Mark 1: 21-28

Sisters and brothers, grace, light, & peace be yours from God our creator, Christ our redeemer, and the Spirit our sustainer. Amen.

It was a moment of demonic epiphany.

And the Gospel of Mark wastes no time getting there. It’s the prime characteristic of St. Mark’s entire gospel narrative, after all. Mark, you see, is all about epiphanies: about Jesus’ being revealed/manifest to his world. Mark’s is almost a breathless account of the life of our Lord. With no story of the birth in the opening verses of the Gospel, Mark starts instead with Jesus’ baptism, and then immediately into his temptation, and then after that the calling of Simon, Andrew, James & John to drop everything and becomes fishers of people, and then: just half-way into the first chapter: this.

And, not even 30 verses into the first chapter of Mark, Jesus is already in trouble.

Not exactly quite yet with the scribes directly. But St. Mark certainly leaves us with a characteristically-quick clue that it’s coming: Jesus is in the synagogue at Capernaum teaching, and St. Mark records that Jesus’ teaching is in stark contrast to that of the religious establishment. The scribes were known for their attention to detail, for their knowledge, and for their academic prowess. But Jesus comes in teaches with astounding authority, an authority vastly unlike the learned scribes.

But Jesus will have to deal with them later, and be assured, he does. It’s not the scribes with whom he is already in hot water in this morning’s Gospel text. Rather, it is with a demonic force which has overtaken a man with whom Jesus has come face-to-face. Halo and horn have locked. And it isn’t pretty.

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” the demon cries out, betraying a plurality of demonic presence. “Have you come to destroy us?” the demon continues asking, begging the question. And then, the moment of demonic epiphany: “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

Yes, folks, you heard it from a demon first. Well, sort of. In St. Mark’s Gospel, it is a demonic power — an evil force which had overtaken some poor soul in the synagogue — which is the first voice to identify Jesus since the voice from heaven had declared him “my beloved Son” at his baptism.

It’s the delicious irony of this story: that before anyone else in Mark’s gospel knew Jesus’ identity as the Christ of God, the powers of evil did. And to those powers and to that one particular demon, Jesus speaks yet more authoritative words: “Be silent, and come out of him.”

And hence the picture on the front of the morning bulletin. An authoritative commanding finger points its imperative, and the unclean spirit does as it is told and exits the man but — of course — not without causing a scene of demonic drama. And meanwhile, in amazement and incredulity, everyone in the synagogue is agog as they wonder “What is this? A new teaching — with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

Mark then concludes this account with two of his favorite words: “At once.” “At once (Jesus’) fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.” But for the scribes, Jesus’ fame becomes infamy and all-too-soon, things go south &, as you know, the story goes sour.

We’ll never know the content of Jesus’ teaching that day in the synagogue at Capernaum. St. Mark doesn’t tell us exactly what Jesus said that made the demon scream. And it doesn’t matter — at least for Mark it doesn’t — because it’s all about the authority of Jesus. In St. Matthew’s gospel, we hear Jesus say, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

And it is this authority which ultimately silences the powers of evil in the world, even though they may still carry on presently with their demonic drama presently.

Martin Luther captured this sense of cosmic power struggle and ultimate authority in the third stanza of his beloved hymn “A Mighty Fortress.” He wrote and we sing

Though hordes of devils fill the land
all threat’ning to devour us,
we tremble not, unmoved we stand,
they cannot overpow’r us.
Let this world’s tyrant rage;
in battle we’ll engage!
His might is doomed to fail;
God’s judgment must prevail!
One little word subdues him.”

Sisters and brothers, you don’t have to believe in a personal devil with the red horns and pitchfork, and in screaming demons and all that rot to acknowledge the reality of evil in the world. While it might be easy to excuse ourselves with good old 1970s comedian Flip Wilson who insisted that “the devil made me do it,” it seems that humanity has done an awfully-adequate job of bringing on the evil all by itself: which is demonstrated these days in the greed of Wall Street, the suffering in Zimbabwe and Darfur, the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, and the blind eye to injustice perpetuated by the sin of our human indifference.

Today Jesus points a finger of authority at all which is unclean, at all which is not of him which means all which is not of love — the powers of sin and evil at work in our world and at work in our lives — and with one life-giving word speaks our healing, speaks our wholeness, speaks our forgiveness, and speaks our freedom and release from its demonic grip.

In the words of our closing hymn this morning:

“See how (Christ) sends the pow’rs of evil reeling;
(Christ) brings us freedom, light and life and healing.
All men and women, who by guilt are driven,
now are forgiven.”

With authority, Jesus says, “Follow me.”

With authority, Jesus says, “Fish for people.”

With authority, Jesus says, “Demon, be silent.”

With authority, Jesus says, “Take, eat, this is my body. Take, drink, this is my blood.”

With authority, Jesus says, “You are mine.”

With authority, Jesus says, “Love.”

Amen.