A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity Church ,
Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, January
29, 2012.
"POWER PERCEIVED, POWER DEMONSTRATED”
(Homily text: Mark 1: 21 - 28)
Back
in my high school years, our school had a first-rate Varsity football
team. For a number of years in a row,
that team – under the leadership of a feisty coach (who was also the wrestling
coach) – won our division championships.
Many times our games were shutouts, and the scores weren’t even close.
Since
I was always in the band, I attended all the home games, and many of the away
games, too.
But
then one of our neighboring communities’ team began to rise in the
standings. Games with them got to be
much more of a contest. As we watched
their tactics, it became clear that they had one player who was simply huge,
and strong. Their game plan seemed to be
to simply manage to give this guy the ball, and let him steamroll his way
forward, sometimes dragging half a dozen players with him.
To
those of us who were on the sidelines, we could perceive what the game plan was
before many of the players could. From
our perspective, we could see the power that this guy had, and then we could
see a demonstration of that power.
Much
the same sort of thing is happening in today’s gospel reading, from chapter one
of Mark’s gospel account….there is a perception of power, and then a
demonstration of that power.
Let’s
remember the scene….
Jesus
has entered the synagogue in the small town of Capernahum[1]. And as Jesus enters the synagogue, the
worshipers there perceive that His teaching isn’t like that of the scribes, who
were the religious experts of that day.
No, His teaching has a power that they could perceive, an authority that
they hadn’t heard before.
But
then, Jesus’ power is demonstrated as a demon-possessed man cries out, “What
had you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us? I
know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
The
speaker knows something that the onlookers in the synagogue that day didn’t
know. The speaker has a perspective that
they didn’t have: that speaker knew
Jesus’ identity. That speaker knew
Jesus’ power over evil.
It’s
worth noting at this point that we have the same perceptive powers that the
demon who is speaking had…we know Jesus’ true identity and the extent of His
power. We know things about Jesus,
looking back twenty centuries, that those who were present in the synagogue
that day didn’t know. (This is called
“the reader’s perspective”.)
And
so the victory over the powers of evil and death are demonstrated. It is the first public demonstration of that
victory, as the demons are cast out of the possessed man.
And
the victory will continue throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry. The victory will take place when people’s
lives are changed, when the sick are healing, when the demon-possessed are
freed, when Jesus conquers that final enemy, death, and rises victorious from
the grave on Easter Sunday morning.
So,
from all of this evidence, we can see that Jesus’ power was God’s gift, meant
to roll back the forces of evil, and to allow us to be on the winning side of
the struggle between good and evil, between God and the forces that would
separate from that same God.
We
can claim that power for our very own.
That same power, seen in the incident that took place in Capernahum, is
available to you and to me. It is ours
for the asking.
For
when we ask the Lord to make His power available to us, lives begin to change.
Take
the example of St. Paul the Apostle, whose conversion we remembered this past
week.[2]
If
ever God’s power to change lives was evident in a single human being, then
Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus qualifies as Exhibit A.
Here
is a man whose singular determination to destroy the Christian faith was
overcome by God’s power to change his direction, and to harness his passion and
determination for good, and not for evil.
“Saul[3],
Saul, why are you persecuting me?” the voice from heaven asks. “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asks in reply.
“I
am Jesus, whom you are persecuting….” the voice replies.
And
so Saul’s life changed completely. His
former life – in which he was an accomplice to murder[4] –
was turned toward a life which was devoted from that time forward into a life
dedicated to restoring people to an intimate relationship with God through
Christ.
And,
oh yes, it’s worth saying that that same power that Jesus had over disease and
every sort of malady was evident in Paul’s ministry, as well. Paul used the power of God to heal the sick,
and to cast out the forces of evil from those who were caught in its grip.
So
you and I are called to be on the winning side, to fall in behind Jesus Christ,
whose power we can sense, and whose power we can see, evident in changed lives
today.
Sensing
Jesus’ power and seeing it in action gives us proof that Jesus Christ is
Emmanuel, meaning “God with us.”
AMEN.
[1] You can visit Capernahum today and see the
ruins of the fourth century synagogue, which was built over the site of an
earlier one, the one that Jesus would have known. In one place, the archeologists have dug down
a foot or so to expose part of the floor of the building that Jesus would have
known…makes you feel as though you are right there with him on that Sabbath day
[3] Saul’s name changed later on to Paul.
[4] Acts 7: 58 names Saul as being present at
the stoning of the first martyr, the deacon Stephen.
