The Life Of Authority

"The Life of Authority"

Mark 1:21-28

When you're reading an engrossing work of fiction or literature, there are certain elements that make it a good read.  If the author does a good job, you don't think about these elements of fiction being part of the story.  They just are there.

For example, you need believable characters.   The characters in the story have to be able to live for the reader.  When we read a good story, we are of course interested in the storyline.  But a major proportion of our interest in that story will have to do with the identification of ourselves with the main characters of the story.

A good story also needs an engaging setting. I'm reading a series of books now called The Theft of Swords.  I'm at the point in the story where one of the two heroes, who happens to be a thief, is trying to figure out how to break into a tower and steal a special sword that has the power to slay a beast.  There's a problem.  The tower is built up on a raised rock outcropping that is in the middle of a raging river.  And the rock outcropping is sticking out over the edge of a huge waterfall, thousands of feet high.  I'm at the point in the story where the thief is trying to figure out how he is supposed to get himself across half a raging river to the tower, break into the tower, steal the sword, then get himself back across that same river.  It's a great setting for this part of the story.  And the setting makes all the difference for the tension and adventure in the story.

The third element a good story needs is dramatic conflict.  As nice as it would be to read a story that is full of all good guys, it would end up being really boring.  You need some kind of conflict to drive the tension in the story.  You need a bad guy.  You need some kind of evil that drives another character to be the hero.  Some of the best stories I've read have a bad guy who is part good guy.  They're a frustrating mix.  And it drives you crazy because you never know which they're going to be at any given moment in the story.

So, let's take these three elements and see how they fit in this story of Jesus.

First, setting.  Because there was only one temple for the Jewish people, and that was in Jerusalem, and Jews were scattered all over the known world, some alternative place of worship had to be created.  Little house-type churches began to spring up where Jewish people gathered to worship.  These were called synagogues, a word which means "to gather together."  So a synagogue was a gathering place, and most of them were not churchy looking at all.

People would come to the synagogue for worship, and worship involved three aspects:  prayer, reading the scriptures, and the teaching of the scriptures.  That's it.  They didn't sing.  They didn't perform sacrifices.  They didn't do anything else that was normally done in or associated with the big Temple in Jerusalem.  All the Jewish people needed was a place to gather:  someone's home, an empty building, or a place down by the river--whatever.

So you can see why Jesus started his ministry in the synagogues.  People were coming to pray and hear God's word.  It was exactly the place to open people up to the Word of God.  It wasn't in the Temple that Jesus did most of his ministry.  In fact, he only visited Jerusalem two or three times.  The rest of his story is played out in the little meeting places--the synagogues--smattered out and around Israel's countryside and small towns.

As far as the characters in this story, first and foremost is Jesus.  The portrayal of Jesus in this particular part of the story is a Jesus who was authoritative.  Someone who had this kind of authority literally means, to do something with power.  But not a power of your own, but from God.  This kind of power had two characteristics:  the knowledge and wisdom of God.  Jesus, as he is portrayed here, spoke powerfully, out of the very heart and knowledge of God.  In this way, it was as if God were speaking when Jesus opened his mouth.

A rabbi was coming to the Day of Atonement in a state of deep depression.  (The Day of Atonement is a day of repentance and restoration for the Jewish people.)  The rabbi was depressed; he was lethargic; he was fatigued; he was feeling spiritually oppressed.

The rabbi stood in the doorway of his little house and down the road came a shoe cobbler pushing his cart with his tools and leather on it.  When the cobbler came to the rabbi's house and saw him standing in the doorway, the cobbler shouted in a loud voice, "Do you have anything that needs mending?"  The rabbi said it was like the voice of God, because he suddenly saw so clearly what the source of his problem was--his life needed mending by God.

That's how Jesus spoke with the simplicity, the clarity, and thus the authority of God, opening up in people's hearts their great needs, and showing the way to mend those broken places.  Instead of a lot of legalistic jabberwocky, Jesus spoke with authority, as if God were speaking himself, with simple but powerful words.

A company employing several thousand people was attempting to institute a pension plan.  But the plan could not be implemented without 100% participation.  Every employee signed up except one man.  Many efforts were made to win this guy over, but the man kept resisting.

Finally the President of the company called the man into his office.  "Here is a copy of the proposed pension plan and here is a pen," the President said.  "Sign up, or you're fired."  Whereupon the man immediately picked up the pen and signed his name.  The President of the company said, "I don't understand why you refused to sign until now.  What was your problem?"

To which the man replied, "You're the first person who explained it to me clearly."

Only Jesus was the one who had that kind of authority to open people's ears to the power and clarity of God.

