Sermon 10.6.2018
Focus Scriptures: 1 Sam: 8.4-20, 2Cor: 4.3-5.1, Mk: 3. 20-35.
The fishing village, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, called Capernaum is the closest we get to any place Jesus might have called home. From here He launches His Galilean ministry. News of Him has spread, giving Him celebrity status. He is a man whose words are backed up by miraculous actions.
In our gospel reading, a ‘great crowd’ has gathered where He lives. In the centre of this gathering we find Jesus and His newly formed band of apostles. This great crowd consists of folk from Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, and Idumea. There are also people there from beyond the Jordan and from Tyre and Sidon.
For Jesus it was a physically demanding day. Prior to selecting the 12, He had spent the night in prayer. The next day, having appointed them, He started their instruction. Later with pressure mounting, no rest+no time to eat, Jesus ministers to the large crowd; teaching, preaching.Unlike the scribes and Pharisees, this unauthorised rabbi speaks as one with authority. Jesus backs His words with actions by healing all manner of spiritual, psychological and physical sickness’.
Within the great crowd are 2 special interest groups with a mission.
- His agitated family and concerned friends from Nazareth; and
- A delegation of lawyers/spies from the Temple’s ecclestical authorities sent to assess the orthodoxy/threat level of this radical preacher and healer.
These two groups create an undercurrent that stands in contrast to others in that great crowd.
What was it about Jesus, that day, that agitated both these groups.?
I suspect it was drive, committment+ intensity they witnessed in Jesus. His intensity to be about His Father’s work and to serve an orphaned humanity. This divided people.The way folk ‘saw’ Him depended on whether they were looking with open minds and searching hearts…or hearts and minds that were fixed +closed . Were they looking through eyes of faith or unbelief.
It is important to remember that during His time among us, Jesus was always simply a man …The Second Adam had to be.
His divine attributes were laid aside…
He had to be tempted in every way we are…
Yet because of His intimate, prayerful attunement to the Father’s will and love… Jesus hosts within Himself the Presence, without measure, of the Holy Spirit. This is what sets Him apart. This was, the only source of His power.
At Pentecost this potential; to host the Spirit, that resurrected Christ, became ours through faith.
Jesus told us, that empowered by the Spirit, we would do even greater things than He did…and Jesus does not lie.
But the question is are we courageous enough, willing enough to take up whatever our task and cross is?(Alasdair)
Willing enough to be brave and to genuinely seek the will of the Father for us, and follow the intimations of His Holy Spirit?
Or allow fears and misgivings to paralyse us. What might be the cost to us, personally, socially,and professionally, if we open to and express a Christ-like Love and Service.
That evening in Capernaum Jesus is totally immersed in ministering to and serving the people.
He epitomises Psalm 69 ‘’ for zeal for your house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me’’.
It is this zeal of Jesus for God’s will for us, that ferments trouble with his extended family, over from Nazareth, and the ecclesiastic observers over from Jerusalem.
It seems to be an axiomatic truth, that once a person is being transformed by the Spirit of God, and now goes about doing good…that the green eyed slitherings from hell murmur:.
What is s/he up to?
S/he’s too good to be true.
Remember what s/ was like before?
These insinuations can drip feed poison, corrupting our attitude to a work of grace.
The extended family of Jesus have come from Nazareth to Capernaum to take control of Jesus. His zealous commitment to doing the works of God, created such consternation for them that they want to restrain Him and forcibly take Him home for He was ‘beside Himself’.
In there eyes, doing God’s work had unhinged Him. Jesus points to His followers as His new, true family. A very radical statement in those times.
The Jesus they now see, stands in marked contrast to the son of Joseph they had known almost 30 yrs.
Now He left his job…His home…His mother and everyone belonging to Him.
He’s now a celebrity healer with a motley collection of followers…
What was it about Nazareth…Jesus appointed no apostle from His home town. It seems the extended family kept at arms length…+cannot capitalise on Jesus, the rising star and miracle worker.
It is also significant that only in Nazareth, due to their lack of faith, that Jesus did not perform many miracles. ….And on a subsequent visit there His words caused such uproar in the synagogue that they attempted to throw Him off a cliff. Incidentally, we have no record of Jesus ever correcting Nathaniel for his un-pc comment ‘’Can anything good come from Nazareth !’’
The ecclesiastical representatives response to the evident miracles, is not to denounce them as magic tricks ,but to accuse Him of being possessed by Beelzebub, prince of demons, lord of the flies; and that it is by satan’s power that Jesus works His goodly miracles.
Jesus shows no personal indignation in his response to that accusation, but utters frightening words…concerning an unforgivable sin.
As if to say; ‘Insult me….that’s fine; but do not, in your malicious blindness, and malignant antagonism blaspheme the person of God’s Spirit by whom these wonders are performed.”
To blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God is symptomatic of a heart and mind at enmity with God. There are eternal consequences for ascribing diabolical powers to the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
This sin remains unforgiven because the offender is fixed firm in an impenetrable impenitence and seeks no forgiveness. For all sin, but the sin of not desiring pardon, is pardoned.
Many times we Christians fear that we may have committed the unforgivable sin… but be assured… the very anxiety that it has been committed… is proof positive that it has not been committed.
Wrap- Up
1. Throughout His time with us, all that Jesus did and said was through the Holy Spirit’s presence and divine power…thus revealing the very heart and will of the Father to us.
This is why Jesus Christ is our perfect theology.
2.Some day we will give an account of ourselves. Not in relation to God’s gift of our salvation, but in relation to what fruits the Holy Spirit was able to accomplish in/through our lives…..
But be of a confident heart…what grace expects grace supplies….so let us never tire of doing good.
3. Let us avoid wandering down the dead end-roads of self
religious self-effort,
self-determination,
self-generated will-power and
worthless self-righteousness.
Clinging to self, nurtures despair. Jesus is our sufficiency. In Jesus, is our transforming power.
Finally let us always remember… it is Jesus, and only Jesus, in the Triune Dance of the Trinity, who is the great author and finisher of our faith and salvation…and He always keeps His promises.
To Him is the glory for ever and ever.
Amen.
Look to Him; for God does not lie.
Amen.