PENnED

Read Mark 1:21-28 

What can words do? A lot!

Imagine what a single word can do to a young man who’s been courting a girl for years and about to give up when all of a sudden she responds to his seemingly useless wooing with a ‘yes.’

Sadly, however, if words can make one ecstatic, they can also make one’s life a tragic.

Can words kill? No, not directly that is. But CBS News reports that “more than 150 children have taken their own lives in recent years because they were victims of harassment in school and online.” *

We cannot undermine the power of speech because, indeed, words can either build or destroy!

When it comes to the words of Jesus, his words have direct power. He simply speaks and the man possessed by an evil spirit is delivered. It is because of the power of the words of Jesus that, as a teacher, he was perceived as “one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.”

I don’t think that the teachers of the law were bad teachers, or that they did not teach the truth. Speaking the truth, however, does not make one a person of authority. If it does, then the man possessed by an evil spirit was a person who had authority because he truthfully declared Jesus: “I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” (v. 24b).

What makes Jesus different is that his words are the very words of the Word. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John the evangelist declares: “¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

In the creation story in Genesis 1 the phrase “And God said” jumps out of the text as it is repeatedly used to show how God created. In the Gospel of John, “the Word of God” is not just some verbal utterance but a person, namely, Jesus.

Jesus speaks with authority because he is a person of authority. He is the Lord and, therefore, every word he utters is the very word of God.

God’s word is not just meant to declare truth, however important that maybe.  In the first place, we notice that the Word of God acted in creation. Then, in this Gospel narrative, we see the Word being active in redemption because, although everything God created “was very good” (Gen. 1:31), at some point evil entered the world and tried, and still do, to “possess” God’s creation, especially the human race.

The deliverance of the demon possessed man in the synagogue illustrates the insidious influence of evil. But, more importantly, it shows the power of the Word to deliver and redeem and restore.

And, I believe, that the Word will do the final act of re-creation in the making of “a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13).

On a personal level, our relationship with the Word can change our lives in a very powerful way. We may not like comparing ourselves to the demon-possessed man in this Gospel story but the truth is, evil has also gotten hold of us. The good news, Jesus, the Word, can redeem and restore us if we put our faith in him. If we do, then we can also look forward to our eternal home—not heaven, which is a temporary “residence” of the faithful who die, but the “new heaven and new earth”!

(Thank you for reading. Please make your thoughts known and write your comment. And if this is worth reading, please share it with your friends. -Ed)