"In Truth, I Tell You."

"JESUS went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee, and began teaching the people at the Sabbath meetings.  They were astonished at the way HE taught them, for HIS word was spoken with authority.

In the synagogue, there was a man possessed by an evil spirit, who shouted in a loud voice, 'What do YOU want with us, JESUS of Nazareth?  Have YOU come to destroy us?  I recognize YOU: YOU are the Holy One of GOD.'  Then JESUS said to him sharply, 'Be silent and leave this man!'  The evil spirit then threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him harm.

Amazement seized all these people, and they said to one another, 'What does this mean?  HE commands the evil spirits with authority and power.  HE orders, and you see how they come out!'  And news about JESUS spread throughout the surrounding area." - Luke 4:31-37  

(Mark has shown us how JESUS began HIS public life: HE became part of a movement of conversion that had shaken everyone at the call of John the Baptist.  It was then that JESUS began preaching and met HIS first disciples.

Mark will now give us a "day" in the life of JESUS.  Through HIS words and actions, a power that impresses every witness becomes manifest.  At the beginning of HIS ministry, JESUS preaches in the synagogues.  The synagogue is the Jewish house of prayer.  People gather each Saturday for the chanting of the Psalms and the reading of the Scriptures.  The one in charge preaches and invites others to join.  This is where JESUS reveals HIMSELF.  HE is not like the teachers of the law who repeat, interpret, and give others' opinions.  JESUS speaks on HIS own and HE speaks with authority, "In truth, I tell you."

With the same authority JESUS drives out demons.  This act also contains a message: JESUS delivers us from the influence of the Devil, who strives to destroy those created in the likeness of GOD.

This "Master of the world" [John 14:30] is present in all human business and culture to deceive human purposes and converts any progress into new slavery.

In JESUS' time, but much more rarely in the Chruch's time (our time), there were some persons possessed by the Devil.  JESUS freed quite a number of people from this slavery and disease.  Physical possession is not the usual way of the devil's activity in humans.  The Devil operates (far more dangerously because we do not feel it) in the moral life of people.  He blinds and confuses them with regard to the truth, disguised as the angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

Not that the Devil is the cause of every sin and evil that people do.  There are also the selfishness of our "flesh" and the lure of the false promises of "the world" but the Devil, as enemy of GOD's kingdom, is never at rest.  He always nurtures our temptations.  With holier persons who are not easy to temp in a direct way, he goes about deceiving them persuading them to give more importance to their own good purposes than to the advice of others and the teaching of the Church.

The Devil notices at once those who are capable of weakening or destroying his empire.  Then he awakens the bad, the mediocre, the foolish and the ill-fated against them.  That is why wherever JESUS goes the Devil also appears.)

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