So, Jesus is fresh off his wilderness experience. His baptism by John is still fresh. He's managed to pick himself up a few disciples, and here they are strolling through the still, Saturday streets of Capernaum as they head off to synagogue where Jesus is going to try his hand at teaching.
Of course we do not hear what Jesus says in Mark’s telling of the story. We only hear that he taught. And he must've made quite the impression – a better impression than I ever make – because it seems nobody fell asleep. They were all astounded! But in the end it was not only rhetorical skill that left a lasting impression. Instead what came next is what Mark remembers that day. What came next is what changed lives, especially one life of a man in pain.
We don't know what this ‘unclean spirit’ was. But we know that it held this poor soul in it's grip. And it recognized Jesus. And that somehow it knew that the power that Jesus held was something never before encountered, and that this power was a healing threat to this spirit, this demon in the midsts of these people.
And the thing that I notice because Mark leaves it out, is that Jesus didn't stand up and shout and wave his arms around and mutter incantations. Instead Jesus says, “Be silent” And hose two words put an end to this demon's ability to tear down, to harm, to sap the life force of the man who had served as host for its parasitic power for far too long.
Be Silent. Stop. Stop Now.
Because, y'all, words.
We all know about words, right? These sounds that come from inside us, strung together this way and that, softly uttered or cooed or shouted or barked. Vowels and consonants. Syllables and phonemes. Words.
Words tear down, or they build up. They wound, or they heal. They loom over us in storm clouds of despair, or they are the bright rays of hope for those who need it most of all.
Be Silent.
I imagine Jesus said this not only to stop the unclean spirit’s attack on himself, but also to put an end to the ways its words were eating away at the soul of the poor man it possessed. It's so easy today to think of people the Bible calls 'possessed' as a somehow broken and defective. Or to explain this passage aways as a telling as an example of Jesus healing mental illness (which it may well have been). Even so, it's so easy to see that illness or possession as something only experienced by others – certainly not me! We are part of the story as witnesses in the synagogue, not the man with the unclean spirit. That's never us.
But I wonder. What if we actually put ourselves into the role of the one who was in the powerful grip of the power that possessed him? Because let's face it...
Who among us is not possessed by one ‘unclean spirit’ or another? Who among us does not have something which shaped us or marked us or even crippled us that keeps us from being what God fully wants us to be.
Is your unclean spirit one of fear? I know that mine is at times.
Is your unclean spirit a cloud of despair? Who hasn’t experienced our hope faltering in these last few years...at least now and then? I have.
Are you held captive by long ago demons of experiences, lessons learned, perhaps long before you even knew you were learning them, which are so much a part of how you are in the world that when something or someone like Jesus pulls them out into the open, you find every fiber of your being resisting because you have known no other way? I wonder about that all the time.
So many unclean spirits roaming this world, brought to light by Jesus. Calling us to leave behind old ways of being which no longer serve us as they once did. Unclean spirits in our communities, our systems, our economies, our politics...our selves. Challenging us these last years and continuing to do it with glee. We see them, but how to we react?
Y'all, I believe that if I had been in that synagogue so long ago to hear Jesus teach and then to deal with that demon I also would have been astounded, amazed, and unable to keep from wondering with others about what we had just heard and seen. But then what?
I hope...I've just got to hope, that I might have wondered what this awesome power might have meant for me. What does this all mean, this power that Jesus brings and offers up to us, mean for me, for you, for those we love, for those we serve, for our communities, for the nation, the world we call home? What would freedom from all that has held us back and bound us up feel like?
I don’t know about you, but this coming year makes me think that our ‘unclean spirits’ can no longer be coddled or ignored.
Those that speak words about not having enough and encouraging greed and envy. Those that speak words of paralyzing despair and encouraging revenge and retribution. Those that engender fear...or doubt...or hatred.
Those that speak words from the deepest demons of the worlds darkness, rather than the better angels of our nature.
And so I hear Jesus’ words today to our demons to ‘be silent!’ as ones of absolute grace and promise and power and healing now. The healing which God intends for us all. What a wondrous gift it is to hear that the promise made to one man back then is meant for all of us today.
For when the words of those demons fall silent, words which set free can finally be heard. In that silence, words which bring healing can be received. In that silence, we hear the promise that death, what had perhaps been a living death in a crippled life, is now vanquished. In that silence, we hear love calling us. In that silence, we hear God.