Hi everyone and welcome back to the podcast.
Today we're looking at Mark chapter 1, continuing from
yesterday, but today, we're looking at verses 21 to 28 and
as you see in this particular passage Jesus performs an
exorcism on an unclean spirit. So we're Going to talk a little
bit about what's going on here. So let's start by looking at the
passage that you'll hear. If you go to mass today, Mark
chapter 1 verses 21 to 28. 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, 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 through
the man into convulsions and with a loud cry, went out of
him. 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, Okay, so that's our
passage today and things are starting to ramp up a bit for
Jesus. He's been baptized his moved
into Capernaum, his home base. He started to preach the kingdom
and now he does this sign as a sign that the kingdom has,
indeed come. So at the start of the passage
here in verse 21, it says they went as far as Capernaum or
other translations to simplify it a bit to say he went into
Capernaum. So this is one of the towns
around the Sea of Galilee so Jesus has been Spending time in
Galilee earlier, in chapter 1, and now he's coming to
Capernaum, which he is his current home town, it's a
fishing Village, and Jesus spends a lot of time here.
As soon as Sabbath came or in a more literal translation
immediately on the Sabbath, remember in the gospel of Mark,
the word immediately appears a lot, almost twice in every sort
of major passage. You'll see the word immediately.
That's how Mark writes. He says this happened, then
immediately that happened. So it's almost like he's giving
us a movie script. So it's on this sabbath.
So in that culture on the Sabbath there was obviously lots
of rules about what they shouldn't do, but one of the
things they had to do on the Sabbath was that they had to
attend their local synagogue which is kind of like the local
Parish church and when they are there at the synagogue on the
Sabbath day that have prayer readings and instruction in the
Old Testament much like what you might hear at mass today
although perhaps a few less rituals it's more of a teaching
opportunity. There would be a homily of
sorts, so they'd read a passage from the Old Testament.
And then someone will get up and provide a bit of a homily or
commentary on the words that they're just heard from the Old
Testament. The homily could actually be
done by anyone can be done, why anyone who knew the scriptures,
which is actually not that many people because not that many
people could read or write. So usually it was done by the
local Alder or a scribe, but a traveling preacher who knew the
scriptures, well, could sometimes preach the homily.
Component was a reasonably busy talents that was probably quite
a few people that could do it. But in this case, Jesus,
preaches because he's already become well-known.
As a teacher and a miracle worker, he's become quite
popular so he gets up and preaches, the sermon on this
day. Now, Mark doesn't tell us what
Jesus preached in this particular homily, we don't get
the text of the homily here. But we know the crowd's reaction
in verse 22. The crowds it says the crowds
thought unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority.
So the people of Capernaum were used to hearing from the scribes
every week and it appears that the scribes when they did their
homilies kind of just made stuff up according to what they
thought the correct interpretation of the Old
Testament was or basically just based on their own ideas and
preferences But these people are immediately struck by Jesus.
Jesus homily is quite different. It seems that Jesus seems to
know what he's genuinely talking about, and he appears to be
appointed by God. They're Amazed by his authority,
his really, apparently to them seems to have some sort of Mark
that he has come from God, that he has Authority.
Unlike the scribes who just make stuff up, Verse 23 in their
synagogue was a man possessed and in the original here it says
immediately a man who is possessed and so there's that
word again. Now, what's going on here?
We have a man who is possessed, but he's in the synagogue,
there's a couple of different explanations here because you
would think that a demon would not be interested in going to
the synagogue. So, there's two possibilities.
Probably his acting Incognito. The demon is sort of pretending
that he's not there. And so probably this demon acts
in a way where he's possessed the man, but no one knows that
the man's possess. So he sort of acting like the
man would normally act. So he's probably making the man
go about his normal daily business so that no one thinks
any differently. Probably no one knows that he's
possessed. So he going to this the demon
says. Yep.
We're going to go to the synagogue, like we do every
week, so in order to keep the act up and so you probably
didn't know that Jesus would be there.
That's one possibility. So the demon could be acting
Incognito and just treating the man like a puppet and no one
knows. The second possibility though is
that the man is actually in control of his body and the
demon only shows up sometimes. So he's got a bit of a lesser
influence on the man. Perhaps the demon only manifests
in certain situations, but apparently the demon is provoked
by whatever Jesus said, in his homily, what is an uncleaned the
term here is unclean Spirit? What exactly is this thing?
Well, it's a Jewish term in that culture for a defiled or
unnatural supernatural being something is, it's not a pure
supernatural, being like an angel in the gospels.
