The Proof of Christianity: Series on Mark’s Gospel
- What Kind of Leader? (Mark 1.16-39)
Today’s Leaders
Here in Western Australia we are about to go to elections to choose our leaders for the next three years. It will be a lackluster affair compared with the recent elections in the USA. But it still raises the question what a leader is. When I was a student in England in the mid-seventies the news came to us from the Australian embassy in a printout of short paragraphs from Radio Australia. It was nearly all about the economy, and I realized that what most people wanted from their political leaders was money. The realization rather dismayed me. Modern leaders are mostly not people we want to follow, but managers of the economy. That is why there is this argument about whether the president should be a person of good character, or just a good businessman. I thought to myself then that a good pastor has more influence with his people than a prime minister.
People Need Leaders
People need leaders! You may question whether this is true, and perhaps when life is good we can coast along piloting our own craft. But when it gets tough people need a leader. That can be good or bad depending on whom you follow. We have a bad example in our parents’ and grandparents’ lifetime of a nation that followed a leader – to their doom as it turned out, though at the beginning they thought they were being led to a new and glorious fatherland. The hysteria surrounding the election of Donald Trump is much about people’s fears that he might lead America and the world into something similar.
Australians are cynical about leadership. Looking at the mess some leaders have made they urge us to be critical, to use our own judgement, never surrender our hearts to another. But the truth is that many of these skeptics read, and get their ideas from some thinker, and follow them, and so are led. There are not many people who live entirely without leadership. The question is – and the person who put this into my mind was a German who had lived through the horror: we are all down here in this crazy world together; is there anyone who is above it all, anyone who really knows, who is in a position to lead the rest of us?
First Impressions of Jesus
So observe that that the first thing Mark tells us about Jesus when he emerged from the solitude of the wilderness is that he was a leader.
Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. (Mark 1.16-20)
It is very terse. Notice that Simon Peter enters the story at this point. I have suggested to you that Mark is telling his story. Luke and John both tell us there was more to this call than is told here, but I reckon this is how it seemed to Peter. He was a fisherman going about his work, and Jesus commanded him to follow, and learn a new occupation: “Follow me, and I will make you a man fisherman.” And we followed him – immediately! Of course Jesus didn’t call everyone to work with him full time, only the twelve and later the rich ruler, who refused to follow, and a few others. But I think the way Mark tells the story he is issuing a challenge to everyone: will we follow him? Not necessarily give up our jobs, but give him our allegiance, give him our all, go where he leads, do as he commands, think as he teaches us to think. It is a big ask. We need to give it thought. It raises the question, What kind of leader will he be? Do we want to follow him?
What kind of leader?
I studied for a while with an American who wrote a big book on Systematic Theology. He is now a Christian leader in the US. I was interested to read his comments on Donald Trump in the lead up to the election. At first he was telling people to vote for him, then he wasn’t sure, then he was sure they shouldn’t, then perhaps they should. The fact is no one knew what sort of leader Trump would turn out to be, and we still don’t. But this is what we want to know.
Mark begins his Gospel telling us just who Jesus is. He is the man God has appointed to save Israel and rule the world. John the Baptist announced his coming. At his baptism God himself declared him king, a new Adam, a new head for the human race; empowered him with his Holy Spirit. The Spirit drove into a time of testing by Satan in the wilderness. And now he is ready for his mission, which if we can believe it, is to take over the world and rule it for God. But what kind of king will he be?
Mark tells us about the day Jesus preached in the synagogue in the town he chose as his base – early in his ministry when not many knew him. We get a look at the first impression Jesus made on people.
The first thing we learn is that Jesus was a teacher. Don’t overlook the importance of this. Matthew didn’t. When he recast Mark in his own way he brought in three chapters of Jesus’ teaching right at the beginning. Luke introduced him with one of his early sermons. Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus taught at this point, just that he taught, presumably about the kingdom he was announcing.
Think about this. We don’t expect our politicians to teach because we don’t actually follow our politicians. We follow whomever we think can teach us the truth. Many today follow Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and David Attenborough. Others follow their favourite author. Some follow their pastor because they believe he preaches the truth; this too can lead to trouble, if he or she is not teaching God’s word. The point is that those who really lead teach. Jesus was a teacher.
And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.
People Reacted to Jesus
People reacted! There was something different about Jesus. The way he taught amazed them; it was not what they were used to. Most teachers get their ideas from someone else. They will appeal to those who have authority on their subject, they will point you to their favourite author, they will give you the statistics about what the majority of people think. The rabbis appealed to Moses, then to the Prophets, then to “the men of the Great Synagogue”, then to Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai (who often disagreed) and then perhaps add their own opinion. But Jesus spoke with authority, like he knew God even better than Moses. No wonder they were surprised.
But there are people who speak with authority, but you ask yourself, “Does be really know what he is talking about?” And I am sure there were people listening to Jesus who thought, “Who does he think he is? What authority does he have to say all this? He hasn’t even been taught by the rabbis.”
