Next we see in verses 23-34, Jesus authority to heal. There are two healings here, or more accurately, one healing and an exorcism. See Mark keeps using the word immediately. Why? He’s making us think of what he’s just written in 1:10, that when Jesus came up out of the water, immediately He heard a voice from Heaven. He’s reminding us of the source of Jesus’ power and authority is God. Jesus goes to the synagogue one Sabbath when He’s back in his home area. There was a man there with an unclean spirit, who started to yell at Jesus. He wanted everyone to know who Jesus was, that He was the Holy One of God. But if wasn’t Jesus time yet, His mission wasn’t complete, He wasn’t ready to reveal His full identity, so He silences the demon, and calls him out of the man! That’s amazing isn’t it? No wrestling, no incantations, to magic, just a word from Jesus, and the demon leaves the man alone. The people who see this are amazed at Jesus authority. Mark says it twice to make sure we don’t miss the point, verse 22 and verse 27.
Jesus isn’t finished yet. After synagogue He goes to Simon and Andrew’s house to eat lunch with them and James and John. I love the simplicity of that statement. What did Jesus do after church? He went to eat lunch with His friends! Just like you and me! But all is not well at Simon’s house, his mother-in-law is sick. So ‘immediately,’ they tell Jesus about her. Jesus comes and takes her by the hand…and the fever’s gone. Now, not only has the fever gone, but there’s no recovery time. You know when you’re getting over being sick you still don’t feel great for a couple of days. Not sick, but not well. That doesn’t happen here. She is so well that she can get up and start making lunch for the five men who have just arrived, plus whoever else might be ready to eat! She’s totally better already! What authority!
Suddenly Jesus ministry has a cosmic element to it. Suddenly instead of just being a preacher, He’s demonstrating His power of demons and over sickness. No one had ever seen anything like this before, no one could quite believe what was happening before their eyes. That’s why mark says that they are ‘amazed,’ in verse 27. See how the exorcisms and the healings prove Jesus authority, see how the Kingdom is at hand here, as demonic forcers and sickness are pushed back and people are freed from their power. No wonder when the Sabbath was over everyone came to see Him, imagine what a sight that must’ve been. Jesus has authority to heal.
In verses 21-23 and 34-39 we see Jesus authority to preach. Jesus tells Simon that preaching is the reason He ‘came out.’ This is how the Kingdom will come, through Jesus preaching. This is why He heals the sick and expels demons, to validate His preaching. But it is His preaching that is the important thing. Which makes it interesting that Mark waits until chapter 4 to actually tell us some of the things He said. Why is that? Because Mark wants us to see what happens when this Kingdom preaching is unleashed on the world. What happens when Jesus preaches? People get healed, the demons are chased away, people are astonished and scared, people follow Him, and people are amazed at His authority. When Jesus preached people got saved, or people got mad. That’s how we react to authority isn’t it? We either obey it or we rage against it. This is what was happening at the synagogue before the confrontation with the demon. Jesus was preaching.
Imagine that, He comes to synagogue, where maybe some people know who He is, and just starts preaching to them. I love verse 27, ‘what is this? A new teaching and with authority.’ It’s like, ‘yeh Ed’s ok, but this guy has authority!’ He was so different to every other teacher around Him, so different to anything that people had heard before. And then in verse 38 he tells the people looking for Him, ‘I’ve done my job here, there’s lots of other towns in Galilee, let’s keep moving.’ And He goes on preaching in all those other towns.
And look at what Jesus is doing when they find Him…praying! Jesus got up early in the morning to be alone and pray! That’s amazing when you think about it.
So how does Heaven break lose? When the Gospel is preached. The Kingdom advances as the Gospel is preached, the demons are defeated and the sick are healed. Don’t ever separate what Jesus did from what Jesus said. We need the message and the miracles, we need to see and hear what Mark wants us to. I’m going to state the obvious here. You and I can’t heal, but we can preach. You can I can’t preach with the authority of Jesus, but we can share the same truth in the same way. People may not be astonished at our teaching, but they can be astonished at who we’re preaching about. That should be our aim.
So this is the Kingdom of God advancing. Mark wants to know,
are you in? Are you part of what’s going on? Or are you wasting your life on
the sideline? Mark wants to know, what can you do to be part of the Kingdom of
God advancing? Who can you tell?
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