Mark 1:21-28

21 They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, 24 “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
25 “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” 26 The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
27 The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” 28 News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

Jesus Is the Devil’s Downfall

If I told you that I just witness something “amazing,” what kind of picture would your imagination start painting even before I told you what it was? Would you picture a magic act? A random act of incredible kindness from one stranger to another? How about the miracle of birth?

All of those things certainly are amazing in their own ways, but when we read in our Gospel Lesson for today that “the people were amazed” – literally, in Greek, “the people were struck out of their senses” – it wasn’t at the sight of Jesus walking on water. It wasn’t at the sight of Jesus healing a blind or deaf person, or even raising someone from the dead. It wasn’t from anything you can see at all! Mark tells us that “the people were amazed” – they were “slapped silly” – “at his teaching.”

When was the last time you were gob smacked by a sermon? (Careful, now… Pastor may not be here, but he’s watching from home…) When was the last time that hearing someone simply talk made your jaw drop to the floor? Even in the TED Talk era, a captivating speaker is hard to find, but these people in Capernaum had one! They were gob smacked, flabbergasted, slapped silly by what Jesus had to say.

And do you know the frustrating part? Mark doesn’t tell us a word of what Jesus had to say that day! All he says is that Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. In fact, Mark records more words spoken by a demon in this passage than by Jesus!

Of course, demon possession is a fascinating topic, and we’ll get to that, but I want to linger here for a bit, because right here we see what Jesus’ own priorities were. He wasn’t going from town to town to put on a show. He wasn’t making a spectacle of himself. He wanted to people to listen to what he had to say. He wanted people to know who he was and what he came to do.

The interesting thing is that – of all the people there – it was the demon who was listening to Jesus. He hit the nail on the head when he called Jesus “the Holy One of God.” That was a special title given in the Old Testament to refer to the Promised Saviour. It also happened to be literally true; Jesus was the perfect, sinless Son of God. And he came, not to spend his days driving out demons, not even to occupy his time healing diseases or raising the dead. He came to save souls, and the way to do that is with powerful words.

It’s impressive to see organizations that make a positive impact in their communities. It’s inspiring to hear of humanitarians putting themselves out to give other people a hand up. And those are blessings from God, but the way to change the world is by changing people’s hearts. And the way to reach people’s hearts is by speaking to them of amazing things.

Amazing things like a holy God who loved an unholy and impure world so much that he was willing to sacrifice his perfect Son to save it. Amazing things like a God who is willing to be sinned against again and again, and to forgive again and again. Amazing things like a God who looks at you – with all your flaws and foibles and failings – and who loves you anyway.

Jesus did not come to destroy, as the demon feared he did. He came to demonstrate his saving grace through powerful acts of love. That’s why Jesus followed up his authoritative words with authoritative action and drove that demon out with a stern command, “Be quiet! Come out!” The last thing Jesus needed was the endorsement of one of the devil’s cronies. He needed their voices silenced so that we could hear his voice and listen to his Word.

How many times a day do you think you hear the devil’s voice? It may be more than you realize. It’s the devil or his demons who whisper in your ear when you see something you want but can’t have, “Just take it! Just do it! Who’s gonna know? Even if they find out, it’s none of their business. You do what’s right for you.”

Of course, it’s also the devil or his demons who quickly change their tune once they convince you to turn up your nose at God’s law. “How could you?” they accuse. “God definitely saw you. You’re such a liar, a hypocrite; you’re so selfish, thoughtless. How could you, and how could God ever forgive you?”

It’s the devil or his demons who want nothing more than to drive a wedge between you and God, e.g. to convince you that God doesn’t care what you do… until you do it, and then the devil convinces you that God cares more than you could possibly know. The devil and his demons want you to fear God just like this demon did, “Have you come to destroy us?”

But the amazing thing about Jesus is that he’s the devil’s downfall – and not just because he has the power to drive out demons. Jesus is the devil’s downfall because he takes the teeth out of the devil’s empty lies. When the devil flaunts your failures and flings your impurity in your face and makes you fear the wrath of God, Jesus shows you his amazing, incredible, jaw-dropping love.

Jesus came to be the Holy One of God. He came to be the Saviour God promised to generations of fearful, but faithful believers. The Son of God came to be holy, i.e. to be right where you’ve gone wrong. Jesus came to be your substitute and your sacrifice, to take all your sin away and silence the devil and all his demons. There is nothing you have to fear from God! He did not come to destroy you but to save you. And he does that by speaking to your heart even to this day.

