A Day in the Life of Jesus (Mark 1.16-39)
Today's sermon is called “A Day in the Life of Jesus”, and you probably know that there are a huge amount of books, films, documentaries that have a title like “A Day in the life of something”. It's a title format that works well, because we assume that with a typical day, we can get an idea of what someone's life is like.
Besides, I shouldn’t have been surprised to know that there is already a published book called “A Day in the Life of Jesus”.
This book was published by a historian and professor of the New Testament called Régis Burnet, and I don't know if the book is good or not, I haven't read it. But it shows, once again, the interest that we can take in someone's typical day to try to understand the person who experiences that typical day.
And that’s a bit of what we see in this text. In this text from Mark, we see a typical day in the ministry of Jesus with his disciples - at least a typical day in this phase of his ministry, at the beginning, in the region of Galilee. The story here describes a Saturday where a lot of things are really happening.
In three parts, we will see:
What is happening Before the day that is described here;
What is happening during this day;
What is happening After this day;
Before the day: the Call
Last week we saw the very beginning of Mark's gospel, with the baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry. We can read verses 14 and 15:
After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee. He proclaimed the good news [of the kingdom] of God and said, “The time has come, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Change your attitude and believe the good news!”
So Jesus began to preach, to proclaim the kingdom of God - he said that the time promised by the Old Testament prophets had arrived. These prophets promised that God would forgive and free His people from the oppression of sin, and that He would do this through a special person, the Messiah. So, according to Jesus' preaching, this moment had arrived. And the appropriate reaction to this arrival was to change one's attitude and to believe.
Then, in today's text, we see how Jesus calls his first disciples. Mark describes things so succinctly that one can have the impression that Jesus has hypnotized them: they drop what they are doing and follow without hesitation... But if we should not see hypnosis here on the part of Jesus, Mark still wants to show us to what extent there is something urgent about Jesus' call to his disciples.
It’s part of the “the time has come” momentum. The appropriate time to answer it is now. They leave an active life, with ongoing activities, to follow Jesus. They do not cut themselves off from society, but their lives have a new direction.
This introduction, with the call of the disciples, is also important because, in a way, Mark calls us to put ourselves in the shoes of these disciples. The way he tells us about the events is really a way of putting us in the shoes of Jesus' disciples. And it is not only a literary device to make the story more interesting, but also a way to make you ask the same questions and arrive, perhaps, at the same conclusions, as the disciples.
Now the team is assembled who will spend 24 hours with Jesus: Jesus himself, the disciples and, in a way, us the readers.
The day: the Authority…
Teaching
They will spend a day with Jesus but, certainly, not just any day of the week. Saturday was a day for them to go to synagogue, to read the scriptures together, to listen to someone teach the scriptures.
So they go to the synagogue in Capernaum, and it is Jesus who will teach. Mark does not say exactly what Jesus taught, but we can be sure that it is linked to what we saw before, in verse 15: the time has come and the kingdom of God is at hand. Certainly he taught this by showing quotes from the prophets.
And the people at the synagogue were impressed. Not only by the content of his teaching but by the authority with which he taught. Unlike the scribes, Jesus was not presenting a synthesis of a consensus of certain scholars who had debated for a long time. Jesus spoke of prophecies whose fulfillment passed through him. So it is not without surprise that he spoke in a confident manner, like someone who knows very well what he is talking about.
La reaction
But there is another reaction that was provoked by the teaching of Jesus: that of a demon. Here there is no real explanation of what a demon is. But Mark uses the expression “unclean spirit” and that communicates quite a bit. Already it is a spirit, therefore a supernatural entity, which we cannot really see or completely understand. And this spirit is impure. The word impure designates, in the Jewish world, a state of absence of possible communion with God and with others. So it is a spirit which is not in communion with God, and which acts against the communion of men with God.
So this unclean spirit reacts to Jesus' teaching. We can understand: if Jesus is announcing the kingdom of God, that is to say the restoration of communion between God and humans through the work of the Messiah, then it is really a program opposed to that of the spirit of non-communion.