The word demon is also you. So unclean spirit, and Demon.
Same Nothing. They're mentioned in the Old
Testament, but pretty rarely you don't often hear about demons in
the Old Testament. Although, Saul the King Saul in
1000 BC is apparently plagued by a demon, so they're around, but
not much. So, probably, it seems that by
the time of Jesus, particularly in the 400 years, leading up to
Jesus, there was a lot more prevalence about of demons and a
lot more people writing about demons.
If you read The Book of Tobit, which was written a couple of
centuries before Jesus, there's some demons in that book as
well. So demons had apparently become
quite common, and it was now an accepted scary part of Jewish
life. Serious Jews recognized that in
their town. There probably was a couple of
people that were possessed by demons and they would usually
steer clear of those people because it's pretty scary to
have to confront a demon. So the Jews did believe in
demons, they knew that these unnatural supernatural beings
existed and that you should stay away from them.
But the Jews didn't really understand what these beings
were, it would appear. There was no consensus on where
these beings came from. The New Testament also doesn't
give us a whole lot about the background of demons.
The New Testament, tells us that demons are real, but doesn't
tell us where, what they're up to or where they came from later
Church. Teaching would clarify that
these beings are some kind of Fallen Angel and the catechism
tells us a bit more about that. Probably important to say this
point, as well as a lot of modern Scholars or liberal
Scholars would say that demons aren't real.
Oh, and the Jews at the time and the gospel authors thought that
demons were real, but they just didn't have a good medical
knowledge. Had they had the medical
knowledge we have today, they would have realized that these
people were just had psychological conditions or, you
know, some sort of mental illness.
And there's no such thing as demons.
If you read the gospels, it's pretty clear that these demons
are real things and that they are still around today.
Particularly, if you look at the way that they're exercised, look
at the way that they control these people in the things that
they say. About Jesus.
So certainly Mark is intending to tell us that there was a real
supernatural being in this man. Okay, let's continue.
So the demon says to Jesus, what do you want with us?
So the demon is scared at this point in history.
Satan and the demons are in control of the world, it's their
territory. And they know the kingdom of God
is going to come one day, but they're not expecting it this
soon. So, here's the demon is,
genuinely surprised and concerned.
So the demon says to Jesus, have you come to destroy us?
So the demons do know a little bit about God and His Plan of
Salvation, though, not everything they know a little
bit and they know that the kingdom of God is going to come
one day. And when it does come, they the
demons will be judged and destroyed.
Now the demons just like the Jews at the time of Jesus didn't
really understand that the kingdom of God is going to come
in two stages. So the demons just thought the
kingdom of God will come one day through the Messiah and they'd
be wiped out straight away. But Jesus would, as he'd go on
to reveal, is that the kingdom of God is beginning with him.
But there would only reach its consummation one day in the
future when the Judgment happens.
The demon goes on. He says, I know who you are the
Holy One Of God. So, this is really early in
Jesus Ministry. Jesus hasn't yet told anyone
that he's the Messiah or the Holy One Of God.
He hasn't revealed his Divine identity, but the demon being a
spiritual creature supernatural, being recognizes that Jesus is
the Messiah. He can see that.
This is the Holy One Of God, that they should be worried
about. So it's can be hard to work out
what demons know and what they don't know but I think we can
say this as a summary and appears that demons know that
God is going to send a messiah to bring in the kingdom of God
and that when he does they'll be wiped out and they also
recognize that Jesus is the Messiah so they're able to piece
all of that information together but some things they don't know,
they don't know the exact timing of when the kingdom of God is
coming. Secondly, they don't know that
the Messiah is going to die in order to bring about salvation.
They do not perceive that they don't try to stop Jesus from
going to the Cross because they don't realize what Jesus is
going to do on the cross. They actually see Jesus death as
a victory. They say yes, the messiah's did.
He can't do any more damage to us so they don't realize what
God is trying. It will what God is going to do
on the cross through? Jesus so demons know more than
we do. At this point in history, but
they don't perceive everything. Some schools have also said,
there might be another element here.
When the demon says to Jesus, I know who you are, they some
Scholars would think this is a common demon tactic, as in that
they claim knowledge of the person's name and identity in
order to throw the person off. So some people think the demons
are trying to throw Jesus off here by saying I know who you
are. And in that sense, they're
trying to surprise Jesus and get some control over him.
