Pentecost IX (Proper 11 B) [Mark 6:30-34, 53-36] (22-Jul-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Jesus said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.”

Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Our reading today comes from Mark chapter 6, which we’ve been reading over the last few weeks. At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus is rejected in his hometown of Nazareth; then he sends the twelve apostles out on a mission trip; and then we read about the imprisonment and beheading of John the Baptist.

John the Baptist is six months older the Jesus, and he is often called the “Forerunner”. John the Baptist’s death also points forward to Jesus’ death. John throughout his whole ministry was pointing to Jesus and saying, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And when he is beheaded, his death also points forward to Jesus’ coming crucifixion.

But in Mark chapter 6, in between the rejection of Jesus at Nazareth and the recount of the history of John the Baptist’s execution, we read about the mission trip of the twelve apostles. We read about how the apostles went out and preached repentance, they cast out demons and they healed the sick. All their provisions were to come from the generosity of the people who welcomed them. And Jesus gave them specific instructions if people rejected them, to wipe the dust off their feet at the door. So this was a very intensive time for them, and the disciples’ activities became very well-known and famous. We read: King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. King Herod even thought that maybe John the Baptist had come back from the dead—he recognised that Jesus and his apostles were all preaching the same message as John. King Herod had a bad conscience about killing John. We read: Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly. And so when Herod’s step-daughter asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter, we read: The king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her. So we read about this event with Herod and John the Baptist because we read that King Herod had heard about the twelve apostles, and what they were doing.

So now, we come to our Gospel reading for today. It must have been a tremendously fruitful mission trip for the apostles. They would have been received with great joy, and at the same time, they also would have been received with tension and opposition.

So we read: The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. This is a really wonderful verse. Just think what the apostles must have wanted to tell Jesus! I often think of them here all piling over each other to talk to Jesus, all excitedly, and all at once, and Jesus tells them to settle down, and talk one at a time, just like a bunch of children! And this gives a tremendous example for us too: that at the end of a time of busyness, or at the end of a day, or at the end of a week, what should we do? We should return to Jesus and tell him all about it. Sometimes, we need to tell Jesus some things where we sinned, and he can then speak his forgiveness. Sometimes, we need to tell Jesus which things were difficult and hard, and that we didn’t feel as though we did them properly. And we commend ourselves to him to learn from him how to do something next time. Sometimes, we are happy and encouraged about something, and we go to Jesus and thank him for it.

Now, this mission trip of the apostles and the beheading of John the Baptist must have happened at a similar time. In Matthew’s Gospel, we read about how John the Baptist’s disciples also came to Jesus at this time and told him about the John’s beheading. And so there must have been a real coming together of both the twelve apostles, and John’s disciples to tell Jesus about the events. There must have been incredibly exciting news from the twelve apostles, but then incredibly sad news from John the Baptist’s disciples. And John’s execution would have been very worrying for the disciples as they realised that King Herod didn’t have their back, and wasn’t batting for their team.

So what does Jesus do here? He doesn’t send them out again yet. He doesn’t just send them back into the lion’s den, or to retaliate. He says to them: Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while. Jesus has had a debrief with his disciples, and listened to everything that has happened, and now it is time for them to rest. He takes them on a retreat. The apostles need to be refreshed and recuperate, they need to recharge their batteries. It’s a bit like surfing—the disciples realise that the times are hard and their necks are on the line. It’s like being caught in a rip, but instead of fighting against it, and trying to swim in against the rip, Jesus lets them float far out to sea, so that they can then carefully swim back in for the next stage of their ministry.

And this also gives us a wonderful example, and there is incredible wisdom in it. When we work hard, we also need to take time to rest and to prepare for the next part of our work, especially when it comes to spiritual work.

A few weeks ago, we read about the event where Jesus calmed the storm, and where he simply woke up and with a short, sharp word, he stilled the wind and the sea. And also, he put at rest the disciples’ hearts, since they feared desperately for their lives. So here in the reading he takes the disciples, and he says to them, “You’ve been doing some hard work, and now it’s time for you to refresh and to rest.”

