Neither Jesus’ message nor his authoritative style could be strictly called “new” to his first hearers, but they had to consider how they would respond to this teaching and this challenge.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m sorry that there was no edition of What I’m Thinking last week. I came down ill. I’m afraid you can still hear some of the effects of that illness in my voice.
That makes me twice as glad to be back with you today and to be thinking about the first chapter of Mark (Mark 1:21-28). Mark wrote concisely and compactly, and so the first chapter of Mark is chock full of events. You’ll find Jesus’ baptism; you’ll find Jesus’ call to his first disciples; you’ll find an introduction of Jesus and his teaching: “He went around the villages of Galilee saying, ‘The realm of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the good news.’”
In this section we find Jesus teaching for the first time in a synagogue — or at least the first time recorded in the book. The message isn’t specified. We assume it’s the same one that Mark introduced Jesus’ teaching with. What Mark recorded was people’s reaction. They were impressed. Jesus taught with authority, somewhat unlike the more speculative or encouraging or open-ended teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees that was what they were accustomed to.
In the middle of it man leaps up and he’s apparently possessed by an unclean spirit. He demands to know what Jesus has to do with them and identifies Jesus as the Holy One of God. Jesus ordered the unclean spirit to come out of him. People were even more impressed: teaching with authority and the unclean spirits are subject to him!
This is the first of a series of healings that you’ll find in that first chapter of Mark, which Mark uses to illustrate Jesus’ power but also Jesus’ compassion.
Jesus’ teaching was not, strictly speaking, new. The realm of God being at hand is, in fact, one of the regular messages of the prophets, even if they didn’t use that phrase precisely, and certainly the word “repent” would have been familiar to them. Jesus’ teaching with authority might have been different from the style of scribes and Pharisees of the first century. It’s different from the style of plenty of preachers today, even though others would certainly adopt that as a style.
Jesus’ ability to heal, well: that seems to have been singular, but he was not the only one who claimed to have that ability, and some may even have been sufficiently blessed by God. We see that the apostles were blessed by God to be able to bring some healing relief to their neighbors, to their friends, and even to the strangers of their villages.
So what are we to make of this first teaching appearance of Jesus? I think one of the things that we’re to make is to recognize that the old is new and the new is old over and over again. It seemed like a new message, but it was very, very ancient. It seemed like a new style, but certainly the prophets were willing to speak authoritatively on behalf of God. It seemed like a new power, but even that goes far back in the stories of the Old Testament.
The old is new and the new is old.
The people of that synagogue were asked to make some quick evaluations and decisions, not about who Jesus was, but about who Jesus represented, about how they were to understand his message, about how it was to apply to them. And that remains the case for us. We hear the same message, “the realm of God is at hand, repent and believe in the good news,” and we are asked: will we turn aside from the ways they have not done us well and have certainly not done our neighbors well? Will we adopt the old and the new ways following the good news of God, and will we also be willing to turn to and accept from God the healing that we most desperately need, in mind or body or spirit?
Will we be able, with those people in that synagogue long ago, to take joy in this teaching, with authority, to free people from that which binds them?
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