Sometimes we get to passages like this one and we hear about the epic sermons that Jesus preached that left the people gob smacked and I just wish we could have been there that day. I just wish that someone could have recorded them or written them down so that we could know what they knew, so that we could feel like they did. But we can, because someone has.

No, Mark didn’t record this sermon for us leaving us slack-jawed and starry-eyed, but he did leave us a record of Jesus’ life and the sacrifice he made for your sins. He wrote it in a book and left it on your shelf as a constant companion for you on your earthly walk. God gave it to you so that you could have the divine authority of Jesus with you wherever you go – the same authority that drove out demons, the same authority that silences Satan, the same authority that opens heaven to sinners like you.

So, as impressive as it may be to think of Jesus speaking an authoritative command to a demon, “Be quiet! Come out!” the real power was in the word he preached in that synagogue. Even though we don’t know the exact words he used, we know the general message. It’s the same thing that Jesus preached in his very first sermon, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news” of your salvation.

Jesus is the devil’s downfall because he defeats your greatest enemy and makes God your friend. It’s the same thing that Martin Luther wrote about in his famous reformation hymn:

Though devils all the world should fill,
All eager to devour us,
We tremble not, we fear no ill;
They shall not overpow’r us.
This world’s prince may still
Scowl fierce as he will,
He can harm us none.
He’s judged; the deed is done!
One little word can fell him.

That word is Jesus. He’s the devil’s downfall and he’s your Saviour. Amen.

Jonah 3:1-5,10

1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of
Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

God’s Unchanging Grace Changes Lives

I want you to think back on your most recent or your biggest regret.

What would you have given to have a second chance to make things right? To be able to swallow the words that so carelessly came out of your mouth? To take back the actions inspired by anger or frustration? To seize that rare opportunity that you watched slip through your fingers?

Second chances are about as rare as they are precious. When you score an all-too-elusive do-over it’s enough to change your whole outlook on life. It gives you new hope and a soothed conscience. It makes you feel that all is right in the world.

So, imagine being told by God to go to Nineveh and preach the Gospel there, i.e. to reach out to your sworn political enemy in an attempt to spare them from the destruction that they fully deserve; to be an agent of mercy to your cruel and barbaric neighbor to the North.

It’s not hard to understand why Jonah ran away. He didn’t want God’s grace to come to these people. He wanted God’s wrath to come to them, and, if I’m completely honest, I don’t know that I would have responded any differently. Would you run to the defense of people you don’t respect, people you actively despise? Or would you find sick delight in your opponents’ demise?

So, imagine that you’re Jonah, and in your distaste for the mission that God gave you and in your fear that God might actually be gracious to your enemy and spare them, you charter a boat to take you as far away from Nineveh as humanly possible. Only, one night, a squall hits – not unlike the squall we had this last week – a storm so severe that the seasoned sailors you hired to man the ship have given up all hope and have turned to whatever superstition or religion might offer them the miracle that they need to survive.

As you see them helplessly flailing for hope, you feel your conscience pricked. You know where to go for help, but it’s hard to pray to God to come to your aid when you’re in the process of running away from him. And then it hits you: this is no ordinary storm. This is an act of God’s judgment against you. The wrath you wanted God to visit on your enemies had come knocking on your door because of your willful rebellion against your gracious God. And now you’ve put these otherwise innocent sailors in harm’s way because of your sin. So you do the only honorable thing left – you have them throw you into the sea, so that God’s wrath can be satisfied and so that they can be spared.

If it gave you any sense of satisfaction to think of your selfless sacrifice for the sake of those sailors, you better believe those warm-and-fuzzies got cold-and-prickly quickly when you realized that there was a fish in the water big enough to swallow you whole, when you felt the rush of water pulling you into its gaping mouth, where, in what may be the cruelest twist of fate to date, you survive. Inside an animal. In the depths of the sea. In complete darkness. With nothing but your thoughts. With nothing but your guilt. With nothing but an aching regret that you didn’t listen to God.

Can you imagine the pangs of conscience? You know regret. Every one of us does. But has any of us known regret like that? Has any of us craved the mercy of God like that? So, imagine, after three days of nothing but darkness and regret, seeing the light of day again. Who cares what vile way you might have gotten out of that fish, or what unsightly stretch of land you may have been spat up on? God’s mercy had come! Here was your second chance!