We read: For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognised them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.

Now, what must the disciples have thought when this happened? Here Jesus has taken them across the lake so that they can all have some time of refreshment and relaxation. We read that the disciples didn’t even have enough time to eat. Maybe Peter or some of the other disciples were thinking of going on a nice sea-side trip, just like going to Tin Can Bay or Woodgate, or somewhere. Maybe they imagined themselves having a nice siesta on the beach in the sunshine with a cool drink in hand! And then they get across the other side of the lake, what’s there? The crowd! They followed them there. So much for their rest, so much for their refreshment, so much for their sea-side holiday!

In fact, we read that there were five thousand men there, and that’s not including the women and the children! There were five thousand families there! And then Jesus made the disciples to go around with the loaves and fishes and feed them all. So much for the rest! Is Jesus really a harsh-taskmaster? Is he a slave-driver to his disciples? Is there really no rest for them?

This is where the real heart and centre of the reading comes in. We read: When [Jesus] went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.

Here is the compassion that the crowd needs, and here is the rest and the refreshment that the disciples need: And [Jesus] began to teach them many things. There it is. A rest for the disciples did not mean putting their feet up and doing nothing. The rest and refreshment that Jesus had prepared for his disciples came through his living and life-giving words, and only through his word.

Now, this brings us back to the Third Commandment, which says: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. The word, “Sabbath”, or in Hebrew, “Shabbat”, means “rest”. And it connects back to the creation of the world, where we read: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Now, when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, this day of rest became a special day of worship for the Jewish people, that on the seventh day of the week, on Saturday, they were not allowed to work.  Christians don’t observe Saturday as a matter of law anymore, because after Jesus died and rose, the ceremonies of Jewish worship no longer apply. But out of freedom, we come together on Sundays to commemorate the day that Jesus rose from the dead, just as we read about in the book of Acts, where the disciples gathered together on the first day of the week.

Now, sometimes people have misunderstood this law, as if it is simply prohibiting work on one day of the week. Amongst Jewish people even today, for example, in Israel, elevators in high-rise buildings don’t operate on Saturdays because it is considered to be work. In the old days, some Christians were very strict about Sundays too, as if people were required to sit around in a straight jacket all afternoon.

However, the reason why this commandment is here is not simply to stop people from working, but to stop work in order to come and listen to God’s word. Luther says in his hymn on the 10 commandments: Cease from all the work you do, so that God may work on you. That’s what happens when Jesus teaches the crowd and his apostles many things: he is working on them, and that is the real rest and refreshment.

Now we Australians love our relaxation time. People like to go for walks, go fishing, have a beer, go on holidays, put up our feet at the end of the day… From the face of it, it looks like Australians are the most faithful nation in the world when it comes to not doing anything on Sundays. But this isn’t what Jesus is talking about. In our country, leisure and relaxation is one of the greatest idols – it’s OK to have rest and go on a holiday and chill out, but it becomes a problem when it’s what we live for. Ultimately, it makes us a selfish people, who only care about ourselves. St Paul says: [Christ] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. So if leisure and relaxing is what you live for, you should repent, and live for Jesus, and for other people. Jesus also gives us a rest, but he gives us a rest by teaching us his word, and forgiving us our sins. He says: Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Also, there is another kind of rest that people often look for, that has the appearance of being spiritual, which comes from the “contemplative prayer” movement. Now many people today—including Christians—are finding that life is so fast-paced, and there is a great desire to seek rest and stillness in the middle of it all. The Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, often practised meditation techniques, where they would recite “mantras”, repeated phrases like the word “om”, and would actively slow down their breathing. At different times in history, there were also various Christian mystics who did similar things and would practice meditation techniques. In recent times, some Christians have found a similarity between Hindu and Buddhist techniques, and the kinds of things that some Christian mystics practised. So people would train themselves to slow down their breathing, and recite a Christian version of a “mantra”, like the word “Jesus”, or some other word from the bible. People call this kind of thing, “Christian meditation” or “contemplative prayer”.

