Mark 1:14-2:2
How would you react if this morning someone came up to the front of the church and announced that today was the last day of the world and within just a few hours we would be in heaven?
“He’s crazy! How did I let him talk me into letting him speak to the church?” That might be my response.
But what if when he said it, I had a sense that he was telling the truth?
For centuries people have been predicting that Jesus would come back on this or that date. Sooner or later someone will be right, but I’m not sure that credit should be given to the one who makes that prediction. If I predict everyday that I will die. Someday I will be right but that does not make that day’s prediction any better than all the other days when I made a false prediction.
We believe that Jesus will one day come back to claim the church as his bride and this world will end and we will be taken into heaven. But to believe it is one thing. It is something else to have someone announce that today is the day.
Jews had been awaiting the Messiah for centuries. The history of the years preceding Jesus include accounts of men who gained immense popularity and were thought to be the Messiah.
Mark begins his account of the ministry of Jesus with this statement:
“The time has come,” [Jesus] said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
This is old news to us, but try to imagine the impact on those who first heard these words from Jesus.
In Luke’s account of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry Jesus spoke in his home town.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
That day in Nazareth there was a woman who had to stay home from the synagogue because her youngest child was ill and she had to care for him. Her husband came home from the synagogue and she asked him, “Did anything interesting happen in the service today?”
For years the Jews had waited for the coming of the Messiah and this day, Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, stood up in the service and announced that he was the one they had been waiting for.
This was an extraordinary announcement and Mark began his account of the ministry of Jesus with this extraordinary announcement:
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
And in expectation that people might have my reaction of scepticism and doubt, he followed up this proclamation of Jesus with demonstration that what Jesus said was true.
The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Jesus proclaimed and then he demonstrated. “You say you are the Messiah? Prove it.” And this is what Jesus did.
Look at what immediately follows the announcement of Jesus in Mark’s account. Jesus cast out a demon in Capernaum. He healed Peter’s mother-in-law and then many others as well, casting out demons and healing all who came to him. He healed a man who was a leper. He healed a paralytic who was lowered from the roof to the feet of Jesus where he was speaking.
Jesus proclaimed the truth and then he demonstrated the truth. Proclamation and demonstration.
When you read Mark’s gospel, there is this sense of rushing through to get to somewhere. Mark did not waste time in getting to the core of his gospel, the account of what Jesus did on the cross for us, and so when we read through Mark, remember this and pay attention to the stories he tells. He has limited space and includes just the most important stories.
In this beginning part of his gospel, he is intent on the proclamation of Jesus that the kingdom of God is near and he is eager to provide evidence that what Jesus said was true. Proclamation and demonstration.
What was the response to Jesus’s proclamation and demonstration?
Look with me at Mark 1:21. Jesus went to Capernaum with his newly called disciples and on the Sabbath, went into the synagogue to teach. Jesus proclaimed truth and the response?
The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.
The teaching of Jesus is contrasted with the teaching of the teachers of the law. The teachers of the law would read a passage and then say that Rabbi X had this interpretation and Rabbi Y had this to say about the passage. Their brilliance was revealed in how they could draw on their vast knowledge of the teachings of so many scholars who over the years had taught on the Scriptures.
Jesus did not do this. He spoke with authority. He read a passage and then explained what it meant. He did not refer to Rabbi X or Rabbi Y. He spoke as the Rabbis spoke, directly teaching from the scriptures with authority.
But he spoke with more than Rabbinic authority. It was not just that he interpreted the passages he read without reference to the teaching of others. He did not teach just to provide information. He taught to demand a response. When he spoke, you could not walk away saying, “That was an interesting talk today.” People responded to the teaching by following him or plotting against him. There were no neutral listeners. He spoke with the authority of God.
Jesus proclaimed truth and demanded a response and he received a response. The devil does not want to hear truth and while Jesus was teaching, a man who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out.
A few months ago, a man came to our Thursday night prayer meeting and as we were singing, began to choke as if he was being strangled and then fell to the floor, writhing as a snake. The evil spirit in this man was not able to keep quiet in the midst of our worship of Jesus. The devil does not respond well to praise or the proclamation of truth and so in this account in Mark when Jesus was in Capernaum, this evil spirit called out:
“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!”
The response of Jesus demonstrated that he not only spoke with authority but had authority.