The other main character in this story is the crazed man.  It's a little hard to get a handle on this guy.  He's described as "unclean."  But someone who is unclean means they are blemished or broken in some way, according to Jewish cleanliness laws, and are therefore not allowed to come to the synagogue to worship with everyone else, who is "clean."   Being unclean covered a lot human conditions.

The fact that the man is screaming at the top of his lungs and drooling all over the place gives us a little bit of an indication of his brokenness.   Mark is fairly sparse with the details, but you can imagine the drama and the tension of the scene.  This guy doesn't walk into the meeting place, he runs.  He doesn't start talking out loud during the little gathering's Bible study, he screams.  The crazed man isn't standing apart from Jesus, he standing nose-to-nose, eyes bulging in Jesus face, beyond loud.

Mark Graber told our Men's Bible Study about a similar meeting with a crazed guy at the gas pump at one of our local stations.  Mark was being screamed at by a guy who was making no sense.  The guy was totally out of control.  Mark happened to be holding the nozzle of the gas pump hose.  Mark aimed it at the guy, who was coming at him, and said, "You back off or I'm going to spray you down and light you up!"  It was a classic line.  If they every make another Dirty Harry movie, we have to send that line in.  It's become one of our all-time favorite lines from Men's Bible Study.  See what you're missing, all you guys who don't show up?

I imagine if Jesus had been in Men's Bible Study, and he later came across this crazed guy in the synagogue, he would have used that line.  It is rather scary to have to cross paths with a crazed human being.  Graves that have been unearthed in Israel by archaeologists have contained skulls with little holes bored in them.  A number of skulls contained not just one hole, but several.  The holes weren't large enough for surgical purposes.  It was determined that those holes were bored to allow the evil spirits to escape through the person's head.

And in a recent book by Swiss psychiatrist Paul Tournier, he wrote,

Doubtless there are many doctors who in their struggle against disease have had, like me, the feeling that they are confronting, not something passive, but a clever and resourceful enemy.  (from A Doctor's Casebook)

There certainly was a clever, yet demented resourcefulness, to the crazed man's behavior towards Jesus that day.  And it was directed towards Jesus, not anyone else in the gathering place of the synagogue.  The man wasn't screaming at anyone else.  Just Jesus.  Here Jesus is portrayed as a person who taught with "authority" who is now confronted by a sick and broken man, who was himself a kind of authority, although from the dark side.  Thus the conflict in this story.

This dealing with the crazed man is the first of Jesus' miracles in Mark's gospel.  It is significant, because Jesus is signaling from the start that in his presence the power of evil, wether it be in the form of misguided religious teaching or a demented lunatic, can be overpowered.  The point of this part of the story with the running, shouting, possessed man comes back again to the power and authority of Jesus' words to affect a dramatic change in people.  Even if those people appear to be beyond the reach of any kind of effective change.

There is a famous painting in which the artist depicts a young man playing chess with the devil.  The devil has just made a decisive move which checkmates the young man's king.  Serious chess players who examine the painting immediately feel sympathy for the young man because they understand that the devil's move has finished him.  He has come to a blind alley from which there is no exit.

Paul Murphy, one of the world's great chess players, once studied the painting for a long time.  He saw something that no one else had seen.  This excited him, and he cried out to the devil's opponent in the picture, "Don't give up!  You still have a move!  You still have a move!"

That's the amazing authority Jesus has in speaking to our brokenness.  Jesus said to the man, and said to the crowd, and continues to say to us today, "Don't give up!  You still have a move!"  It is for this reason that we, in our sometimes judgmental ways, can not consider anyone a goner in God's eyes, because of the authority of Jesus' life and words.

I think when the man approached Jesus and asked, "Have you come to destroy us?" I get a sense that there was a spark of hope in the man's question.  That, in a deep sort of way, he was asking Jesus, "Have you come to set me free?"

A guy who owned a pub locked his place up at three a.m. and went straight home to bed.  He had slept only a few minutes when the telephone rang.  He picked up the phone and heard an obviously inebriated man ask, "What time do you open up in the morning?"  The pub owner was so furious he slammed down the receiver and went back to bed.  A few minutes later the phone rang again.  Again the same drunken voice asked, "What time do you open up in the morning?"

"Listen," the pub owner said, "there is no sense in asking me what time I open because I wouldn't let a man in your condition into my place."

To which the caller replied, "I don't want to get in; I want to get out!"

To those who call for help, Jesus responds with a straightforward word of authority.  With that word, freedom and release is won.  With the powerful authority of God's love, wrapped up in the words of Jesus, changes were made in the lives of his listeners.  It was more than a different approach; it was the authority and love behind the approach that made people listen, and then go tell others.  The power and influence of Jesus' words and works mushroomed, as people responded to that kind of authority.