However, there is a problem with this kind of thing. The reality is that Jesus never taught these kinds of techniques to his disciples. When the Beatles were at the height of their career, they employed a Hindu guru, by the name of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, to be their spiritual adviser, to teach them meditation, yoga, and other things like that. The Beatles recognised that they needed rest and refreshment and peace amid all the hype in their lives.

However, when Jesus took his disciples away for a rest to a quiet place in our reading today, he didn’t then start teaching them yoga and meditation. In fact, when it comes to mantras, and reciting things over and over again, Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer: When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. This expression “empty phrases” can also be translated as “vain repetitions”, or just speaking things over and over. Hinduism is the most advanced form of paganism and Gentile religion that we know about because they have so many written texts. Even though India was a long way away from where Jesus lived, it seems as though this kind of repetitive prayer was prevalent in Gentile, or pagan, religions from a long time ago. Jesus actually teaches his disciples to pray by giving them the Lord’s Prayer, for example, and doesn’t teach techniques. And if he warns against heaping up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, why do many Christians then try to imitate other religions and heap up empty phrases?

In our reading today, we read: Jesus began to teach them many things. The peace that passes all understanding doesn’t come from our achievements or our meditations or whatever, it comes from Jesus and his word. There is such a wonderful picture in our reading of our whole lives, like a see-saw, between the apostles going to Jesus and telling him everything they did and taught, and Jesus teaching them many things.

In St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he calls the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit. This is a very interesting picture of the word of God as a sword. When Jesus teaches his disciples and the crowd many things, he is speaking to them with his own sword, cutting to their hearts and revealing their sin, and also protecting them from the devil and the world and their own flesh. Once when I was a teenager, I went on a school trip to Japan. When we were leaving the airport, a few boys got held up in customs and we almost missed our flight, because they had bought samurai swords. They had no intention of using them, they just wanted them as a souvenir. But when the Scripture calls the word, the sword of the Spirit, it means you take the thing out of its sheath and use it. It’s not a sword for the mantlepiece.

I wonder if sometimes we Christians just like to have the word of God like a souvenir for the mantlepiece. We just want to sit back and look at how nice it is, but we don’t want to learn how to use it. And so we scrimp and scrape and try to achieve an inner peace which we can’t earn and we can’t achieve by our own efforts.

At the heart of our reading, we do not have a spiritual master like a guru teaching us meditation, or techniques on how to relax and calm our mind or empty our mind. No, we have the living Son of God himself, who is both true man and true God in one person. We see him in the last part of our reading today healing all kinds of sick people, people who were made well simply by touching his clothes. This fact makes all the difference. He is a true man, and we worship Jesus as our God, who died on the cross to a make the one true, perfect sacrifice for every single sin of the whole entire world, and he rose again from the dead and defeated death. Whoever believes in him will also have eternal life. This is the message that Jesus sent his apostles out to preach after he rose. He said: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [Every single last scrap of authority and power belongs to Jesus]. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Even today, we’re going to baptise a child [here] at Childers, and as we hear God’s word today, Jesus teaches us many things. And he says: I am with you always to the end of the age. He is here with us as our living God, risen from the dead, who will baptise this child himself, and also, will feed us himself in the Lord’s Supper with his body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and also, in his word, he is here to be with us, working on us, teaching us many things, just as he did to his disciples so many years ago, and strengthening us in the peace of God which passes all understanding.

And so, rest for a while. Peace be with you! May the living peace of our living Jesus be with you. Amen.

Dear Jesus, you give us work to you, and you also give us rest. Strengthen us in your word and Holy Spirit, and lead us finally into that rest that will never end. Amen.

Epiphany IV B [Mark 1:21-28] (28-Jan-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and form our Lord Jesus Christ.

He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Last week, we read about a specific message and a particular word that Jesus was preaching, where he said: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

Today we read: They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath [Jesus] entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.