“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” 26 The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
How did people respond to this?
The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.” 28 News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
This is one of the least surprising statements in Scripture. News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee. What would you have done if you had been there that day? “Honey, you’re never going to believe what happened at the synagogue today.” “Charlie, you’ll never guess what happened at the synagogue today.”
Mark follows this account with another. Capernaum was the home of the four fishermen who followed Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James and John.
Imagine the uproar after the service. People talking with each other and running to tell others who were not at the synagogue what had happened, news spreading from house to house.
And Jesus left the synagogue to go to the home of Simon and Andrew. You can hear Peter telling this story.
After we left the synagogue, we went with James and John to Andrew’s and my home. My mother-in-law was in bed with a fever and my family told Jesus about her. So Jesus went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on us.
What do you think Peter, Andrew, James and John were thinking? They left their nets to follow Jesus. They heard him teach and proclaim the truth and then the evil spirit was cast out. Peter’s mother-in-law was healed of a fever. A fever isn’t much. But if there was any doubt in their minds that Jesus was different from any person they had ever encountered, what followed that evening must have confirmed that Jesus was worth following.
That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
Jesus cast out the evil spirit in the synagogue. After that service, people left to tell everyone they met what Jesus had done and a crowd descended on Jesus, seeking healing and deliverance.
At some later point in time, a man with leprosy came to Jesus and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus touched him and he was cured. You can see that Jesus was trying to protect himself from the crowds coming to him because he gave what Mark calls a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” But can you blame the leper who was now not any longer a leper? He had been an outcast because of his disease. Jesus had been the first non-leper to touch him in years and now he was cured. Did Jesus really expect him to keep quiet about this?
Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
In the next account, you see the problem Jesus had. He went out to lonely places to escape the crowds but then he came back into Capernaum to teach and the house in which he taught was so crowded it was impossible for anyone to get to him. The room was packed. People were standing in the doorways straining their necks to try to see Jesus. People stood outside the doorways and windows trying to hear what Jesus was saying. It was impossible to get to Jesus so four creative men carried a friend who was paralyzed, climbed up on the roof and opened a hole in the roof so they could lower him down to the feet of Jesus.
Now why did so many people come to Jesus? They were amazed at his teaching. But if all Jesus ever did was teach, would the crowds have come to him? No. Jesus would have had an excellent teaching tour with people being amazed at his teaching, but people would not have traveled two or three days to go hear Jesus teaching. People would have listened but there would not have been crowds.
The crowds came to Jesus because he demonstrated what he proclaimed. Jesus taught and his teaching was wonderful. Lives were transformed by his teaching. I do not want to minimize the importance of the teaching of Jesus. But it was the demonstration of the truths he proclaimed that brought people so he could teach them.
In John 14, Jesus responded to a question Philip asked and said:
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
In other words, what Jesus said was believe what I proclaim or at least believe because of the demonstration of what I proclaim.
To proclaim without demonstration is not without value, but it does not result in a ministry as powerful as God would want it to be.
On the other hand, to demonstrate without proclamation is to have a superficial ministry that fades away with the first sign of trouble or difficulty.
Proclamation and demonstration are a package that must be served together to allow God’s purposes to be most powerfully realized.
Jesus healed and cast out demons but the most powerful demonstration of the proclamation of Jesus was his death on the cross and resurrection.
The movie Mel Gibson produced and directed, The Passion, is a film of the last twelve hours of the life of Christ. It is a bloody, realistic portrayal of the suffering Jesus endured so we could be set free from our sentence of eternal death.
Some are saying this film could gross $400,000,000 in the US and $1,000,000,000 worldwide. How God will use this film in the growth of the church only he knows, but people who go to see the film are overwhelmed by the depth of their understanding that Jesus suffered so terribly because of his love for us.
Jay Leno is a US talk show host who joked the night he had Mel Gibson on his show that Hollywood was so impressed with the success of this film about Christ, they were thinking of making it into a book.
My guess is that there will be many people who will watch the film and then open a Bible for the first time or perhaps the first time in a long time, And they will read the Bible because of the demonstration of the love of Jesus that was portrayed in the film.
Proclamation and demonstration was a package for Jesus and it must also be a package for us. We are called as Christians to be the hands and feet and voice of Jesus. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he gave us the responsibility of finishing his work. What Jesus modeled for us during his years on earth, we are to do in his name during our years on earth.
