Week of 1 Epiphany: Tuesday, Year 1

Above:  A Remnant of a Mosaic from Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey

Authoritative Jesus

JANUARY 12, 2021

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Holy Women, Holy Men:  Celebrating the Saints (2010), of The Episcopal Church, contains an adapted two-years weekday lectionary for the Epiphany and Ordinary Time seasons from the Anglican Church of Canada.  I invite you to follow it with me.

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Hebrews 2:5-13 (Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition):

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.  It has been testified somewhere,

What is man that you are mindful of him,

or the son of man, that you care for him?

You have made him a little lower than the angels,

you have crowned him with glory and honor,

putting everything in subjection under his feet.

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control.  As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.  But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and to whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.  For he who sanctifies those who are sanctified have all one origin.  That is why he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,

I will proclaim your name to my brethren,

in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.

And again,

I will put my trust in him.

And again,

Here am I, and the children God has given me.

Psalm 8 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):

1 O LORD our Governor,

how exalted is your Name in all the world!

2 Out of the mouths of infants and children,

your majesty is praised above the heavens.

3 You have set up a stronghold against your adversaries,

to quell the enemy and the avenger.

4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,

5  What is man that you should be mindful of him?

the son of man that you should seek him out?

6 You have made him but little lower than the angels;

you adorn him with glory and honor;

7 You give him mastery over the works of your hands;

you put all things under his feet;

8 All sheep and oxen,

even the wild beasts of the field,

9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea,

and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.

10 O LORD our Governor,

how exalted is your Name in all the world!

Below:  Nebula NGC 1999

Mark 1:21-28 (Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition):

And they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught.  And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.  And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth ?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know what you are, the Holy One of God.

But Jesus rebuked him, saying,

Be silent and come out of him!

And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.  And they were all amazed, saying,

What is this?  A new teaching!  With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.

And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

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The Collect:

Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

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Some Bible stories sound odd to many of us for whom the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s remains influential.  The Hellenistic world of Jesus and his Apostles was one in which one could claim that demonic possession causes epilepsy or schizophrenia or some other ailment and almost nobody would disagree.  Those who wrote the Gospels did not disagree with that assessment.  Yet I have a different mindset.   Nevertheless, I choose not to permit this point to distract me from the major lesson in the reading from Mark.

The Gospel According to Mark portrays Jesus as a powerful and mysterious figure.  He knows who he is.  Unclean spirits know who he is, and so does Satan.  Yet Jesus’ closest associates fail to understand him until his crucifixion and resurrection, which reveal his true nature.  This is the Messianic Secret, which our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection reveal:  the Messiah has come to die and rise again.  This is a different understanding of Messiah than many had at the time and many continue to harbor; Jesus was not the conquering hero;  he came to die and rise again.

And, unlike other teachers of the Jewish faith, he did not use constant verbal citations to what a great scholar had said.  No, he taught with authority.  More importantly, Jesus acted with authority, and this gave his words more authority than they would have had otherwise.

The Incarnation affirms human nature.  We are wretches, of course, but we also bear the image of God.  Both are true, and we need to balance the two sides well.  What are we that God is mindful of us?  We are children of the living God, bearers of the divine image.  God has walked among us, healed us, taught us, and looked like us.  God has taken on our sins and died for us.  God as risen from the dead for us.

I am not a parent, nor I desire that role.  But I am a child, and I know that my parents love me actively and sacrificially.  The parental metaphor, therefore, is a beautiful way of understanding God’s relationship with each of us.

Who are we that God is mindful of us?  We are the apples of God’s eyes.  May we, by grace, be the best apples, for the sake of each other and the glory of God.

KRT

http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/authoritative-jesus/

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