In our reading today, we don’t read about what Jesus was saying. The text simply says that he was teaching. But we do read the kind of effect that it had on people, and why it had this effect. We read: They were astonished at his teaching. But why were they astonished? We read: for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. Jesus was teaching not with simply human authority, like the scribes that the people were so used to. It is one thing to be a scribe, and to check and double-check words and grammar—this is a good thing. But it is another thing to teach. When Jesus teaches, he is not simply teaching empty words, or rhetoric. He is not saying a beautiful or a clever or a funny way of putting things. He is not showing off his ability to communicate, or his skills in giving a speech. This is all human authority. But Jesus’ teaching has authority, because he is not only a human being, but he is also true God at the same time, in one person. And so Jesus’ teaching is crystal clear, it is completely and totally true, and there are no half-truths. Sometimes people say things in a clever way so as to say two opposite things at the same time, and they end up saying nothing. In actual fact, they just want to say something to keep people happy, and to be politically correct, or to be diplomatic. But this is not how Jesus speaks: every word that he teaches is God’s word. Proverbs 30 says: Every word of God proves true. Jesus prays to his Father: Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. He also says that the Scripture cannot be broken. St Paul also writes to Titus that God never lies. And because of this, we read in Hebrews that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And so when Jesus teaches, the people are astonished, they recognise the divine authority of Jesus, they recognise that there is something different about what he says that no one else has said to them before. They recognise that no-one has called them to repentance in the sharp, clear way that he has, and no-one has comforted them with the divine comfort of heaven in the way that he has.

But then, in the middle of Jesus’ teaching, something very strange happens. We read: Immediately there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “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.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him.”

First of all here, we are told that there was a man with an unclean spirit. An unclean spirit is another name for a demon, or sometimes it is called an evil spirit. Now what is an unclean spirit? One of things we often forget when we read the bible is that creation includes things that we can’t see. In the Nicene Creed, we confess: I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, or seen and unseen. The visible creation is what we see around us, and the creation of these things is describes right at the beginning of the bible, in Genesis chapter 1. Visible things include light, water, the sky, the earth, land, the sea, plants, trees, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the solar systems and galaxies, birds, fish, animals, reptiles, insects, and also, of course, humans. But then there are also certain things that God creates that are invisible: this includes heaven and hell, and also angels. Angels are spiritual beings, spirits that are created by God, that don’t have bodies, don’t have flesh and blood. However, like human beings, angels also were created with a free will. God commanded human beings to love him and serve him, and he created the angels to do the same. Loving and serving God means that we do it willingly—God does not have us like puppets on a string, making us love him by force. That wouldn’t be love.

And so, we also believe that the devil decided to use his free will not for God and in service of God, but in hatred towards God, and in rebellion against him, and for evil. Then Satan tempted the first people into sin, and the human race became sinful too, because they listened to the voice of the devil instead of God, and also chose evil over good. But also, we read that the devil was not the only angel who fell into sin, but there was a large number, who form a kind of army with the devil as the leader.

In our reading today, we read that an unclean spirit had entered into a man. Now, in our culture, something has happened in the last two or three hundred years, which is called the Scientific Enlightenment. From this time onwards people have made all kinds of advances in science, which has been a very good thing. However, at the same time, people started to reject things in the bible that weren’t able to be proven by science, or weren’t measurable by science. People started to deny that there’s anything that exists that you can’t see. We can see this today, where many people don’t believe in the existence of heaven or hell, angels or demons, the devil, or even God himself. They look at the world with a set of rules that just completely does away with anything that they can’t measure or prove with science.

Many people in the church too have often read passages such as the one in our reading today in a scientific—or we might say a “rationalistic”—way. This isn’t to say that we don’t use our brains when we read the bible. Of course, we do.  But we shouldn’t use our brain and our reason to try and make the bible say something that it doesn’t say. Especially we shouldn’t try and make the bible say the opposite of what it doesn’t say! This is exactly what the devil did when he tempted Eve: God had said that if they ate the fruit, that they would surely die. What does the devil do? He interprets God’s word in such a way as to make it say the exact opposite of what God actually said. The devil says: You will not surely die.