And it is just at this point that things get interesting. A man shouts out while Jesus is teaching: “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.” Imagine that sort of response to your pastor. I have had a few people call out in a sermon, but never like that, never a demoniac!
Can you hear the fear in his voice? “Have you come to destroy us?” He is afraid of Jesus: afraid he will kill him. But is this the man or a demon? Think for a moment. The guy is sitting in church with all the others so it’s not likely he’s known as a raving lunatic. But something in him reacts to Jesus’ presence. And now he is out of control. Whatever you think about demon possession and mental illness, one thing they have in common is a loss of self-control. I don’t think for a moment that all mental illness is caused by demons. Drugs, exhaustion, heat, genetics, trauma – all sorts of things can lead to mental illness – but admit for a moment the possibility that a person could be host to an alien intelligence, and loss of self-control is exactly what you would predict. So it’s not surprising that some symptoms may be similar.
Demon Possession
Some people are embarrassed finding a story like this right at the beginning of Mark. And Jesus deals with a lot of demons in this chapter. Some will dismiss the whole thing as mythology. But there are a lot of things we don’t understand, and it only takes one experience to change a skeptic. There are actually a lot more people believe in some sort of evil power because of some experience they have had than believe in the God of the Bible. My first run at being a minister was in the early seventies. I went into the church on a Monday evening to do some tidying and lock up and found a young woman lying on the floor in front of the altar, dying. We got an ambulance and she was taken to Royal Perth Hospital where they pumped her out and saved her life. When I went to visit her a few days later I found to my surprise that she had been talking to another patient and started to believe in Jesus. I had never seen something like that happen so quickly. As I left, her psychiatrist came out and invited me into her office. We sat down and she lit a cigarette. People did that in those days! She wanted to know what I thought of it, and I didn’t know much at all. She wanted to know what I thought of the occult, because this girl’s case didn’t fit the normal categories. She showed me a scrap book her father had supplied which revealed that as a young child she had lived on a farm where some very strange things happened that still have not been explained. An aboriginal community lived on farm and one of them had the bone pointed at him. Over a period stones began to fall from the sky. Later on I heard it from the father himself, who was a young man at the time on his parents farm. Reporters came from all over Australia to check it out. Many witnessed it. No one could give an explanation. And later in the school hostel there were séances and strange happenings. You can check it out on the web; it is still discussed. The point of my relating this is not to suggest the girl was possessed, though their appeared to be an occult connection, but to tell you what that psychiatrist told me. She showed me the scrap book and asked me if I thought there could be a connection. “There are many things we don’t understand,” she said. I remember her saying there were conditions that psychiatrists couldn’t help, but in some places there were witch doctors who could – that is what she called them.
Anyway, if you cant swallow the idea of demon possession, think of him as a mentally disturbed person. Either way Jesus silences him. He rebukes him, like he has done something wrong. “Shut up,” he says, “and come out of him!” The man was convulsed, there was a loud cry, and he was normal again. The effect on the congregation was electric. They were thunderstruck, and as they began to recover from the shock, the buzz started as everyone whispered to the person next to them. “What just happened? Who is this? Is this some sort of new teaching? – with authority! He even commands demons and they obey him.” Notice the continual repetition of that idea: with authority! It is the key to understanding here. This was the big impression Jesus made on people.
Not everyone who speaks like they have authority has authority. But at an unexpected moment Jesus demonstrated that he did. He had power in the spiritual realm as well as knowledge to teach the truth. We can hardly imagine what it must have been like as those people spilled down the steps of that synagogue and the talk that must have gone on over lunch.
Come to Capernaum!
I wish we could go together to Israel and, if you haven’t been there before, I could take you to Capernaum. As you come down from the hills through the orange groves (they weren’t there then; it would have been wheat fields and barley), the town nestles on the lake with its date palms – they were there – and the sea wall and the boats – they are not there now, and dominating it all the synagogue, still, with its front steps. It is one of the strange twists of history and archaeology that this building is the best preserved ancient synagogue in the whole of Israel. It was identified by the steps, which were described by an early pilgrim when the building still stood. It stands now because it has been lovingly pieced together by the Franciscan community that owns it. Though they discovered in the process it is not the synagogue Jesus preached in. It was thought to be until someone unearthed a horde of second century coins under one of the flagstones. So the hunt began for the synagogue of Jesus’ day. It was found, right underneath its successor. You can still see the foundations of the original.
It is a very short walk then to Peter and Andrew’s place, and once again archaeology has uncovered it. It was identified because it was used as a church for hundreds of years. Simon’s mother-in-law had a high fever. Around the Sea of Galilee was malarial until the Israelis drained the swamps in the last century; it could have been that. They told Jesus and he immediately went and lifted her up. The fever left her and she set about helping with the meal. It’s not much of a story really.
