Mark 1:40-45 ------------ Susan J. Barnes
St. Matthew's, Austin --- 16 February 2003
As we move on through Epiphany, celebrating the coming of the light of
Christ
into the world, we are seeing that light through the particular lens
of the
Gospel of Mark. Mark's gospel is about theology in action, about
God's
presence in the person of Jesus. Already here, at the end of the
first
chapter, Jesus' ministry is in full swing.
"The kingdom of God has come near". That's the message with which
Jesus
began his ministry in this gospel. It's the message he was called to
carry
throughout the Galilee. When I began to prepare last week's sermon, I
saw two aspects of this message that I wanted to discuss. So "the
kingdom of God has come near" became the subject of that sermon and
this one.
Last week I discussed how God's kingdom came to Capernaum through
Jesus' actions as a healer in this first chapter of Mark . On a
single day, the first of his public ministry, Jesus healed a demoniac
in the synagogue, then Peter's mother in law in her home, and finally
a crowd of people from around the town. Jesus brought the reality of
God's kingdom near to them all, transforming their lives.
Last week was about the action of the kingdom. This week I want to
look with
you at another level of meaning, seen in the imagery of the kingdom.
This relates to the context for the gospel,
the spiritual and political realities of the time in which it was
written.
Those realities are reflected directly in the imagery of the gospel,
in the
particular meaning that the gospel of Mark imparts to such words and
concepts as: the kingdom of God, the Spirit, Satan, and demons.
Jesus' healings in Mark showed people that God's kingdom was one of
grace, of
love, of reconciliation. That kingdom stood in total contrast to the
worldly
kingdom they lived in--the despotic, oppressive reign of the Roman
empire.
Jesus was killed by the Romans because his message and his ministry
were a
threat to Roman political and social order. His followers in Mark's
community, who were carrying
on his mission, all knew that they carried on that threat as well.
When Mark was written, forty years after Jesus' death, the Roman
occupation of
Palestine had reached a crisis. A revolt began in the year 66. It
ended in 70,
when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, the center of
Jewish
religious life, and razed the Holy City itself. There is no analogy
I can
find for us to relate to what loss of the Temple, the loss of
Jerusalem, meant
to the first-century Jews who were Jesus' followers. The closest I can
come in
secular terms for Americans would be the total destruction of
Washington,
D.C. It was a devastation for them beyond imagining.
Alone among the gospels, Mark's was written in the thick of that
tension, when
it may well have seemed that the world was coming to an end, and that
evil
might triumph after all. The community to whom Mark's gospel was
addressed was
struggling to find hope and meaning in the face of this horror. So
there is a
cosmic dimension to the gospel, a drama pitting the spiritual forces
of good
against the forces of evil. In Mark, Jesus' deeds have a material,
factual
dimension but also a spiritual-political dimension.
The spiritual-political meaning comes through in the imagery of the
stories whose veiled
message was clearly understood by their intended audience. In that
imagery Satan
represents Roman rule. Roman rule is the reign of Satan, the kingdom
of
Satan. God's Spirit has joined in a battle to overturn Satan's reign
on
earth, through Jesus' ministry. Thus, after meeting and overcoming
Satan in
the wilderness, Jesus begins his ministry declaring: "The time is
fulfilled and
the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good
news."
Last week we saw how Jesus' actual healings at Capernaum had both a
physical and a
social impact on peoples' lives. People healed physically were freed
of the
shame and stigma of illness, which was seen as a punishment from
God. Once
healed, like Peter's mother-in-law, they regained their roles and
their places
in society.
Now if we shift to the cosmic, political-spiritual dimension we
can see the same healing stories as the arena in which God vanquishes
Satan.
God's kingdom replaces Satan's when Jesus casts out unclean spirits
and demons,
who recognize Jesus and submit to his authority.
That is what happened in the first healing in Capernum, in the
synagogue. Jesus was teaching. The people recognized his authority,
God's
authority, different from anyone else's. It was then that the
unclean spirit
residing in a man cried out to Jesus: "Have you come to destroy us?"
[note the
plural, speaking for the world of spirits]. The unclean spirit
recognized
Jesus' true identity, saying: "I know who you are,the Holy One of
God." Jesus
cast out that spirit as he did others in the public healing at the
end of that
day. Thus, his first day of ministry, Jesus demonstrated his absolute
authority
over evil, over the reign of Satan, allegorically the reign of
Imperial Rome.
That is the overarching meaning of his claim: "The Kingdom of God has
come
near."
The gospel of Mark was written for a specific community, struggling to
survive physically, politically, socially, spiritually, in the face of
tremendous deprivation, oppression, and perhaps even religious
persecution.
For them the gospel of Jesus Christ was a beacon of hope in a world
that was
being torn apart. Mark's account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth
reminded
them that God was sovereign, that God's authority was greater than
Satan's,
that God's Spirit would vanquish Satan in the end. The gospel showed
them
that Jesus' life of service and suffering for God's kingdom did not
end in the
ignominy, the humiliation, of death, but in the triumph of the
resurrection.
We cannot know what the author of this gospel saw as the future of the
text. Did he know that it would inform and inspire other gospel
writers?
Perhaps. Surely he could not have imagined that its message of hope
would
travel to every part of the world and be read for the rest of time.
But so it
has, and so it will.
This gospel text is eternally fresh and powerful because its truth
transcends the particularities of the community that produced it.
Mark's
community knew the transcedant truth that Jesus Christ had risen to
live with
them, to heal them, to comfort and strenghten them in the face of
oppression,
to reconcile them to God and one another. Across the ages, oppressed
communities and individuals have found the same life, comfort,
strength,
companionship, healing and reconciliation in the risen Christ.
Around the world today entire peoples are oppressed. Here, in the
States
people suffer oppression from racism, abuse, religious discrimination
and
economic deprivation. Others of us battle our own demons, like
addiction, greed,
violent hatred and obsession. To every one of them, to every one of
us, God
reaches out in the healing love of Jesus Christ, as God did to the
demoniac in
the synagogue, to Peter's mother in law, to the people of Capernaum,
and to the
leper in today's gospel. Some will be cured today, as some were in
those
days. Some will not. Like Jesus himself, some will suffer unjustly.
Some
will die too soon. But none will be abandoned, none will be
forgotten--and by God's grace all will ulitimately be healed.
For all who are oppressed, for all who suffer in mind, body, or
spirit, the gospel
promises the final victory. Illness, subjugation, evil, death are
only of
this world. They are limited to this mortal life. All who seek the
kingdom of
God will find it, and dwell together there for eternity.
