Teaching We Can Trust
By Pastor John Eich Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Alma, MI
Mark 1:21-28
Mark 1:21-28 21 Then they went into Capernaum. On the next Sabbath day, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 They were amazed at his teaching, because he was teaching them as one who has authority and not as the experts in the law. 23 Just then there was a man with an unclean spirit in their synagogue. It cried out, 24 “What do we have to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” 25 Jesus rebuked the spirit, saying, “Be quiet! Come out of him!” 26 The unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions, and after crying out with a loud voice, it came out of him. 27 Everyone was so amazed that they began to discuss this with each other. They said, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits, and they obey him!” 28News about him spread quickly through all the region of Galilee.
Grace and mercy which brings peace to from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In our modern world – or as some would say, our postmodern world – today’s gospel reading must seem old-fashioned and hopelessly irrelevant. Jesus rebuking unclean spirits? We don’t believe in unclean spirits anymore, do we? Exorcisms are for the movies, not for real life.
How about Jesus teaching with authority? In our postmodern world, nobody can teach with true authority anymore, can they? Everybody’s thinking is right for them. There is no authority of right and wrong. We’re taught from a young age to question authority,
and not to trust everything we see or read. And with good reason! Because not everything that we see or read is true! Advertisers stretch the truth. Politicians twist the truth. And the news media all seem to share different versions of the truth. We have good reason to question authority, and any claim to the truth.
But here we are, with an old-fashioned reading that I is more important than ever. Because in the midst of a world without any clear and certain truth, Jesus continues to offer a clear teaching, with authority – eternal truths that we can trust and believe, and even build our lives upon. And then, Jesus helps us to live these truths, by driving away anything that would prevent us from living as he teaches.
Jesus has come to Galilee, proclaiming the good news. He has called his first disciples to follow him. Now, on the sabbath day, Jesus enters the synagogue and begins to teach. We find out quickly in Jesus’ ministry that teaching is crucial to Jesus’ mission. He didn’t come just to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Or simply to call disciples to follow him. Or
Teaching We Can Trust January 28. 2024
merely to heal the sick. Or even to die on a cross for the sins of the world. He came to do all those things, of course. But he also came to teach.
There are clearly some important truths about this world that Jesus wants us to learn. But he is not going to teach in the same way that everybody else does. He is not going to quote one person, and then another – some say, others say … – he’s not going to “beat around the bush.” No, he is going to teach with authority. Not as the scribes. Not as the other teachers of his day. Why can Jesus do this? Very simply, because he is the Son of God. That is the source of his authority. And the reason that he can teach in this way. And only he can teach in this way!
The Teacher Who Is the Son of God
If Jesus was not the Son of God, then his teaching would be just like any other teaching, mere opinion. We would be left wondering whether it can be believed. We would be right back at square one. That is why it is so important to realize who this teacher is, and why we can believe him.
As Christians, we accept Jesus’s teachings not because we like them, or even agree with them; not because he is a great teacher, or because he makes a great point. We accept his teachings, all of them, whether we wish he hadn’t said it or not, simply because he is the Son of God. That’s why he can teach with authority, and that’s why we can believe him without hesitation.
C.S. Lewis, in his famous book, Mere Christianity, speaks directly to those people who claim that Jesus is a great teacher, but nothing more. In a very famous passage, Lewis puts it this way:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Jesus]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Jesus is, quite simply, the Son of God. Or everything that we have built our lives upon is a waste of time. Jesus is the Son of God, or everything he said came the mouth of a madman and can’t be trusted.
But he is true God. He proves it. Even the demons had to obey his commands. No mere human, no good teacher, no wonderful example has that kind of power. Only God.
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Because Jesus isthe Son of God, there is no teaching that is more important for us to pay attention to, and to trust, than his.
