31st January 2021
Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany
Title: Jesus’ Authority & Christian Freedom
(1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28) By Heeyoung Lim
Today is the fourth Sunday after Epiphany. I hope the light of Epiphany will shine upon all of us.
When you think of your school days, what do you remember the most? Do you remember a special teacher? How much of the contents in all the teachings and sermons, do you remember from all your preachers? Most likely not that much.
Mark tells us that Jesus preaches, but he gives us little of the content of Jesus’ sermons. It focuses on who Jesus is. Teaching focuses are more about relationship and existence rather than information and content in many cases.
This story is about food sacrificed to idols. In the Greek culture of Paul’s day, families often participated in religious sacrifices, offering sacrificial animals in pagan temples.
Corinthians said to Paul. “We all possess knowledge.” The knowledge is that idols were nothing and that there is only one God, but not everyone understood it. They have not realized that human knowledge is fragmentary.
Knowledge can result in humility and love, but often it produces unsympathetic arrogance. Love always builds us up while knowledge often make us arrogant. Paul wanted the Corinthians to place a priority on love, not on knowledge and he said, “whoever loves God is known by God.” (1 Corinthians 8:1, 3)
What a blessing! You are known by God because you love God. Today’s text indicates the primacy of love over knowledge, and it is connected to believers’ behaviour.
There could be no problem with eating the meat offered to idols since it had been offered to something that did not exist. (4) In comparison with Jesus, demons need not be feared because they are nothing under Jesus’ name. That is why Paul felt free to permit the Corinthians to eat meat sacrificed to idols.
However, Paul insisted that their proper theological conclusions did not justify their deeds. They sinned by eating meat sacrificed to idols, it was not because of the idols, but because of the damage to fellow believers. (7)
Paul is pastorally concerned for those with weak consciences, so he led the Corinthians to restrain their behaviour, and he warned that the freedom might become a stumbling block to the weak. (9)
We have great freedom in the gospel, but we need to be aware of our weaker brothers and sisters in Christ. Christian freedom needs to be sacrificed when it leads others to sin. We sin against Christ if we cause other believers to sin.
Using knowledge of Christ is necessary to avoid sin because proper theological knowledge can lead us away from sinning against Christ, others, and ourselves. Christian freedom grows as Christian understanding grows, but our freedom should be in consideration of others and communities.
People try to limit other’s freedom according to their prejudice, fixed idea, and stereotypes, but Christians must not resent or condemn those who are involved with the differences.
The freedom of individuals and communities in the gospel need to be respected by weaker brothers and sisters in Christ too, because the freedom in the gospel is greater than our own.
To do this we need to seek to improve our Christian understanding, have openness to others and to love one another.
God’s words and truth needs to be kept in any situation, but ways of keeping it should be in love and consideration. We need to have freedom in truth and love in communities if we are part of God’s family.
Mark 1 talks about “who Jesus is?” more than the contents of Jesus’ teaching. The cultural distance between the past and the present challenges for interpretation regarding today’s text.
On the Sabbath Jesus enters the synagogue and begins teaching. The people who heard him teach were amazed, “for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Mark 1: 21,22) They had never experienced such authority and they were utterly amazed.
We can imagine a scene in a Capernaum synagogue which has worship, teaching, and the community are gathered. There would be possible questions of Jesus’ authority. For instance, “For whom does he speak and act?”, “Who has authorized his ministry? “, and “Is he really sent by God?”
The service from the synagogue was interrupted by the cries of a man who was possessed by an evil spirit. Here the voice was not from heaven, it came from the unclean spirit.
Immediately Jesus was encountered by Satan, but it became an opportunity to show his authority over the power of Satan. The man’s personality had been damaged, and his existence was under the demon’s control. (23)
The question “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? shows that there was more than one demon possessing the man and causing him to cry out. The demons with the unclean spirit found Jesus, and clearly recognized the authority and mission of Jesus.
Jesus ordered the demon to “be quiet” as he commands the sea to “be still”. He rebuked the unclean spirit and the sea. (Mark 4:30) Jesus healed the man, and His exorcism represented a demonstration of authority. It results in healing and restoration, and the people were amazed once again. (27) Those who witness it are utterly amazed both by the authority of his teaching and his authority over the unclean spirits. The impact of his actions causes his reputation to grow throughout Galilee. (28)
The command to come out of him has meanings that God’s enemies are beginning to be defeated, and the rule over the world is about to end. It is the conflict between the power of evil and the power of God in this battlefield of life.
There are times when Jesus’ teaching causes conflict with the authority in those in religious and political power. But here he is causing conflict with the powers of darkness. Jesus is not just healing a suffering man. He is challenging the powers of the evil one.
Whenever Satan or demons are trying to destroy us in our lives, we need to cast them out. How? God makes us defeat them in the name of Jesus, He restores us by His power. We have been rescued from the evil one and restored through the crucified and risen Christ.
Jesus, the sacrificial servant, began his ministry by preaching and teaching the good news with authority and proved it by casting out the demon. It was the first public deed of power in his ministry. Jesus denied and neutralized the unclean spirits’ capability to have a fixed place or unshakable influence in the world. Jesus’ “authority” and “power” over the unclean spirits continue to take us over.
One more thing we need to remember is that the term “immediately” appears three times in this story (21, 23, and 28). The immediacy of God’s reign and rule is breaking in our lives and ministries right now.
We are also amazed by Jesus’ authority and his teachings and deeds in our lives. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer “deliver us from evil,” and we can shout out “Be silent, and come out of our unstable and shaking minds in the name of Jesus.”
Jesus’ authority and His ministry invites us to imagine a different place and transformed existence. Whether in the first century world of a healing in a synagogue or in our gathering of worship today. The kingdom of God, the reign and rule of God’s power and authority is manifested in Jesus Christ. This is an epiphany story for all who gather to worship God on 31st January 2021.
How do we live with Jesus’ authority as Christians with freedom permitted by God in this sophisticated 21st century and COVID affective society?
We are belonging to God as His children, and we can trust God to protect, preserve, and provide for us during the “complexed and unexpected desert times” of our lives.
Our knowledge requires the love of God and self-sacrifice as an extended family. I believe the good news of salvation is spreading through our words and actions in love. I hope we can appreciate Jesus gives us amazement, healing, and comfort day by day whenever and wherever He is with us. I pray we can be healed and transformed in Jesus’s authority and Christian freedom as God’s family and church.
Being Known by God and Being with Jesus are our blessing. All we are blessed Christian family who love God and others at the same time.
Thanks be to God! Amen!
(Ref. Bible, commentaries, theological books, UCA materials)
Leighmoor Uniting Church
Helping people into a living relationship with Jesus Christ
