“What’s next, the cure for cancer?” That’s the sort of thing you might say as hyperbole, exaggerating just how amazing something is. “How did you do that? You figured it out. I didn’t think my car would ever start again. What’s next, the cure for cancer?” Someone asked the question, “What will we say after we invent a cure for cancer?”
The problem is that people have been looking for a long time for a cure to cancer, and we don’t seem to be solving that problem. There are too many kinds of cancer that affect people in too many ways and it’s just too complicated of a disease, at least for now. Maybe someday that will change. One study back in 2006 claimed that a cure for cancer would be worth $50 trillion.
But for now, cancer remains a terrible disease that can be managed, but not cured. There are other diseases like that. Alzheimer’s disease. Multiple sclerosis. Type-1 Diabetes. Parkinson’s. If you have one of those, doctors will give you medication and help you in other ways to live with it, but you will probably have it for the rest of your life.
That’s kind of a scary thought, especially to those who don’t have experience with how these things can be managed. The truth is that they do happen. And while it isn’t easy, people can deal with it. There are worse kinds of afflictions out there.
That’s what our gospel is about. As horrible as cancer and other diseases can be, none are so terrifying as to be possessed by a demon. And yet Jesus, in the face of such a fearful thing, is not fearful at all. He commands demons and they obey him. And if Jesus can command demons, what has any power that can stand up to him? What should we fear, we who follow him? Jesus speaks with the power of God.
In the very first chapter of Mark’s gospel Mark highlights things that prove Jesus to be the true almighty Son of God. There was no one else like this, and no question, even among his enemies, that he was someone special. After he called his first disciples to follow him they went into the town of Capernaum, which was next to the Sea of Galilee, and there on the Sabbath Jesus went to the synagogue to teach.
That’s quite a thought, isn’t it? When you come to church, you hear a man, a fallible pastor, who has been given the high and holy task of speaking for Jesus. How completely inadequate I am! And yet this is our Lord has ordained that pastors should speak, and God’s people should listen. But for just a short time, for a few years of this world’s existence, you could go to church and hear God himself speak from the pulpit.
It must have been amazing, and indeed it was, though perhaps not in the ways that people might expect. People didn’t say, “Those words were so beautiful!” and they didn’t say “His sermon brought me to tears!” What they said was, “He teaches with authority, not as our experts in the law.” I suppose today they might have said, “The way he teaches he could cure cancer!”
Today we might wonder, “What does that mean? How was he teaching, that his teaching had such authority? What were they used to hearing from their teachers of the law that they made this comparison?”
Archaeologists haven’t found any video recording collections of Sabbath Sermons from Capernaum, but we can still make some educated guesses about what they were hearing. We do have various writings from the Jewish rabbis over the years, and we know that they spent a lot of time debating things that didn’t really have to do with righteousness and certainly had nothing to do with the Gospel. Jesus himself gives us the answer, when he called out the Pharisees for neglecting the Word of God and merely teaching the traditions of men.
The Word of God comes with a kind of authority that you just can’t find anywhere else. People today sometimes will ask how we know what should be in the Bible and what shouldn’t. The answer to that question can be a very complicated one, involving the history of various manuscripts and linguistic analysis and words like “hermeneutics” and “lexical semantics.” Or the answer can be a simple one: read it. In almost every case where there’s any question about “Is this God’s Word,” ten minutes of reading the book in question will answer it for you. Because God says, “Thus says the Lord.” And for anyone else to speak that way would be hubris and blasphemy. So the writer either admits or demonstrates that what he writes is the word of man and not of God, or the writer writes with such hubris that you can’t stop yourself from wrinkling your nose before the end of the first page.
The authority of God’s word is obvious to all who listen. It’s the authority that exposes sin and lays bare our hearts. It’s the authority that kills pride and crushes haughtiness. It’s the authority that bestows life and opens the gate to heaven.