He calls out to Jesus in an aggressive way, in an expression that is a bit like “Why are you bothering me? What do you want from me?” We see that the preaching of Jesus, for the impure spirit, is understood as a threat. In an attempt to gain the upper hand over Jesus, the unclean spirit shows that he knows Jesus' identity. But Jesus closes the debate, in a very simple way: he prevents him from speaking and he casts out the demon.
It’s interesting to see that Jesus doesn’t really have an exorcism “technique”. He has no incantation, no incense, no blessed object. He has his authority. He says, and the thing happens. And that’s what people still notice: his authority.
“What is this new teaching? He commands with authority even unclean spirits, and they obey!” (v.27)
We see that this episode of exorcism gives authority to the teaching of Jesus. The two things are mentioned together: his teaching and his miracle. Indeed, the fact that Jesus can provoke an impure spirit through his preaching and expel it through his authority shows that we are not really in a status quo - the moment has arrived, hence the fact that they call “new” teaching.
Healing
After the synagogue, we continue this day with Jesus. Jesus and the disciples enter where they are staying: the house of Simon's family. There, Jesus performs a new miracle, which is both very different and very similar to that of the synagogue.
Very different because, already, it is not the same problem. Marc distinguishes illness from possession, they are two different things. And Jesus also has authority in this area. But this does not mean that possession is a purely spiritual phenomenon, and that illness is a purely material phenomenon. Illness, in the Bible, is a symbol of the consequence of lack of full communion with God.
This does not mean that the sick person (here, Peter's mother-in-law) is sick because she committed a particular sin. But that she is sick because she, like all of us, lives in a fallen world, marked by sin, which must be renewed. Here, in a much more private, much quieter setting, Jesus makes the mother-in-law's fever go away.
Let us look at this again as a continuation of what he did during this Saturday already: he announces that the moment promised by the prophets has arrived. He announces that the kingdom is near: communion with God will be restored, and as an example an impure spirit is expelled. What sin has corrupted in the material world will be restored: and, for example, a disease is cured.
Once again, this miracle is part of this new teaching of Jesus, of the good news that he comes to announce.
The crowd
But the 24 hours with Jesus continue, and at the beginning of the evening people, who have heard about what Jesus did in the synagogue, come to see Jesus to ask for healings, liberations or exorcisms of impure spirits.
So we see the two examples we have seen so far, an exorcism and a healing, multiplied. People with different illnesses are healed, other impure spirits are expelled.
Again, they recognize who Jesus really is, but he does not allow his identity to be proclaimed by demons, but rather through his teaching and actions.
If until now, this Saturday would have already been very impressive, now we are going beyond the limits. And one can imagine Jesus' reputation growing even more after people noticed that these were not isolated episodes but that, indeed, he still had the power to heal and liberate. Certainly other people will come the next day, maybe even more people. And that’s where Jesus does something the disciples don’t understand: he leaves.
After the day: Departure
Jesus leaves to pray before daybreak. Probably to avoid being blocked by the crowd. The disciples manage to find him - he was probably in a place where he used to pray.
The vocabulary that Marc uses here is interesting: Simon and the others are looking for him. We could also translate: they are chasing him. It is a vocabulary normally used with negative connotations, of hunting or persecution. We can imagine the disciples looking for Jesus, almost indignant or angry… “where is Jesus now… this is not the time to disappear, people are lining up in front of the house!”
There are still people to heal. But Jesus says his mission is elsewhere. He must continue to preach in other places, he must continue to announce that the time has arrived, that the kingdom is near. That's why he came out. Healings and exorcisms, these elements are part of the power of his preaching, they are concrete manifestations of the kingdom that he announces, but it is preaching that is the center of his mission. In this logic, it is natural for him to move to other villages.
