"the Inbreaking"

“The Inbreaking”

Mark 1:21-28

When I was a Junior and Senior in high school I went through a difficult spell.

I had always been one of the “good” kids, but for a number of reasons, I got in with a group of kids who were not mean people but were not heading in the right direction.

I felt extremely lost during this time of my life.

I knew I wasn’t being “myself.”

I was trying to fit in with a certain group.

One day while we were skipping school a group of us were crammed into a friend’s car, and on the speakers was a song by the band Pink Floyd.

The lyrics haunted me and made me sad as I heard them, “This is not who I am, I have become comfortably numb.”

Have you ever felt as if what you were doing was not who you are or who you were created to be?

Have you ever found yourself doing something that you know is wrong, but you feel like you have no control over the fact that you are doing it?

It’s like you can’t find a way out.

I used to feel this way about getting angry with my parents when I was young.

I would get in an argument with my mom or dad—and I didn’t want to do that, but I couldn’t help it.

I didn’t know how to avoid it.

I didn’t have the power; I didn’t have the authority.

We might find the same thing happening with our spouse or our children.

And we may think, what got into me?

It’s as if I was possessed.

I have been the man with the impure spirit in our Gospel Lesson for this morning.

Sometimes I still am.

I think we all have times when we are men and women living with unclean spirits.

They are those times when we betray our own integrity, when we are confused and lost, when we knowingly sin and cause harm or when we don’t do what we know we should do.

Can you relate to any of this?

(pause)

This brief section of Mark that we are looking at this morning is at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

He has been baptized by John in the Jordan and heard the voice of the Father affirm Who He is: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Then, He went to the wilderness for forty days overcoming the temptations of the devil who was trying to make Him “be” someone that He is not.

After John the Baptist was put in prison, He started proclaiming the good news of God, “The time has come, the kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news!”

That’s right, the Kingdom of God was breaking into our lost and broken world, fulfilling God’s promise to restore all things.

So, filled with the Holy Spirit, and now in the company of at least four followers, it is time for Jesus’ public ministry to get underway!

It’s time for the in-breaking of God to begin.

(pause)

There’s a man with an impure spirit in the synagogue where Jesus taught.

He’s not unique among them or us.

He represents where we all have been or where we are right now.

“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Have you come to destroy us?”

The people in the synagogue don’t tell the man to be quiet, to sit down, or to get out.

And that’s because he’s one of them and they are him.

He’s become so familiar and accepted in their lives and communities and so much a part of who they are that they neither react nor are they affected by him.

He’s not the unusual or strange thing about that day.

So, who is the unusual and strange one that day?

Jesus.

Jesus is the One Who astounds them and is so different from what they’ve seen or heard before.

They are so lost that the Good News of Jesus is what is strange and unusual.

“What is this? A new teaching—and with authority!”

I wonder if that happens to us too.

I wonder if sometimes we become so lost to ourselves, so self-alienated, so self-estranged, that the Good News sounds strange and a bit crazy to us.

“You want me to love my enemies? I can’t do that.

Don’t you know what they’ve done?”

“I should forgive how many times, Jesus?

Isn’t seven more than enough?

Didn’t you hear what she said, what he did?

They never change!”

“Those who live by the sword will die by the sword?

Jesus, don’t you understand that might makes right and peace is gained by superior firepower?

Now you are even telling me to turn the other cheek?