The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 31, 2021

Mark 1:21–28

Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

The Evangelists emphasize the “authority” of Jesus, each in his own way.  St. Matthew does so by showing how the prophets spoke of the Lord, and how the Lord fulfilled both the Law and their prophecies.  St. Mark emphasizes it by showing how both the natural and the supernatural worlds bow to his very word.  For instance, in the Gospel reading for yesterday’s Mass (Mark 4:35-41), the Evangelist presented a sharp picture of the Lord commanding the winds and the storm threatening his Apostles on the Sea of Galilee.  He told the winds and the sea, “Quiet!  Be still!”  And they subsided immediately.  Throughout his Gospel, Mark devoted himself to showing what Jesus did and not as much to telling us what he said.  For instance, he relates very few of the Lord’s parables.  Instead, he fills his narrative with the Lord’s works, showing him as superior to all things and all people.

“The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority.”  He reveals the fullness of the teachings of the Law and the Prophets and does so on his own merit, and not relying on some acknowledged authority, such as a rabbinical writing.  And he shows the power which is the basis for his authority by casting out the demon that afflicts this man in the synagogue.  It cried out in its panic, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”  The demon seeks to protect itself by threatening to reveal the Lord’s identity before he is ready to do this himself.  This in spite of the fact that the demon did not really know who “Jesus of Nazareth” was.  

Utterly disregarding the demon’s words, the Lord speaks to it as he will speak to the winds and the storm: “Quiet!  Come out of him!”  And the demon leaves at once.  

The Lord commands storms, demons, diseases, and fig trees, and they do right away what he tells them to do.  He is the one who said, “Let there be light!”  And there was light.  He commands us too, but he does not force us to do anything, as he does these things.  But we ought to obey him even more readily than these other things, as a sign of our love for him.