They may have sounded mundane/routine when you first heard them this morning, but listen with new ears to the start of Jonah chapter 3: “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’”

God had given Jonah a second chance to go to Nineveh to give them a second chance. The same grace that God showed to his reluctant rebellious prophet, he now extended to the wicked and immoral capital city of Assyria – a people and a place known for unspeakable abominations, but a people and place loved by God nonetheless.

Scripture is full of second chances. God’s Word is replete with his grace. It’s written on every page! Jonah’s message to the Ninevites may sound like doomsday hysteria, but when he said, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown,” he struck a perfect balance between God’s Law and his Gospel.

On the one hand, the Ninevites, like Jonah, had done things worthy of God’s wrath. Hence the threat of destruction. On the other hand, God sent Jonah to issue this threat and to give even these wicked and immoral people hope that God could and would relent if they would just repent.

And miracle of miracles, what did they do? “The Ninevites believed God,” and were saved! An entire city in a single day! What grace! What undeserved love! The miracle of God saving Jonah by keeping him in the belly of a fish for three days has nothing on the miracle of God saving 120,000 Ninevites in a single day through his Gospel promise.

Brothers and sisters, that same Law and Gospel applies to you too. Maybe you don’t live in the most cruel and barbaric city known to modern civilization, but the same sin that corrupted Nineveh lives on in you. The same sin that caused Jonah to rebel against a direct command of God beats in your heart and pumps through your veins.

Every time that you knowingly contradict one of God’s Commandments, you are no better (and no less foolish) than Jonah trying to flee from the Lord. Every time that you choose to satisfy your own desires, rather than to satisfy God’s will, you are just as wicked and immoral as the pagan Ninevites. Like Jonah, your rebellion deserves God’s wrath. Like the Ninevites, your depravity warrants eternal destruction. The sins of this world and the sins of our hearts do not change. The penalty for those sins does not change. But the good news is that God’s grace doesn’t change either.

God has given you a second chance too. Not by sending Jonah to you, but by sending Jesus for you. Rather than giving you the punishment that you deserve, God placed that penalty squarely on the shoulders of your Saviour when he lifted him up on a cross to die for your sins. Rather than forsaking you when you turn your back on him, God forsook his Son to death. And just as Jonah was as good as dead in the belly of the fish for three days, so Jesus lay lifeless in the grave for three days.

But, miracles of miracles, Jesus did not stay there. You thought Jonah felt relief when he emerged from that fish after three days? Imagine the relief of knowing that death could not hold your Saviour in the grave after three days! What am I saying? You don’t have to imagine that. That’s what happened! That’s what God’s Word tells you. That’s what God’s grace does for you. It buries your sin and guilt and regret with Jesus and it leaves it there. Then it raises Christ to new life as a guarantee that you too will not be in the grave forever, but you, like Jesus, will live again and will live eternally in the home of your God of unchanging grace.

God has given you a second chance. What are you going to do with it? Jonah finally did what he was supposed to do in the first place. He fulfilled the commission that God had given him to share God’s grace with those who were 40 days away from eternal damnation, and the Ninevites were eternally thankful for it. Jonah set aside his political convictions and spent himself sharing God’s compassion.

Are there political enemies who need you to share God’s grace with them? Are there people you see as your enemies or as dangers to the world? Have you engaged in heated debate with them or in smear campaigns against them, rather than seeing them as sinners that God wants to be saved too? Then maybe you need to repent before you tell them to.

But when you do, rejoice, because we have a God who has given us a second chance. He has shown us his forgiving love in Jesus. He has washed our sins away and gives you new opportunities every day to bring his grace to others. So, don’t run away. Look for a way to share God’s unchanging, yet life-changing grace to the people in your sphere of influence. Maybe it’s not Nineveh. Maybe it’s your neighbour down the street. Maybe it’s that person who always seems to pick a fight with you on Facebook. Don’t fight back. Don’t let politics define the way you look at other people. Let God’s grace do that.

Just as he forgave Jonah and gave him a second chance to do what was right; just as he forgave the Ninevites and enlivened to live for him – so too does God’s grace work in you, forgiving your sin because of Jesus, and empowering you to respond to his grace with faith in love, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Amen.

Jesus Is the Devil's Downfall

Mark 1:21-28