Spiritual Concerns

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. [Mark 1:25-26, NRSV, a portion of the Gospel lesson for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year B].

A few years ago, I shared a series of difficult conversations with a mother of two children, one about 14, the other 8 or 9 [some of the facts have been altered to protect the parties]. In one of the sessions, the woman, whom I knew to be in her early 40s, said to me, “I know what happened to me was terrible, but I’m really over it. I think I’m healed. I’ve moved beyond it. I have a good life.”

The “it” was a difficult divorce. Her husband came home one evening, after they both had endured separate, but difficult workdays, and he told her that he thought he “wanted to pursue a relationship” with a younger woman at his office.

The wife had apparently angrily yelled, “Pursue a relationship? What do you call a wife and two kids?”

Counseling hadn’t worked. It never does when one of the two parties isn’t interested. Later, the husband actually tried to fight over the financial aspects of the marital dissolution and was incensed when the two children, without any apparent prompting from their mother, treated their visitation moments with him as if they’d been sent to “time out.”

“I really am over all that,” she repeated to me, as she reached for another tissue. “It’s just that I was laughing and talking with a friend the other day. My friend has a daughter about the age of my Jason. Well, my friend said, ‘Jason is growing up to be a handsome young man. He really favors his dad.'”

The mother continued, “I just lost it. My friend kept apologizing, and patting me on the shoulders, but I was a basket case. I cried and shook unconsolably for more than ten minutes. All the while, inwardly, I kept cursing myself, thinking, ‘How can I allow him to have such power over me?'”

Power is a powerful thing. The gospel writer, Mark, understood the nature of true power. He wrote about a young rabbi who burst onto the scene some 2,000 years ago in Capernaum, a small fishing village, located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The young rabbi’s name was Jesus. The son of a carpenter from Nazareth, a backwater town located some 20 miles to the southwest of Capernaum, Jesus had assembled a mighty entourage of four persons by the time he arrived in Capernaum [see Mark 1:16-20].

According to the Gospel reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday [Mark 1:21-28], Jesus and his quartet arrived in Capernaum perhaps mid-week. A few days later, Jesus entered the synagogue on the sabbath and began to teach. We don’t know the content of Jesus’ teaching, but we do know the result: those present were “astounded,” for, in contrast to the scribes there in the synagogue, Jesus “taught them as one having authority” [Mark 1:22].

As the story progresses, we see that in the synagogue there was a man with an “unclean spirit” [Mark 1:23]. We don’t know if he was the choir director, the chairman of finance, the brother of one of the scribes, or some hapless sort who just wandered in off the street.

Because of our modern need to describe everything in so-called “scientific” terms, scholars during the past 200 years have spilled barrels of ink speculating as to what sort of physical or mental ailment was present within the man. The gospel writer is wonderfully–perhaps even purposefully–vague. Mark wants us to concentrate not on the affliction, but rather upon the Healer.

The man cries 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 [Mark 1:24, emphasis mine].

The spirit’s use of “us” is interesting. About whom is he speaking? It is as if he’s making a pronouncement on behalf of the scribes, who teach without authority in the synagogue. Indeed, could the man be one of the local scribes?

We remember how the story ends. Jesus commands the unclean spirit to be silent. He tells the spirit to leave the man, and the unclean spirit, faced with the power of the Messiah, does just that–emiting a loud cry. And all around the man are amazed. They keep on asking each other, “What is this? A new teaching–with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” [Mark 1:27b].

The story speaks with many voices. It should be acknowledged, for example, that Jesus healed the man with the unclean spirit on the sabbath and in doing so, broke Jewish law. He’ll, of course, go on to do some of his best “work” on the sabbath [for one of my favorites, check out Luke 13:10-17–the woman “bent over” for 18 years; she had a “spirit,” too].

As we’ve learned with some of the other sabbath stories from across the gospels, Jesus is making a not-so-subtle statement here. Under Jewish law, work for humanity is not to be performed on the sabbath. But Yahweh’s work does not stop for any day. After all, Yahweh causes the rain to fall, even on the sabbath. Yahweh causes children to be born without regard for the day of the week. Jesus, as Son of God, can and does heal on the sabbath.

At yet another level, Jesus reaches out to speak to those of us with unclean spirits. Can we see, therefore, that Jesus speaks to every one of us? Like the young mother about whom I spoke at the beginning of this meditation, some suffer from broken relationships. You may have had little to do with that brokenness; you may have been its cause. Others may suffer from serial mistakes in judgment. Some are weighted down with pride, jealousies, excessive worries, or from addictive behavior.

Many of us may be virtually paralyzed by griefs that lie buried just beneath the surface. Those griefs can often leap from our being with just a little prodding from others. We may weep. Or we may lash out. In all these situations, Jesus–Emmanuel–God with us [Isaiah 7:4]–steps forward to command the unclean spirit to leave.

Many of us must acknowledge that the unclean spirit may have been with us so long that, in an inexplicable manner, it can even provide a certain level of comfort. It’s who we are–or so we think and say. And yet, the unclean spirit remains a barrier to the sort of happiness and fulfillment that Yahweh intends. It is a barrier to full relationship with Yahweh and with those around us.

What would freedom from our unclean spirits look like? What would release from all that has held us back, all that has wasted our energies and bridled our hope feel like, be like, today? Mark’s message–his Gospel message–is that God is here! It is God who reigns, not the unclean spirit that lives within us. Jesus, the Christ, is the barrier-breaker. He is the One who can command the unclean spirit to dispense with its power over you and me. He is the One anticipated in Isaiah–the Suffering Servant, the Messiah, the One who will give his life on a cross for you and for me.

Jesus has a rather simple message for you and me today–yes today: When the tears are welling up within you, when the pain of past loss seems overwhelming, when the burden of our mistakes seems so formidable, when all looks like God is absent, God is present! Your God is here–now. God’s powerful love knows no bounds. Let loose of that which binds you.