4^th Sunday of the Year [B] 2012

In the first reading today, as he was dying at the entrance to the Promised Land, Moses promised the people: A prophet like me will the Lord your God raise up for you from your own kin; to him shall you listen.” God did raise up many prophets after Moses, but none would compare with Jesus. Jesus spoke God’s word, as Moses said he would. But Jesus was even more than someone who spoke God’s word, he was God’s Word, he was God’s Son. When Moses said, “to him shall you listen,” he was not, however, foretelling the future. He had seen this fractious people in action; he was telling them what they should do. But often they refused to listen. In this way Jesus experienced the same fate as the prophets before him.

From the beginning of Mark’s gospel, St. Mark wants us to know who Jesus is. He introduced his gospel with the words: “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” A few verses later we hear the testimony of John the Baptist that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. Then Mark tells of the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism: “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

Today, not even half way through Mark’s first chapter, he gives us more information about Jesus, but from an unexpected source… the devil. The people in the synagogue recognize the power in Jesus’ teaching and that he is a prophet, that is, that he speaks the word of God. But he speaks that word with a freshness and a power that they had never seen before. But the devil is no dummy. The devil catches on immediately. The devil cries out from the person who is possessed: “I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”

The devil is not only perceptive and clever, but would remember everything. The devil would remember the announcement of the angels to the shepherds when Jesus was born: “Today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ the Lord.” The devil would have remembered the visit of the Magi, coming from far away to see a King when Jesus was born. So in this first miracle St. Mark recounts, he not only wants us to know who Jesus is, but he wants us to know that he was not afraid of the evil powers in this world, and was willing to face them head on: “Quiet! Come out of him!”

Two more things strike me about this story. (1) about Jesus. Jesus is admired by many people today. He is considered a good person, a person who cared greatly about others, a person who was a great teacher. Muslims even consider him to be a great prophet. But that is all he is in the minds of many people. We, as Christians, see Him differently. He is not someone we can choose to follow or ignore, depending on whether we agree with him or not. He is the Holy One of God; He is God’s Son. When he speaks to us, as Moses said, we shall listen to him. (Not that we always do, but it’s what we should do. That’s one of the reasons we come to Mass on Sunday—the whole first part of the Mass focuses on hearing the Word, not my words, but God’s Word, reflecting on it, and acting on it.)

(2) The second thing that strikes me about this story is the devil. We don’t hear much about the devil, except in jokes. But the devil is not a joke. These days it seems that many people, not even church-going Christians, believe in angels, and rightly so. (I have always thought it the height of arrogance to think that we are the top of the food chain, that God could not have created other beings different or even superior to ourselves.) So, if we believe in angels, pure spirits close to God, should we not also believe in the existence of evil spirits as well, the creatures spoken of in the Book of Revelation?

The devil is not a joke. The scriptures, both Old Testament and New Testament, take him seriously. Some sicknesses such as epilepsy or mental illnesses had been attributed to the devil in past centuries. We now believe they have other causes. But in my experience as a priest, I definitely believe there are evil powers at work in the world. We can correctly name those powers the devil. I have never had any dramatic experiences like this story in today’s gospel, or like the movie The Exorcist, which by the way, in most respects is based on a true story. But I am convinced that the devil never takes a vacation or a day off. The devil doesn’t even need to sleep at night. Mostly, I believe, the devil is at work and we don’t even know he is there. He knows our weaknesses and he preys on those, helping us to make the wrong choices. For example, if I am an envious person, the devil gives me suggestions to help me give in to that trait, and the same with other weaknesses, such as hatred, out of control anger, lust, pride, greed.

I certainly don’t say this to frighten you. There is one stronger than the devil, who can help us if we listen to him. He directly confronted Evil on that Sabbath in the synagogue in Capernaum, and he has not stopped. He is the “holy one of God.” In a few minutes he will enter our very being at Communion. He can free us as thoroughly as that man in the synagogue. Thanks be to God!