So, all of that is in the demons mind as the demon speaks verse
25. Jesus said sharply, sorry, our
text said Jesus said sharply or another translation is, Jesus
rebuked him. And here's what Jesus says, be
quiet. Or another translation is been
muzzled. So why does Jesus say that Jesus
doesn't want to engage this demon in a conversation?
He doesn't want his identity known as soon as the demon says.
I know who you are. The Holy One Of God, Jesus says,
be quiet. Jesus does not want his identity
known yet. So he just wants the demon gone.
So he exercises, the demon And the time to do that, he says
come out of him. The Jews at this time were
apparently familiar with exorcisms.
There were some gifted spiritual people, some profits, and
preachers who could do exorcisms apparently.
But Jesus is able to do it very quickly and easily.
And so there's something quite different about the way he does
it. Verse 26, the unclean Spirit
through the man into convulsions.
So the demon is doesn't want to leave the man's body.
So he sort of putting up his last fight here.
As we learn from elsewhere in the gospels, the demons
basically a trying to find a person's body.
They want to inhabit a body and they're not going to leave
without a fight. Remember, Jesus says, later in
the gospels that demons when they're cast out of a man will
hang around for a while and then going to someone else and
Exorcist today there are some priests who were trained as
exorcists will tell you that they when they perform
exorcisms, they see similar things.
The demon puts up a fight and causes the person to go into
convulsions. So the it's successful.
The demon leaves him. Now the demons not destroyed.
It's not killed or something, but it is wounded.
Probably. It's just going to go off and
try and find someone else. So the demons are never really
destroyed until the end of time. But by this act Jesus
announcement of the kingdom of God, which he had started
announcing earlier in the gospel of Mark.
Now becomes concrete that people can see what this man can back
up. What he's saying?
He's performing signs that the kingdom of God is upon us.
And throughout Mark, if you keep reading Mark, you'll see that.
Jesus is consistently and progressively dismantling.
The forces of Darkness verse 27, the people are astonished and
they discuss it with each other. And remember, this is all
happened in the middle of a synagogue, very strange.
And they say, what is this, a new teaching?
So, for them, this is something quite different from what
they've been used to from the scribes and the teachers, this
is a new thing. What?
They've just seen Jesus do in the sense that He has the power
to accomplish what he's talking about.
He can walk the talk as it were were as the scribes usually
can't with authority. He commands even the unclean
spirits, and they obey him. So these people begin to
recognize that Jesus must be anointed by God.
They probably don't work out his the Messiah yet, but they know
that there's something special about him.
And verse 28, it says Jesus Fame spread all throughout Galilee,
which is this Northern fishing region, but probably worried
about. Jesus doesn't spread to Judea
and Jerusalem. Just yet at the moment, his
ministry is just confined to the northern part of Israel.
So that's our text today. I hope you learned a little bit
there about demons and exorcisms.
There's a few references to this in the catechism.
Firstly in paragraph 2, 173 the Catholic church is teaching
about the Sabbath day says the gospel reports many incidents
where Jesus was accused of violating the Sabbath law but
Jesus never fails to respect the Holiness of this day.
He gives the law. It's authentic and authoritative
interpretation. The Sabbath was made for man.
Man, not man for the Sabbath. One of the references for this
catechism is this passage in Mark 1 when Jesus does an
exorcism on the Sabbath, he's doing work on the Sabbath, which
we learn later doesn't makes the Jewish leaders quite annoyed.
Verse for 38, which is about in the section about Christ.
It says, his eternal Messianic, consecration with revealed
during the time of his Earthly life at the moment of his
baptism by John when God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with
the Holy Spirit and with power that he might be revealed to
Israel, as its Messiah, his works and words will manifest
him as the Holy One of God. See here, that quote there the,
Holy One Of God. So the demons in mark one
recognize that he is the Christ. and in paragraph 16 731 sorry
1673 in the discussion about sacramental, such as holy water,
it talks about exorcisms and here's what it says when the
church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of
Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the
power of the evil one and withdrawn from his Dominion, it
is called an exorcism Jesus perform exorcisms.
And from him, the church has received the power and office of
exercising and that paragraph 1673 goes on to talk about when
the appropriate time is to do an exorcism.
So I recommend checking out that section if you're interested
more in The Rite of exorcism today because demons do exist
and exorcisms, continue to be carried out.
By members of the church hierarchy.
Okay, thanks again for listening.
I hope you found it interesting and hopefully we'll see you
again tomorrow. Please tell other people about
this podcast, if you're finding this information and this way of
learning the gospels useful. Thanks again,