Fever
For us fever is not a big deal. But at each stage in this story we should ask ourselves what effect it would have had on Peter. And fever was a big thing back then. I still can be. But we usually have a good confidence that they will fix us up. The average lifespan for an Australian is 82 for a man and 83 for a woman. The average lifespan at that time was somewhere between 20 and 30. Of course a lot of children died and some people lived into their 80’s, but still a lot of people died in their 20’s, many of fever. My friend, who loves to ride his motorbike in the “Roof of Africa” developed a fever this week. They rushed him to hospital. He stopped breathing. The had to give CPR, then a drip, antibiotics and I don’t know what else. On Friday they found the problem and removed his gall bladder. He is getting better. Back then he would have been dead before Sunday. In the first century sickness brought with it the fear of death, and often the reality, especially a high fever like malaria.
There is more death in this first chapter of Mark than we realize. The man in the synagogue had an “unclean spirit”. This is a term only used by Mark. We speak of evil spirits and demons, but in the first century daemons were not seen as especially evil, just dangerous. Peter Bolt says that Mark’s readers would understand him to mean the man was being troubled by the ghost of a dead person, and therefore to the Jews “unclean”. Jesus then proves a match for death. That is what these stories suggest, and we will see more of that as we read on in Mark.
He healed many
At the end of Sabbath when the sun disappeared the crowds came. I don’t know how many went to church in those days or whether there was more than one synagogue in Capernaum. I imagine so; it was a big town. But the word was out, and they came streaming, bringing their sick. And they didn’t pick them up from the local hospital; they were mostly at home and in the street; you lived with them. And Jesus healed them all.
What do we make of all this? Do we dismiss it as legendary? You might if it wasn’t for the fact that it adds up. There was a very strong movement in the early to mid-twentieth century to dismiss it all as mythology. Albert Schweitzer had so shocked the Christian world with his depiction of the so-called “Jesus of history” that some reacted by saying that the Jesus of history is lost to us. The Gospel authors tell us nothing about the real Jesus, they said, only about how they saw him answering the problems of the church in their day. Their idea was that the Gospels tell us more about the churches at the time of the Gospel writers, than about Jesus himself. This movement was still strong when I was a theological student. But then one of their own scholars began to question whether there wasn’t something they could tell us about him, and he noticed that in story after story this incredible authority shines through, often when it is not even the point of the story. He concluded that whatever else he did or didn’t do Jesus must have impressed people with his authority. When you see that, and when you see how it is present in so many of his miracles, and then that it ties together with what Mark says at the beginning about Jesus being the king and God empowering him with his Spirit – well, it all hangs together and you begin to see it wasn’t made up. Fifty years on that movement is seen as laughable. The Gospels are about Jesus, the real Jesus. Anything you might think they reveal about the church at the time when they were written is sheer guesswork. I will stick my neck out again and say we have a better knowledge of Jesus than of any other character in ancient history. I may be wrong I would like to be corrected if I am – but we do know an awful lot about him. And what is clear as crystal is that Jesus healed people, lots of people, authoritatively. And he did other miracles as well, but we will deal with them when we come to them. And here is the thing: he didn’t invite them all to a miracle crusade with lots of music and hype and a controlled atmosphere; he healed them in the streets. There never was anyone before or after him who healed like Jesus. What do we make of it?
That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or possessed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. (Mark 1.32-34)
Man with a Mission
I don’t know what time it was when the last person went home. Late I guess. You can imagine how elated Peter must have been when they lay down to sleep. I think it took them some time to nod off; his mind would have been racing. I am using my imagination here: through his mind must have been going the Scriptures he had heard many times about the kingdom of God and God intervening to save the world.
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord …”
“Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
Could this be it? Could we be seeing in our time what prophets have dreamed of? John says he is the Messiah. He has told us to follow him and help him find his people. Is this what it is going to be like. What have we let ourselves in for? Somewhere in this he nodded off. It had been a full-on day.
The Next Day
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
I told you Mark is telling Simon Peter’s story. I will keep pointing it out. He has heard it many times from the man himself. He has told it himself, and now he is writing it down. “Simon and those with him tracked him down” – the word is a very strong one. It suggests the memory of a desperate moment. I remember once losing the girl I loved in a big crowd: that feeling of panic, quite irrational, will I ever see her again? They woke up and Jesus was gone. Was it all a dream? They tracked him and ran him to earth – he was out alone praying. They wanted him to come back. The whole of Capernaum wanted him; he could be mayor, he could be governor of Galilee, king of the Jews perhaps, but no, said Jesus. This actually is not what it is all about. I have a bigger mission than that: I have come to announce the kingdom of God. I must announce it in all the other towns: “This is why I have come out.” “Come out”, – what do those words mean? Left home? Left Nazareth? Or something much deeper? Jesus has a mission; he is not his own man. Someone has sent him to do something big, someone has given him authority, someone has empowered him, and he must get on with the job. At the end of his road stands a cross and beyond that an empty tomb, and beyond that a world set free from disease and death. He must get on with it and not be distracted by the popularity to be had by attending to people’s immediate needs. And disciples must follow. They too are not their own any more. They don’t yet know where their Lord is going, but they are men under his authority now; he is the Lord and they must follow… We must follow.