Fourth Ordinary

Mark 1: 27 – 28

Everyone there was incredulous, buzzing with curiosity. “What’s going on here? A new teaching that does what it says? He shuts up defiling, demonic spirits and sends them packing!” News of this travelled fast and was soon all over Galilee.

I was walking past a schoolyard and the kids were hanging out waiting for the bell to ring to start the school day. As kids will, some little third-grader was taunting another one. She said, “Why should I listen to you? You’re just a dork.”

For the gazillionth time one kid put down another kid by trying to demean and diminish who they are. Adults do it, too. In fact it was an adult in the synagogue where Jesus was teaching who cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

It may not seem as though the name, “Jesus of Nazareth” is a put-down. But in this case it was. The unclean spirit in this man obviously recognised that this teacher spoke with the authority of God. And he wanted to diminish that power by limiting Jesus to his human identity. Rather than calling him Jesus, Son of God, he wanted him to be simply Jesus of Nazareth, a regular Joe like anyone else.

He wasn’t just Jesus of Nazareth, he was also Jesus, Son of God. His origins were not just a sleepy town in Judea. His origins were in God’s own self. And as the Son of God, Jesus came to liberate us from the unclean spirits that plague us all – even the unclean spirit that wants to put others down.