So, what exactly does Jesus teach? Well, we have a lifetime to discover that, don’t we?! But a good place to start might be the one sentence sermon that he preached when he first came to Galilee:
The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. MARK 1:15
Jesus teaches us, as clearly as he can, that when he comes into this world, the kingdom of God comes into this world. Now we are invited to repent and believe this good news. The Son of God came into this world to destroy the devil’s work (1 John 3:8).
Satan brought sin and death into our lives. He continually hounds our heels, nipping and biting and prodding us to sin. But Jesus proved his power over the demons by expelling them. That display showed that he had the power to overcome the devil’s work, which he did on the cross of Calvary. There Jesus offered himself as full payment for the world’s sins. There Jesus took the full weight of our sin’s penalties upon himself. There on that tree Jesus suffered the total anger of God against our lawlessness. And by doing that, he crushed that ancient serpent’s head. Sin was paid for. The debt was cancelled.
Through faith that victory becomes yours personally. In the waters of baptism satan is chased from your soul and you became God’s holy and precious child. The new birth is the sovereign work of God in which he turns the light on in our heart so that we see things the way he does. We see God as awesome in holiness, sin as horrible in ugliness, and Christ as a beautiful Savior. We bow before God in worship, we confess and turn from sin, and we embrace Christ as our hope.
We are invited, in other words, to change the way that we look at the world, to turn from our selfish ways, and to embrace the good news that Jesus came to teach and proclaim. And then, we are invited to follow him.
But what if we struggle to accept Jesus’ teaching? What if we doubt? What if we find it difficult to repent and believe this good news? What then? The truth is that if Jesus only taught with authority, we would not have much reason to hope. But he not only taught with authority. He also consistently acted with mercy. His life, death, and resurrection shows us that he not only came to teach us, but also to help us to live by his teaching.
Go back to today’s reading. Jesus is busy in the synagogue, teaching with authority, when a man with an unclean spirit comes in and starts shouting:
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
Jesus immediately sends this unclean spirit out of the man. The crowd is stunned. Jesus not only has the authority to teach us. He also has authority over the unclean spirits.
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Now, putting aside what it means that this man had a demonic spirit for a moment, think of what Jesus did, and who he did it for. This man did nothing to earn Jesus’ favor. He came into the synagogue, and totally disrupted what Jesus was doing. He didn’t ask Jesus to heal him. In fact, through the unclean spirit, he accused Jesus of coming to destroy him. This man clearly could not “repent and believe the good news,” as Jesus was teaching, because he was being controlled by this unclean spirit. So how did Jesus respond? By immediately rebuking the unclean spirit, and healing this man.
Do you see? Jesus is going to do whatever it takes, to help people live by his teaching, to repent and believe the good news. And what Jesus did for that man with the unclean spirit, he would eventually do for all the world, when he went to the cross and died for our sins. Not because we asked him to. Not because we deserved it. But simply because he chose to. He went to the cross to set us free from our captivity to sin. That is why we can live by Jesus’s teaching.
This makes me think of one of my favorite parts of the Rite of Holy Baptism, which is probably the most old-fashioned and “irrelevant” part of all: It is the renunciations. Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God? Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God? Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?
And only then are we asked: Do you believe in Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Then as the water and the power of God’s word are splashed over our heads, those baptismal waters fill our soul and the devil drowns under that flood of God’s grace. And that water, like the water powering a hydroelectric dam, powers our lives to follow Jesus’ teaching.
Now, we can turn away from all the dead-ends in our lives, in other words, and turn back to Jesus, because Jesus sets us free to. We can fight against evil and injustice in our world, because Jesus helps us to. We can live our lives without fear, because Jesus died to give us the promise of eternal life.
This is what Jesus teaches us today, and offers us: The power to say no to sin, death, and evil in our world. And the ability to repent and to believe the good news that he came to teach us. In this postmodern, sophisticated world of ours, we are reminded that this is all that will ever save us – What Jesus teaches us, and what he died to give us.
We can believe this, and trust this, because Jesus is not just a teacher, but is, now and always, God’s beloved Son.
Thanks be to God. Amen