This is what Jesus was preaching in the synagogue, and while I know you would have loved to hear those words from Jesus own mouth, you don’t need to feel sorry for yourself as if you missed out, because the preaching that you hear today from Jesus’ pastors is preaching that comes with that same authority! Pastors today might not always preach the most beautiful words or words that bring you to tears, but they speak with the same certainty, “Thus says the Lord” and with the same authority that Jesus had to speak to hearts, to kill, and to make alive, because the words are Jesus’ words, and the work is Jesus’ work.
And so the people were amazed, but not all of them believed. Because right there in the synagogue was a man who was a man with an unclean spirit, a demon. In the synagogue! You have to wonder, was the teaching in this synagogue so devoid of the Gospel that demons could comfortably sit in that building? Could a demon sit in our building? I would certainly hope not! But then again, does the Devil stop tempting us when we walk in these doors? Don’t we wish that there was a place we could go where the Devil and his demons could no longer reach us! Instead, isn’t God’s house a place where he works hardest, tempting us to judge each other, tempting us to consider ourselves righteous, tempting us not to listen to that authoritative Word of God?
This man wasn’t just tempted by a demon. He was possessed by one. The demon inhabited and controlled his body. It ruled his will. It spoke through his mouth. We don’t see this kind of thing happen often, but make no mistake that it does. Our rational brains try to reason it away. “It can’t be a demon. It must be something else. Maybe it’s a disease. Maybe it’s cancer.” And truly, wouldn’t you rather deal with cancer? We can’t cure cancer, but at least we can do something about it. We can have medical tests and scans. We can do chemotherapy. But there’s no MRI that will locate the Devil in your pancreas. There are no drugs you can take. If you are sick, even incurably sick, there are things you can do to manage it. You cannot manage being possessed by the Devil.
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!
That’s what the unclean spirit cried out when Jesus taught in the synagogue. At the powerful, authoritative word of God it could not keep silent. But it didn’t run and hide either. Like a cornered animal, it attacked. “Have you come to destroy us?” it asked. And you might think that if it was asking on behalf of demons everywhere then the answer was “Yes.” That’s exactly what Jesus came to do! But there was something more sinister going on here. The “us” the demon was using was referring to the demon and to the man he was possessing. “Us” was all the people in the synagogue. “Us” was all demons and all mankind. “Have you come to destroy us?”
When the demon called Jesus the “Holy One of God’ he wasn’t saying it as a complement. He recognized the power and authority of Jesus too. He knew that power. It was the power that had cast him out of heaven. He feared that power, not in reverential awe, but in sheer terror and hatred. That power was his worst enemy, and by all rights it should be ours too.
We are a collective “us” with the demons. We’re born into the slavery of sin. By our wicked thoughts, words, and deeds, we offer ourselves to Satan’s service. We should be just as terrified as that demon, crying out, “Have you come to destroy us, Holy One of God.” But Jesus came wielding that amazing authority to do something that makes curing cancer seem like an achievement so very small. He came to drive out the devil and to save us from death and hell.
That’s what he did with this demon possessed man. With just a word, “Be quiet! Come out of him!” the demon fled screaming in terror. Jesus might have used that same mighty word to condemn us in our sins, but he instead he proclaimed the good news that the kingdom of God is near. The same word that destroys the Devil is the word that gives life. It’s the promise he made in the face of death, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” It’s the word that Jesus spoke from his cross to the believing thief, “Today, you will be with me in paradise,” and of his payment for our sin, “It is finished.” It’s the word with which he assured his disciples before he ascended into heaven, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
What power our loving Savior has in the face of all this life’s troubles! He who drives away Satan and snatches us from the grasp of hell can surely save us from all afflictions. Death itself is rendered powerless by him. Although he has the authority, he does not promise to use it to take away every trouble. He does not promise a life of ease. He doesn’t promise to cure our cancer. But he does something much greater. By his death and resurrection he gives us heaven. By his word he makes us righteous. He gives us life.
In all of life’s troubles, whether they be the devil’s temptations or bodily diseases, whether they be spiritual terrors or physical pains, turn to Jesus. Listen to his word. Jesus speaks with all the power of God. And that powerful word sets you free.
Amen.
— Pastor Seth Georgson