Message of Abbot Paul - Tuesday - 9th January 2024

Abbot Paul • January 8, 2024

Today’s Gospel passage begins our reading of Mark, (Mk 1: 21-28), who, as you know, has the knack of telling us a great deal in a few words. Yesterday was the feast of the Baptism of Jesus, so we did not read the very beginning of Mark’s Gospel. He writes: “Jesus and his disciples went as far as Capernaum, and as soon as the sabbath came he went to the synagogue and began to teach. And his teaching made a deep impression on them because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority.” The Gospel begins with the calling of the first four disciples. With these Jesus goes to Capernaum on the northern shore of Lake Tiberius, which will become his mission base. In the synagogue on the sabbath, as a guest he was invited to speak. We are told that his teaching made a deep impression on those present, because he spoke with an authority which the scribes lacked, for he possessed God’s authority as the Messiah, the anointed one of God.

Then something new and unexpected happens, the healing of a man possessed by an unclean spirit. The miracle, the first recorded in Mark, is told briefly: “In their synagogue just then there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit and it shouted, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus said sharply, ‘Be quiet! Come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions and with a loud cry went out of him.” The unclean spirit recognises in Jesus a power to cast out spirits. But it knows more, that Jesus is the Holy One of God, God himself. Jesus, with the voice of authority, that same authority with which he preached, now casts out the unclean spirit with the power of his word. We hear no more of the man and on this occasion, when Jesus has worked a miracle on the sabbath, there is no criticism by religious leaders, as will occur later. Rather, Mark tells us of the reaction of the congregation. “The people were so astonished that they started asking each other what it all meant. ‘Here is a teaching that is new’ they said ‘and with authority behind it: he gives orders even to unclean spirits and they obey him.’ And his reputation rapidly spread everywhere, through all the surrounding Galilean countryside.” In Jesus they discover a teaching that is new, a teaching with authority and a word that has effect, that brings about what it says, a divine word. May we too, in our day, find in the word of Jesus the power to heal our spirits and bring peace to our souls. Amen.

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