And so, it is common for people to read a passage like this in our reading today and to say that this man didn’t have an unclean spirit, but that he had a mental illness. However, this is not what the text says. Mental illness does exist, and sometimes there are certain mental illnesses that have symptoms which look similar to demon possessions. But they are not the same thing. Later in chapter 1 of Mark, we read that Jesus healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. There are two things here: Jesus was healing people who were sick, and he was casting out demons. They were not always the same thing. So there are two mistakes that people make: sometimes they think that there is no such thing as demon possession, and that everything is mental illness. Sometimes people think that there is no such thing as mental illness and everything is demon possession. Both of these things are wrong. Sometimes a person can go to a doctor or a psychiatrist and be treated for their mental illness—no problem. However, there are also situations where medical treatment can’t help—the reason is that the person is not really mentally ill, but are spiritually troubled.

But let’s pretend that the man in our reading does have a mental illness. Let’s listen then to what the man says. He says: 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. What kind of mental illness is able to recognise Jesus, and to speak hidden things about him that other people wouldn’t otherwise know? Also look at what Jesus does in return. We read: But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him.”

When we’re dealing with mental illness, we’re dealing with a person who is sick, and who needs treatment. And when anyone is sick, whether they have a physically debilitating illness or are mentally ill, we should pray for them, and they should go and seek treatment. And we pray that Jesus would bring healing to the person, either in a natural way through treatment or through medicine as God provides through a doctor, or in a supernatural way through a special miracle of God. We know that in this life, God may or may not give a miraculous healing. But we do know that for those who believe in Jesus, that he will heal us completely and totally in the next life and completely transform and glorify our bodies so that we will completely free of all of our sickness and troubles.

Sometimes people—especially some charismatics or Pentecostals—make the mistake of believing that when people become Christians, they become sinless. So every time they see and recognise sin at work in them, they think it must be an evil spirit. Now, it is true that because our heart is sinful, the devil has a close ally inside of us. But some people make the mistake of always wanting exorcism, when in actual fact, they need absolution, and forgiveness. They need to hear the words that Jesus has died and paid for each and every single sin and their whole sinful heart and their whole sinful condition, and even in the church today we can hear the words of forgiveness from God himself spoken to us. When we hear the words: I forgive you all your sins, the devil has no more power to make accusations. Jesus has pulled his teeth out, and the devil can’t bite us anymore! As St Paul says in Romans: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When we’re talking about demon possession, we’re talking about two beings: one is a human being, a man or a woman like you and me, and the other is an invisible being, a demon or unclean spirit, who has entered in and joined itself to the person. This unclean spirit can take control of the person, like in our reading, where it uses the person to speak its own words. In our reading the unclean spirit uses the person and says: What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us? The unclean spirit even gives the person a special insight into hidden things that the person otherwise wouldn’t know. In our reading the unclean spirit says: I know who you are—the Holy One of God. Notice here that the demon tells something that is true, but the means of know that truth is not right. The words are true, but the authority is not right.

And so we might ask the question: how did this man end up like this? Well the text doesn’t actually tell us. However, Jesus does say to his disciples: I am the way and the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me. We know that outside of Jesus and his kingdom, life is a dangerous mess, and people are open and susceptible to all kinds of spiritual danger. However, in our reading, when Jesus is present there in the synagogue, and begins to teach, the unclean spirit is exposed.

Now, we read in the Scripture where God the Father’s voice comes down from heaven and says: This is my beloved Son: listen to him. This happens at the Transfiguration, when Jesus’ face and clothes began to shine with bright, white light. In the Old Testament, Moses had already spoken about the coming Messiah, and said: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. All throughout the New Testament, we read various passages that confirms this prophet to be Jesus, and even God the Father says: listen to him. Moses had said centuries before: It is to him you shall listen. But on the other hand, in the same passage, Moses says some other things. He says: There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.

