Peace be with you.
Friends, we continue our reading of the magnificent Gospel of Mark,
and the scene for today is terrific,
but the church gives us as the first reading
a passage from Deuteronomy,
and it's very important that we get this right I think because
we're meant to read the gospel passage
in light of this passage.
Anyway, even if you're a reader of the Book of Deuteronomy,
there's a very good chance you're going to just plow right past this.
But the passage that we're looking at today is of
signal importance.
Listen now, it's Moses speaking to the people
before they enter the promised land.
He says,
"A prophet like me, will the Lord your God
raise up for you from among your own kin;
to him, you shall listen."
Now, why was that passage so intriguing to ancient Israel?
Well, because of who spoke it,
Moses.
There's no figure in the Old Testament
more important than Moses.
The only possible rival might be King David,
but Moses is the one who combines in his person
the offices of priest, prophet, and king.
He's the leader and liberator of his people
who led them from slavery to the promised land.
He's the one to whom God gave the law.
He's the embodiment of Israel.
He's the greatest leader.
He's the one indeed who went up Mount Sinai
and spoke to God face to face.
I mean, who could be greater than Moses?
If you're looking from a human standpoint,
what figure could possibly be greater than Moses,
which begs the question,
why would this man have said,
again, listen,
"A prophet like me,
will the Lord your God raise up for you.
To him, you shall listen."
Well, wait a minute.
I thought we should listen to you, Moses.
You gave us the law.
Now, in fact, as I've said to you before,
in ancient Israel, a rabbi
would claim his authority from his teacher.
I learned this from rabbi so-and-so
who learned it from rabbi so-and-so
who learned it from his teacher and from his teacher
all the way back where to Mount Sinai,
to Moses, who heard it from God.
That's how you would've defined your authority
by tracing it back all the way to Moses,
who was the supreme authority.
Okay.
But there's this little weird thread,
and it's in the Old Testament.
It's right here in Deuteronomy 18.
It's this little weird thread
that this greatest supreme figure of Israelite history
says, "Hey, there's one coming. He's like me,
but clearly by implication he's greater than I am
because listen to him when he comes."
I mean, why wouldn't Moses have simply said,
"Well, look, I received all this from God,
so listen to me up and down the ages."
Which indeed Israel did for centuries and centuries
still do to this day,
a faithful Jew,
but why wouldn't he have just said,
listen to me up and down the ages.
No, mysteriously someone's coming
who my implication is greater than I,
and he's the one you should listen to.
Now, listen to this next passage from Deuteronomy.
"I will raise up for them a prophet like yourself
says the Lord,
entrusting my own message to his lips
so that he may instruct them at my bidding."
Again, keep in mind Moses who saw God face to face,
who received the law,
who brought the 10 commandments down Mount Sinai,
who's the criterion for Israelite life.
There's someone coming after him
who's greater, and God will entrust his own message
to that one's lips.
If Moses is speaking what God told him,
it seems as though this one
is going to speak God's own words.
Now, as I say, this passage fascinated ancient Israel
because they weren't quite sure what to do with it,
what to make of it.
What could Moses possibly mean here?
It haunted the mind of Israel.
Okay.
Keep all of that in mind
as we turn to the gospel passage from Mark.
"Then they came..."
We're in chapter one of Mark, still, by the way,
at the very beginning of the gospel.
"Then they came to Capernaum, and on the Sabbath,
Jesus entered the synagogue and taught."
Fair enough.
That's what any Jewish male could do,
could claim the prerogative
of reading the scripture and commenting upon it.
Nothing dramatic there,
but then listen.
"The people were astonished at his teaching
for he taught them as one having authority
and not as the scribes."
Now, the scribes, so the teachers of Israel
working in the temple and their disciples elsewhere,
how do scribes do their work?
Well, they claim the authority of their teachers
who claim their teacher's authority
and theirs all the way back to Moses.
They didn't speak with their own authority.
They spoke on the authority of others going back to Moses.
Why were they astonished by Jesus teaching?
Not just because he was saying new things.
It was the manner of his teaching.
I would love the Greek word here for authority
is “exousia.”
“Ousia” means substance in Greek.
