First of all, a word for the ladies. If you think the man in your life is a world-class, gold-medal sports freak, Linda Geyer has a sporting wager for you. Any horror story you have, she can top.
Your husband can't bear to watch anything but the sports channels? Linda's husband Mitch has four TV sets placed throughout their home in suburban California, a fifth in the garage, a sixth on the patio and a portable TV in the car.
Your husband watched sports on your honeymoon? At the wedding altar itself, their minister talked about Mitch's love of sports. At the reception, her new hubby, who owns a sporting-goods store, kept slipping away so he could catch the big game on the radio.
Your man played golf while you were sick with the flu? The day five years ago when tests showed Linda, now forty-two, might have a kidney tumor, Mitch picked her up at the hospital, dropped her at home with her mother, his mother and their three-week-old colicky baby, and went on to his regular Friday afternoon racetrack date with his friends. (Fortunately, Linda did not have a kidney tumor.)
But even Linda could not top the jaw-dropping news out of Jonesboro, Georgia, during Super Bowl XXIV: When a woman committed suicide that Sunday, her husband waited until the game was over to call the authorities.
This is how the coroner's investigator expressed his perplexity at the delay: "I can't explain it," he said. "That game was SO boring." (1)
It reminds me of Erma Bombeck's great line: "If a husband watches more than 3 football games a week the wife should have him declared legally dead and have his estate probated."
Well, I hope Super Bowl XXXIV is not boring for football fans. Our lesson for today from Mark's Gospel doesn't take place in a football stadium, but in a synagogue. And the scene is anything but boring. In fact, it sounds like something straight out of television's spooky show: THE X-FILES. Jesus and his disciples were in Capernaum. On the Sabbath, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. And then it happened. Visualize this if you are an X-Files fan. A man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit suddenly cried out, "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!" Ooh, that's spooky. I've seen some strange things happen in church, but nothing like that.
Baptist pastor Bruce McIver tells a great story about a couple named Alfred and Ernestine. Alfred and Ernestine had been visiting Bruce's church for quite a while, and they looked at Bruce as their pastor. That's why they didn't hesitate to call whenever they felt a situation warranted the presence of a "man of God." Like the night Alfred called to say Ernestine had torn the house apart, and now she was locked in the bathroom with a gun. Alfred was afraid to go near her, but he was sure she would never hurt a pastor. So, with great fear, Bruce went to their house and calmed Ernestine down.
A week later, Bruce got a call that scared him even more than the first. Alfred and Ernestine wanted to join his church. Bruce visited them and tried to impress upon them the importance of this step, but they still felt ready to join. A few weeks after joining, Alfred and Ernestine came forward for baptism. Ernestine was dressed in a white gown, and she radiated joy and serenity as Bruce dipped her in the water. Then Ernestine walked up the steps of the baptismal toward the women's dressing room. Another woman waited at the top of the stairs to assist her. The woman gave Ernestine a towel and remarked, "Perhaps you'd like to stand here for a moment and watch your husband be baptized."
Ernestine turned to see Bruce praying over Alfred and she shouted out from the top of the baptismal steps, "I HOPE HE DROWNS!" (2)
That is as close as most of us will come to the scene that Mark describes at the synagogue in Capernaum. We don't really understand what the New Testament writers mean by demon possession. Was it mental illness? We don't know. What we do know is this: Jesus brought out the best and the worst in people. If you were on his side, you would give your life for him. If you weren't on Jesus' side, you could not rest until he was destroyed.
On a smaller scale we've seen it happen with other controversial people. There have been people who have hated each of our presidents with passionate zeal whether it was John F. Kennedy or Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. Some of you remember the passions that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. aroused in people. There was no middle ground. People either loved him or hated him.
Jesus certainly aroused something in this man at the synagogue in Capernaum. Suddenly he screamed at Jesus, "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!" And then something happened. "Be quiet!" said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him!" And just like a scene in the X-Files, the evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. 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 evil spirits and they obey him."
The people didn't know what to do with Jesus. AND NEITHER DO WE. The tepid response that most of us make to the Gospel is an indication that we really do not know what to make of this man. If we knew Jesus as he really is, our response would be the same as that of his own countrymen: we would either hate him and long to see him destroyed or we would be willing to die for him.