So, do you hear that the nations listened to fortune-tellers and diviners, and lists a whole lot of occult practices that people did. All through the history of Israel and the kinds, we see that the Jewish people often mixed in the practices of the nations with God’s law. And so, what this passage teaches us is that fortune-tellers and diviners are not speaking with the voice of Jesus. Jesus does not use fortune-tellers and diviners to speak, but they use a different spiritual power. Moses says: Don’t listen to fortune-tellers and diviners. But God the Father says about Jesus: Listen to him.

In our culture, many people recognise that there’s more to life than what we can see. But then the mistake that people often make is that they think that everything spiritual is good. That’s not true. The truth is that the greatest good is spiritual good, but the greatest evil is spiritual evil. You can’t make use of a fortune-teller, or a psychic, or a clairvoyant, or a medium, and think that this is the Holy Spirit—it’s not. God has specifically said in his word that listening to Jesus Christ and listening to fortune-tellers and diviners are mutually exclusive things. And so when people open themselves up to these kinds of false ideas and false practices, and particularly occult practices, they also open themselves up to unclean spirits.

In the bible, an unclean spirit is also called an evil spirit or a demon. The bible speaks very negatively about them. But outside of the church, people use positive-sounding ways of speaking about them. People might say: I have an angel who speaks to me. Or: I have a spirit guide. Or: I try to hear what the universe is trying to say to me. Or: I communicate with my higher self. Even sometimes people can be mistaken and deceived for thinking that they are talking directly with God or the Holy Spirit, even when they reject and go against what the Holy Spirit has revealed in the Scriptures. All these things are examples of people trying to make contact with the unclean spiritual realm.

Now, the amazing thing about our reading today is that Jesus deals with this man very simply. We read: Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” The word “be silent” means to “get muzzled”. Jesus speaks to the unclean spirit like a noisy dog. And we read: The unclean spirit, convulsing him and was crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. Even in Luke it says that the man was done no harm. Jesus, being true God and true man in one person, knows exactly how to separate an unclean spirit from the person standing in front of him. And with his powerful and authoritative word, he simply casts the unclean spirit out.

And we read: And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” And at one his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

What is important here is Jesus’ words, and his authority. There is no spiritual wrestling match that goes on. Jesus is not addressing the unclean spirits as equals. He has complete and absolute authority over them.

In the church, Jesus has spoken his same authoritative word of power to you when you were baptised. And when we are baptised, we make a clear statement against the devil and say: I renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways. We confess the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, and we renounce the devil. This is who we are as Christians, and our whole life is a lesson in renouncing the devil and confessing Jesus Christ. In ancient times, when a person was baptised, they would rebuke the unclean spirit, and this excellent practice has been reintroduced into our churches in recent years to emphasise the power of Christ’s work against Satan in baptism. It’s no accident that as less people in our society are baptised, spiritual and demonic trouble have increased for people. In baptism, our Lord Jesus with his powerful word forgives us our sin, rescues us from death and the devil, and gives eternal life to all who believe this. Baptism is a wonderful defence and shield against all the attacks of the evil one, because we can continually look to Jesus and his promise to defend us from all evil. And when we are bothered and attacked by the evil one, we can simply say: Be silent! Get out of here! You don’t belong here!

Jesus is the one who has power over all spirits, and all the authority belong to him. We have access to his great authority because we have his authoritative word, which is a word of power. We are weak, but the word we speak is the word of Jesus. St Paul says: My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. So every time we speak the word of God in its truth and purity, and preach it, and sing it, and read it, the devil is cleared out. The devil knows his time is short when the word is in play, because these words are the words of the living God and the living Jesus who has risen from the dead. We cannot do anything in our power and authority—Jesus is the only exorcist. We pray to him, and ask him to work together with us, and to use us where he sends us. As the people say in our reading today: He even commands the unclean spirits and they obey him. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for your word of authority and power. Protect us from all the power of the evil one. Amen.