To speak “exousia” is to speak
out of your own substance.
There's one coming after me as a prophet like me, Moses said,
I who saw God face to face.
I who gave you the law,
but there's one coming after me
who's going to speak with his own lips
the very word of God.
See, everybody, that's what they saw.
That's what this gospel is about.
Yes, the content of Jesus teaching,
and I've talked about it all the time,
and it's wonderful and beautiful in every way,
but before we even get to the content of it,
attend to the authority with which it was conveyed.
That's what astonished them.
Now, as this scene goes on,
what we see is the power
of this authoritative word.
Listen,
"In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit.
He cried out,
'What do you have to do with us Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are, the holy one of God.'"
There's a lot packed in there.
Where's the first demon that Jesus confronts in the first gospel?
In church.
So church people listening to me right now,
lest we think,
“oh, we're kind of above the fray”.
Devils love to hang out in churches.
They always have.
They love dividing, causing trouble
and dissension within the church.
Don't be surprised
that some of the greatest work being done by the dark powers
take place within churches.
Again, that's maybe sermon for another day,
but in their synagogue was the man with unclean spirit.
"What do you have to do with us?"
That's beautiful too, isn't it?
Single person, but he speaks in the plural.
"What do you have to do with us?"
It's a splintered self.
It's the self divided.
See, if you're not centered on God,
then your whole being splinters apart.
Now fellow sinners, you know exactly what I'm talking about
because all of us sinners, we feel this.
The disintegration of the self.
That's this man.
"What do you want of us Jesus of Nazareth.
Have you come to destroy us?"
I love, see, by implication.
Yes, yes, I have.
That's why I've come.
I'm not messing around with just nice new
moral or spiritual teachings.
No, no, I've come to destroy you.
The holy one of God has come to destroy the powers
that stand to thwart God's purpose,
but this is now the line that I think
we're meant to reflect on
because it's right in line with everything else here.
"I know who you are,"
says the dark spirit.
"The holy one of God."
See, at this stage of the game,
no one really knows who he is.
He's this Jewish fellow from Nazareth,
and he's preaching and he's starting to heal people.
Well, he must be some prophetic figure.
He's a bearer of God's presence.
They're trying to figure him out.
The devil knows.
The devil knows exactly who he is,
and what the devil knows is
he's the one predicted
by Moses himself in Deuteronomy 18.
There's one coming who's not just another Moses,
not just another Jeremiah, not just another Ezekiel,
not just another Isaiah.
There's one coming who is, listen to him,
the holy one of God.
By the way, it's interesting
that the devil knows who he is.
Very often.
It's the resistance in us
that has the clearest sense of who Christ is.
You know what I'm driving at.
Is find that point in you that's resisting.
That's the point in you that really understands
what Christ is asking of you.
You know what I'm saying?
If Jesus ask us for something kind of easy,
all right, but when he's asking something difficult,
it's our resistance
that's going to identify him properly.
So that's interesting.
"Jesus rebuked him and said,
'Quiet, come out of him.' The unclean spirit
convulsed him with a loud cry, came out of him
and all were amazed and said, 'what is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.'"
That's the power now of Christ.
God's word made the universe.
God speaks and things come to be.
Lazarus come out and he comes out,
the dead man.
Little girl get up and the dead girl gets up.
My son, your sins are forgiven and they are forgiven.
What Jesus says is.
Now, that's not true of mere prophets.
That's not true of mere bearers of religious truth.
I mean, heck, I could say things all day
that might be religiously true,
but I can't make things happen by my speech.
Jesus does.
"Be quiet, come out of him,
and with that, he comes out of him."
Look, everybody, if we surrender to him,
the one whom Moses predicted in Deuteronomy,
if we surrender to him, the holy one of God,
if we make him the center of our lives,
if we listen to him,
we're going to find a similar power.
We're going to find a similar authority.
We can find our lives transformed.
The ultimate point of this little passage,
it's not, oh, isn't that fascinating
what happened long ago? No.
The point is, now we got to make a decision.
Are we with him or not?
Are we following him or not?
He's the one.
He's the one who is the very word of God.
He's the holy one of God.
We have to follow him.
and God bless you.