DAY TWO – Thursday, February 23, 2023
Mark 1:21-28
This is a curious passage to our modern ears. The unclean spirit convulsing the man in the synagogue who cries out to Jesus, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God,” sounds more like a late-night horror movie than a witness to Jesus Christ. In the big picture this passage is about identity. Mark is trying to confirm in the minds of his readers who Jesus is. The first readers of Mark’s gospel would have been very impressed that an unclean spirit, an entity completely devoid of God and God’s ways, would recognize Jesus as the Holy One of God and that Jesus had power over an unclean spirit.
How do we make sense of this passage for today? I wonder: What are our modern day unclean spirits? Could they be our vulnerable places, the places we choose not to explore in our lives or in our world, for fear of what trouble or anxiety they might stir up? Rather than being places devoid of God, might they be places in our lives we try to hide from God and ourselves. Like the unclean spirits, even when hidden, Jesus can still recognize those vulnerable places and call them out of us. It is from the vantage point of those vulnerable places that we can deeply recognize who Jesus is in our lives. By searching our souls, by coming before God in our vulnerability and humanity, and then by asking Jesus to walk beside us we too, like the disciples and the crowds of the gospel of Mark, will come to know who Jesus is for us. Figuring out who Jesus is and building on that relationship will help us establish our own identity and who we are called to be in this world.
Elaine Hall
Mark 1:21-28
This is a curious passage to our modern ears. The unclean spirit convulsing the man in the synagogue who cries out to Jesus, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God,” sounds more like a late-night horror movie than a witness to Jesus Christ. In the big picture this passage is about identity. Mark is trying to confirm in the minds of his readers who Jesus is. The first readers of Mark’s gospel would have been very impressed that an unclean spirit, an entity completely devoid of God and God’s ways, would recognize Jesus as the Holy One of God and that Jesus had power over an unclean spirit.
How do we make sense of this passage for today? I wonder: What are our modern day unclean spirits? Could they be our vulnerable places, the places we choose not to explore in our lives or in our world, for fear of what trouble or anxiety they might stir up? Rather than being places devoid of God, might they be places in our lives we try to hide from God and ourselves. Like the unclean spirits, even when hidden, Jesus can still recognize those vulnerable places and call them out of us. It is from the vantage point of those vulnerable places that we can deeply recognize who Jesus is in our lives. By searching our souls, by coming before God in our vulnerability and humanity, and then by asking Jesus to walk beside us we too, like the disciples and the crowds of the gospel of Mark, will come to know who Jesus is for us. Figuring out who Jesus is and building on that relationship will help us establish our own identity and who we are called to be in this world.
Elaine Hall
