, where the power and authority given to Jesus overmatches the power of evil. That same power and authority is present yet differently in the OT reading, where God’s will for the people of Israel is found in the role and authority of the prophet Moses.

The words today from the book of Deuteronomy are spoken by Moses. The book of Deuteronomy, written by the priests in Babylon who are looking backward at the events is cast as a sermon by Moses. In this sermon, he reviews the great and mighty acts of God in the midst of the people and keeps God’s calling before him. In the text for today, Moses who had led the people out of Egypt, practically reads the people’s minds anticipating their dilemma, gives the people of Israel words of reassurance that when he leaves them they are not going to be alone. They are not to worry about the future because God will raise up for them a prophet like him from their own people.

What we Christ followers hear in this text, is the eternal reminder that God is always choosing someone, some people, to carry out God’s will on earth. Whether that is Moses, or Samuel or David, or Isaiah, you or me, or Jesus, God is always doing what God has always been doing. “In many and various ways, we read in the letter to the Hebrews, God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.” Living this side of Jesus, we still have many things we need to learn through the prophetic voice of the Spirit. Mark, in his gospel text today, is making the point that Jesus has the authority given him from God to provide prophetic direction and tell us about the spiritual realm, because he is able to control that realm.

Mark at the very beginning of his gospel, links the voice from heaven and the voice of a demon to witness to who Jesus is. Mark is the first gospel written when there is a high expectation of the return of Jesus and it is important for him to identify Jesus as the expected Messiah up front. Later when Matthew and Luke write their gospels they will link that witness back to Jesus’ birth, and John in his gospel will link it with creation in the beginning but, for Mark it was important to ensure that no one misunderstands his witness concerning the authority of Jesus.

When Jesus appeared on the Galilean scene, he caused quite a stir. Demons obeyed as we see in the gospel today, diseases fled before his touch, winds are calmed at a wave of his hand, and even the dead stood up alive when beckoned by his call. So people began to ask, “Who is he?” He seemed like an ordinary man from the small town of Nazareth but there was something powerful and different about him, certainly a prophet. Could he be the one Moses had promised who would speak for God? Mark presents the evidence, an epiphany. Showing the people in the synagogue that day the evidence they need to know that their trust is well placed.  They can indeed know that this is the Messiah.

The people were astounded by his teaching and by the authority which he claimed. The gospel is telling us something truly astonishing: not simply that, as a prophet like Moses, Jesus delivers God’s word, but that he is God’s Word made flesh, that all the fullness of God was pleased to live in him. He was fully human and fully divine. While the crowd is awed by his “teaching,” no one it seems, except the demon, understands that the boundary between heaven and earth has been pierced and the kingdom of God is at hand. We become aware that this is a reality because we are looking back at this miracle. We become aware that Mark is inviting us in his gospel to follow Jesus into a whole new world.

New Testament scholar Brian Blount says, “We have been invited into “Mark’s” world of Jesus walking around possessed by the power of the Spirit of God. In such a world, you either go with the man and help him create the holy chaos he’s creating, or you find a way to do everything you can to stop him.” The Son of God has arrived in the person of Jesus, and what he expects of his followers is more than “amazement.” Understanding who Jesus is and what his mission entails involves far more than simply witnessing a miracle and being amazed. It frees us to walk boldly, knowing that every day is worth the effort, in spite of the dangers. Because God still provides prophetic direction as Paul reminds us today and we are wiser when we listen with care.

That’s the good news for us this morning. We are free to show the kind of trust which believes that God’s love for us is so great that life’s demons and dangers never have the last word. Jesus is telling and showing us what God wants from us and that is, a relationship based on trust and love, and an authority based on vulnerability as demonstrated by Jesus in his ministry. Jesus’s teaching was not, “Here is the truth and you better believe it”; it was rather “I am the way, the truth, and the life” let me show you, and “Let those who have ears to hear, hear.” He went in vulnerability to the cross for each one of us. 

Our authority, vulnerable though it is, derives from and is empowered by Christ’s own, and is shaped by the cross. Such openness and vulnerability are the true marks of his teaching “as one having authority.” This vulnerable authority is a model for us as we witness by action and word the kingdom of God, and indicate the presence of the Spirit and the action of Jesus Christ. So Moses’ great prophetic prediction has come true. The great prophet promised has come. The Epiphany of the “in-breaking of God’s kingdom on earth has happened in Jesus Christ who calls each of us to be an epiphany, a light in our world so Jesus can save it.