January 29th, 2012
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Mark 1:21-28
A New Teaching?
Jesus taught a series of Sabbaths at the synagogue at Capernaum, and the people were astonished because “He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes”. They noticed a difference between Jesus and the theologians they were used to hearing.
The scribes were experts in the Scriptures. They spent their whole lives making copies of the Bible and of other Jewish literature -- mostly commentaries on the Bible. Since there weren’t any printing presses, every copy of every book produced was done by hand.
Since the scribes had made countless hand-written copies of the Bible and countless copies of the rabbinical commentaries, they knew both what the Bible said and what was the officially accepted interpretation of the Scriptures. They knew how one famous Rabbi had said any particular passage was to be understood, and how another famous Rabbi had either agreed or disagreed with him.
But the scribes didn’t dare interpret the Scriptures themselves. If you asked them what a certain passage meant, they would tell you what five or six different Rabbis had written about it over the centuries.
Jesus is God made man. Jesus was the one who by His Spirit had inspired the writing of the Scriptures. No one knew what the Scriptures meant better than He did Himself. When He talked about the Bible, the Gospels, especially in Matthew chapter five, record how He would say, “You have heard that it was said...” In other words, “You have heard the interpretation of these Bible verses, that says so and so...” And then He would say, “But I say unto you...” And then He would tell them what the Bible really meant.
God Himself in human form was saying to the people, “Here is what I meant when I had my prophets write this passage.” And then He would explain it to them. He didn’t quote the experts, although He knew what they had said as well. He sometimes corrected the experts. He had the authority to do this, because it was His own Word that He was interpreting and explaining. Was this a new teaching? No! It was God Himself correcting a misconception of what He had said. It was the old teaching, explained fresh. The new teaching was what the Scribes were doing! Actually, the “new” teaching was what the Scribes were doing, because it was different from the old one from God’s unchanging Word!
And to demonstrate that He was Who He claimed to be and had the right to give the true meaning of the Scriptures, He did things that only God could do. In this case, He commanded a demon that had taken up residence in a man in that congregation, an “unclean spirit”, to leave. And the unclean spirit had to leave, because the God of the Universe, the Creator and Lord of all, had spoken.
In our Old Testament reading today, Moses prophesied the coming of the Messiah. He told the people that the Lord would raise up a prophet like him -- like Moses -- who would speak on behalf of God, and then He said, “And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.” (v.19) In other words, God will hold each of us responsible for what we do with Jesus and with His Word.
You and I are free to make up our own minds. Instead of heeding God’s Word, we can explain away our sinful actions and our rebellious attitudes in any number of ways. In our day it’s common to claim that His Words don’t apply to us in our times, to say that we have evolved beyond such things. Many people today say that the Bible was written so long ago that the authors couldn’t possibly have understood or imagined the problems of our modern times and the issues that we face today.
Of course, what we are really saying with this line of reasoning is that God, who inspired those prophets, couldn’t understand, couldn’t have imagined the issues we would face or how our culture would have evolved to become what it is today.
And the fact is that people have said the same thing all through the centuries: that God’s Word was too old, too antiquated, too out of touch with the reality of their times, that He couldn’t possibly have meant that it should be obeyed, or that the commands and the promises should be taken literally, as though they were directed to us today.
And yet God’s Word, His standards of morality, His ideas of purity and honesty and faithfulness, have not shifted with the times. Human standards of morality and truth have changed, but God’s Word says, “I the Lord do not change; therefore you, oh sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” (Malachi 3:6)
As a human race and as a modern American/European culture, we have rejected God’s claims on our lives. Essentially, we have decided that we are wiser than God, more understanding than God, more kind and loving than God, and better able to decide what is right and wrong and good and evil, than God.
That was the problem in the very beginning, wasn’t it? Adam and Eve swallowed the lie that they could “become like God,” that they didn’t have to obey Him; that they could establish their own standards of right and wrong. In fact, according to the serpent in the Garden, the very act of disobedience would make them essentially equal to God.
But God’s Word still says, “I, the Lord thy God am a jealous God: visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me; and showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:5-6)
In spite of all our reasonings to the contrary and in spite of all our carefully crafted arguments against the simple Words of God, nothing has changed. At the end of the day, the proud arguments that the devil, the world, and our own flesh raise against the Words of God amount to nothing more than what the serpent offered in the Garden of Eden.
It starts out with, “Did God really say...?” and tries to cause doubts as to whether or not the Bible is really the Word of God, or whether He actually means what He says, or whether it is trustworthy or infallible or complete or applicable to our lives.
But God’s promise goes on to say that “He has mercy on thousands, on those who love Him and keep His commandments.” Jesus said, too, “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
In God’s view, those who hate Him are those who reject His commandments; those who love Him are those who keep His commandments. Loving God isn’t about having a warm, fuzzy feeling when we think about Him; it’s about how we respond to His Word.
Do you love God perfectly? I know I don’t, much as I hate to admit it. Is your obedience to His commands perfect? Neither is mine. Can our obedience ever be perfect? The plain truth is that no, it will never be perfect, or even close to perfect during this life. God calls us to repent, to obey, to live His way, to abandon our rejection of His Word, knowing full well from the beginning that even our best efforts will be less than what they should be. Jesus said, “When you have done all that is commanded you, you must say, ‘we are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:10)
At the end we stand before God and are accepted and loved by Him, not because of perfect or even semi-perfect obedience, but by sheer Grace, by His unmerited favor, His mercy and the forgiveness, offered through the blood of Christ. The call to repentance becomes a grateful response to our Savior, the response of a child’s heart to a loving Father.
“We love Him because He first loved us.” (I John 4:19)
God, in the mercy He has for His erring children, has found a way to call us to repentance, even while forgiving our rebellion. He simply wipes away our guilt and sin in the blood of Jesus, and invites us to a new life in spite of all our rebellion and sin. And every day He pours His own Spirit into our hearts with healing, deliverance, and power to live His way. “His mercies are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:23)
A clean slate, and power for a new life are yours in Jesus, every day. They are yours, right now.