So he said: “Come on”. The disciples must go with him. They must follow him in his mission, not pursue him. Jesus told them, during their call, “follow me, I will make you become fishers of men.” They are not yet. If the call requires an immediate response, “making it become” is a process. They must understand even better the mission of Jesus, the centrality of his good news. They will become people who boldly proclaim this good news, who live as citizens of the kingdom of God, and who invite others to a newness of life. Jesus is going to make them become fishers of men.
But for now, they must follow Jesus and bear witness to other days like this. We can imagine that days like this were spent in many of the small towns and villages of the Galilee.
Conclusion
So that was a day in the life of Jesus and his disciples, during the beginning of his ministry. I said at the beginning that the Gospel of Mark invites us to put ourselves in the perspective of the disciples of Jesus in its narration. So, if we do this exercise, what conclusion can we draw?
Here, for this morning, I list three.
The Teaching, Authority, and Identity of Jesus
These three elements are closely linked. We see here that people were struck by Jesus' teaching because he preached with authority. We also see that when people see that Jesus had authority over impure spirits, they are surprised by his teaching. And they wonder about the identity of Jesus.
His teaching emanates from his authority, his authority emanates from his identity. His teaching indicates his authority, his authority indicates his identity. We could approach these three concepts from different angles, it is a rope with three threads woven very tightly.
This has a particular consequence, for example, for someone, say, who is beginning to be interested in the Christian faith, who wants to know more about the teaching of Jesus. If this is your case, this point shows you that the question of the identity and authority of Jesus is not really separable from his teaching. We cannot, for example, isolate “principles of life” from the teaching of Jesus, from the consideration of who he is. If Jesus is not, as Mark says, “the Christ, Son of God,” then his teaching truly loses its value.
This point risks being a recurring point of application during the following preachings, because the question of the identity of Jesus is the central point of the gospel of Mark.
Miracles in Proclaiming the Kingdom
Another element that we can draw from this episode is that the miracles of Jesus have a role in his preaching, in his proclamation of the approaching kingdom of God. And they must be understood within this framework, otherwise they will not be understood.
Jesus is announcing that God, through his Messiah, will restore communion with humans and take upon himself the consequences of men's sins. That time has arrived, but kingdom is near - it will yet fully manifest. These healings and exorcisms show people that he was the person through whom the kingdom comes.
But it must be recognized that these signs, although extraordinary, are of a temporary nature, and have prophetic value - they point to the future reality of the kingdom of God. These people who were healed, all, without exception, died. After a few or many years later.
But it is believed that Jesus died and rose again. That through his death he cleansed the impurity that separates us from God and freed us from the powers of darkness. That through his resurrection, we too will one day be resurrected, with bodies free from disease and other consequences of sin on nature. This is the full fulfillment of the announced kingdom. Miracles are only a foretaste, only a way of announcing what is to come.
Of course, this announced kingdom invites people to experience it now. But the invitation to live the kingdom now is not an invitation to live a miracle-filled life, any more than one prepares for dinner by eating 35 pieces of appetizers... The appropriate response to the Kingdom proclamation is change of attitude (repentance), faith, and discipleship. Which leads us to our third conclusion.
Follow vs. pursue Jesus
At the end of today's passage we see the disciples' first misunderstanding of what it meant to “follow Jesus”. It won't be the only one in Mark's gospel.
Despite the fact that they testified in a very direct way to the authority of Jesus, they are there “managing” him. They assume they know what should be his priority, where he should be taking action.
And we need to know that we often act the same way. We have witnessed a Jesus who works wonders, who changes lives, who has power and authority and… our next thought stops on our impression of what he should do. On what he should heal, on what he should restore, on what he should correct, on what he should judge.
So we're chasing him because we feel like he's not where he should be. But our role as disciples is to be where he is. To follow him. In the same way as with Simon and the others, he will “make us become”. He has his mission, the proclamation of his kingdom of God which invites new life in him. It is by following him, it is by accompanying him in his priorities, that he makes us become. In this posture we recognize in him, not only the God who heals, but the one who is our healing. Not only the God who liberates, but the one who is our freedom.