January 10, 2023 – Mark 1:21-28

Today’s passage describes a day in Jesus’ life in which he in which he carries out the main activities of his mission: teaching and healing. He is in Capernaum and on Sabbath day, like any observant Jew, he goes to the synagogue where he begins to teach, but is interrupted by an unclean spirit whom he orders to leave.

Both the exorcism and the teaching in the synagogue manifest an ‘authority’ (in Greek, exousìa) that appears astounding from the outset because it does not rest on any other words or on other ‘authoritative’ figures to achieve its effect, but is exercised directly by Jesus in his own name. 

An authority that immediately distinguishes Jesus from the scribes who who, while teaching in the synagogue and enjoying a certain authority within the Jewish community, cannot can exercise the same power. 

Indeed, the scribes themselves, along with the priests, will on other occasions ask Jesus ‘by what authority’ he acts when, for example, he drives the merchants out of the temple (Mk 11:27 ff) or practices healings on the Sabbath.

The day in Capernaum takes place on a Sabbath, the day when God rested after having created man. On this day Jesus restores the world to its original beauty with his powerful authority that makes him as we shall hear on another Sunday, “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28).

Moreover, in the Gospel according to Mark, Christology is centered on the idea that Jesus is the New Adam. We see this in the desert scene, that is, in the account of his temptation Jesus is “cast out” there (Mark 1:12) just as Adam had been “cast out” of the paradise (Gen. 3:24), thus sharing its misfortune, but later emerging victorious from the trial: at the end of it, Mark records, Jesus “stood with the beasts” (i.e., at peace with the creation, as had been the case with Adam) “and the angels served him” (i.e., receiving the same honor that, according to a rabbinic tradition, God had given to his most beautiful creature, the honor of being fed by the good spirits). 

In Mark’s Gospel we do not see Jesus as a child, as in the infancy gospels of Matthew and Luke, but already an adult, a made man, as Adam was also made an adult.

For good workers…

– If we, too, recognize Jesus’ authority and put his

teaching, we will experience healing and deliverance in our lives.

P JOBY KAVUNGAL RCJ