Expressions of Gratitude
-
January 26, 2024Last Sunday we looked at the plot of Mark’s Gospel. This weekend, we look into the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. Jesus and his disciples have reached Capernaum, a fishing village on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was the hometown of Peter and Andrew, and James and John. Capernaum is mentioned sixteen times in the gospels and was apparently the closest to a permanent base that Jesus had during the Galilean ministry.
On the Sabbath day, Jesus and the four disciples go into the synagogue at Capernaum and Jesus begins to teach. He taught the people with authority, unlike the scribes they were accustomed to. In the synagogue he is confronted by a man with an unclean spirit.
It’s interesting to look at the literal translation of Mark’s Greek: anthrōpos en pneumati akatharto. It means, literally, “a man in an unclean spirit.” New Testament scholar Joel Marcus offers this observation: “The terror of the scene is increased by the description of the demonic as ‘a man in an unclean spirit.’ This phrase is usually interpreted as a Semitic idiom meaning ‘a man with an unclean spirit.’” But a literal interpretation has a great deal to commend it: the man’s personality has been so usurped by the demon that the demon has, as it were, swallowed him up.”
As soon as Jesus appears on the scene and begins to teach, the demon feels the “heat” of his presence and realizes the threat that it represents. In a pathetic attempt to gain the upper hand the demon names Jesus. “What do you want with us Jesus of Nazareth?” The demon thinks it can gain some kind of power over Jesus because he can call him by name. But Jesus is no ordinary exorcist. He comes, rather, as an agent of God’s reign in which there will be no room for demonic opposition to God.
Then we come to the question that encapsulates the whole mission of Jesus: “Have you come to destroy us?” Casting out an unclean spirit is a declaration of war. The American theologian Fleming Rutledge writes this: “From beginning to end, the Holy Scriptures testify that the predicament of fallen humanity is so serious, so grave, so irremediable from within, that nothing short of divine intervention can rectify it.” “The human heart needs to be changed from the bottom up, but it cannot be changed by our ‘natural strength and good works.’ It can be changed only by the intervening presence of the living God.”
But it becomes clear as the gospel gets underway that the freedom proclaimed here will not come about without cost: A cost to Jesus, a cost to the Father, and a cost to those called to associate themselves with his life and mission.” The wounds of his passion are the price of that costly freedom.
Our hearts are filled with gratitude because we now experience the freedom that costed Jesus his very life. How can we repay the Lord for his goodness? Only through gratitude that allows us to offer ourselves to him and to his cause. This weekend, I invite you to prayerfully evaluate your expressions of gratitude to the Lord and greatly consider the Diocesan Development Fund and the purposes that this campaign wishes to promote.