In Jesus’ conversation with Phillip from which I just read, Jesus went on to tell Phillip
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
It is clear to me that Jesus expects us to proclaim and then have our message backed up by demonstrations of the truth of what we proclaim.
How do we demonstrate that what we proclaim is true?
We demonstrate in natural ways that what we proclaim is true.
Practice what you preach, is a saying in the US. If you proclaim the truth of Jesus and then live a life that is in conflict with the teachings of Jesus, how can you expect that there will be any power in your teaching?
You can’t teach about being obedient to Jesus and then live in a sexual relationship outside of the covenant of marriage. You can’t expect to have much fruit from your proclamation of the truths of Jesus when you are seeking illegal means of getting what you want.
This past year a high profile Christian in the US who had promoted virtue in his books and talks, was discovered to have lost $8,000,000 over the last decade in slot machine gambling. All that he had said and promoted was discredited because he did not demonstrate what he proclaimed.
Practice what you preach and be real in how you live out your faith. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago and don’t want to go into it very deeply now. But you do not demonstrate what you proclaim by putting on a false face and pretending that everything is wonderful when it is not.
To demonstrate what we proclaim means that we be honest as we face difficulties, disappointments, and tragedy so that people around us can see the power of Christ in us to sustain us even when life is not easy.
We need to behave, make decisions, speak in ways that demonstrate what we proclaim. These are all important and not to be minimized. But there is a supernatural demonstration of what we proclaim that we need as well.
People will believe what we say because of how we live our lives but sometimes people are so deeply set in their ways that only a supernatural demonstration of the power of God will shake them up enough to hear the word of God.
This past Thursday night, a couple came to our prayer meeting. They have been wanting to have children and thus far been frustrated in their efforts. The woman is 45 and her husband 47. They have been to witch doctors and Imams and paid money in order to get help, but none of the promises they received have been fulfilled. So they came to one of the members of our church and asked if he and his friends could pray for them.
One of the reasons they came to this person is because there have been a couple times when a baby has been sick in their circle of friends and members of our church have prayed for healing and the babies have been healed.
These demonstrations of the power of God led them to ask for help.
As we prayed for them, the woman began to cry, sobbing. I asked what she was thinking or feeling but she would not say. The next morning she said, “I talked with my husband and said that no one has ever loved us this way before. My family has not cared for us this way and my husband’s family has never loved us this way. And then strangers showed me so much love and I felt so much love, I began to cry.”
Part of what she felt was a natural demonstration of our love but part of what she experienced was the love of Christ she opened herself to.
We also prayed, in faith, that she will bear a child in nine months as a demonstration of the power of Jesus over all false gods she has been seeking.
We work with the Holy Spirit to be transformed so that we can demonstrate the truth of what we proclaim. This is what the Bible calls sanctification, the second stage of salvation. This is something we can and must do. We work at conforming to the image of Christ. We work at being obedient. We learn to make good choices. We forgive when it is hard to forgive. We obey even when we are tempted to take an easier way.
But no matter how hard we work, no matter how much faith we have, we cannot heal people. We cannot cause a woman to become pregnant with her husband and bear a child. We do not have more power than the devil. We cannot cast demons out of those who are possessed.
All this is the work of God. Supernatural demonstrations of the power of what we proclaim can come only from God. We cannot manufacture them.
We can miss the opportunity to participate with God in his work. The man who came to our prayer meeting a few months ago left without any relief from this evil spirit that afflicted him because we were too unsure of how to handle the situation.
We must be open to what God wants to do supernaturally and be willing to risk so we can participate in the supernatural work of God.
I am convinced that in order for the church to wake up in this land, we need to see God work in supernatural ways. We need to see supernatural demonstrations that what we proclaim is true.
We live in a culture that consults witch doctors for help and being real and practicing what we preach will not be enough to help many with whom we come in contact.
I am praying and I encourage you to pray that God will unleash a supernatural demonstration of what we proclaim. This is something we cannot do. This is a work of God and I pray that we will be privileged to be a part of what God does.
Do not be afraid of taking on the responsibility God has given us. Continue to proclaim the message we have been given and pray that what we proclaim will be demonstrated in the way we live and in the way God acts.