I like the way Joy Jordan-Lake put it in an article in the CHRISTIAN CENTURY. "Jesus makes me nervous," she writes. "Imagine asking the guy home for lunch . . . Would you impress him more with a menu featuring Maine lobster--an edible version of pouring perfume on his feet? . . . Or would you fare better slapping peanut butter and jelly on Stop 'n' Shop's cheapest bread, carefully calculating the money you saved and buying groceries for a homeless family you'd befriended?
"It's that lack of ordinary predictability that makes me nervous. Other people have the grace to smile and politely mumble something vague when you make a social faux-pas that sends you stumbling into the mop closets of their private lives. Jesus, on the other hand, strides in quite intentionally, and before he has so much as set his backpack down asks another guest how her fifth husband--or was he just a live-in?--is proceeding with the delinquent child support payments to his former wife . . ." (3)
Be honest now--would you be comfortable with Jesus as a guest in your home? Or would you feel a little guilty over the conspicuous consumption that fills many of our homes? What if he asked you what you were doing for the poor, how many times you had visited in nursing homes, how many prisoners you had counseled in the county jail?
What if he asked about the kind of television programs you were feeding into your brain, how much time and money you actually gave your church, how much time you had spent studying the Word?
Would he be satisfied with your views on capital punishment, abortion, gun control, universal health care, the rights of minorities, welfare reform? What if he asked about the time you spend with your family? Would Jesus be a welcome guest in your home or would you be a little unsettled? "Who does he think he is anyway? God?"
Kenneth L. Woodward writing in NEWSWEEK magazine gives us a glimpse of what Christ's coming meant to the world. He writes, "Whether we like it or not, Christ's life radically changed human culture throughout the world . . . Before Jesus came, the world was ruled by the 'might makes right' theory. But Jesus' teaching about humility and turning the other cheek redefined our views of human character, of war, of masculinity. Jesus' commitment to the poor, to women and children opened the way for civil rights and equality for women. Marriages became more equitable. Also, it was a common practice in Roman families to kill female babies. Sociologist Rodney Stark notes that evidence exists that among at least 600 ancient Roman families, less than a dozen had more than one daughter. But Christians valued the life of all people, whether male or female, and prohibited the killing of any children." (4)
But the revolution is not complete. We still live in a pre-Christian world. There is still too much hatred, too much violence, too much debasement of human dignity. If you are comfortable in Jesus' presence, you simply do not see him as he really is.
Chuck Swindoll tells about a commercial venture of one of the largest department stores in our nation. It proved to be disastrously unsuccessful. It was a doll in the form of the baby Jesus. It was advertised as being unbreakable, washable, and cuddly. It was packaged in straw with a satin ribbon and plastic surroundings, and appropriate biblical texts added here and there to make the scene complete.
It did not sell. The manager of one of the stores in the department chain panicked. He carried out a last-ditch promotion to get rid of those dolls. He brandished a huge sign outside his store that read: "JESUS CHRIST--MARKED DOWN 50%--GET HIM WHILE YOU CAN." (5) And that is the constant danger--that we will remake Christ into a meek, harmless figure--discounted 50% to attract the masses.
Jesus taught in the synagogue in Capernaum and a man who was possessed by an evil spirit suddenly cried out, "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!" And I guarantee you that if Christ were to visit our church today, the response would be the same. THIS IS TO SAY, THAT YOU AND I ARE CONFRONTED WITH A DECISION: WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH JESUS? Shall we continue to ignore his claim on our lives? Shall we live as if he had never entered our world? Shall we continue to substitute cultural tradition for conscious discipleship? Or shall we recognize what even the demons acknowledge--that Jesus Christ is Lord of all life? Be careful how you answer, for once you see Jesus as he really is you will never be the same.
In the book, FINDING HOPE AGAIN, Roy Fairchild tells about coming to Vienna, Austria after a two-week illness in a small Austrian village. He had spent most of his money on medical costs and his last cent to take a train to Vienna to try and find his friends he had been traveling with. As he was standing in one of the street car stations in the center of the city, tired, hungry and discouraged a little old wrinkled lady, one of the ladies whose job was to sweep out the station, came to him and asked him if he were hungry.
Before he could answer she took her own lunch from a brown paper bag and offered him half of it. He said he was so moved by her action that he has never forgotten her face or her kindness and the sparkle in her eye. They talked for more than an hour about her life. She was raised in the country on a farm knowing only hard work. Since then she had lost her husband and two sons in the Resistance. Only her daughter had survived, but she said that she was very thankful for many things. When asking her why she offered him half her lunch, the lady simply said, "Jesu ist mein Herr. Gott ist gut." Translated that means Jesus is my Lord. God is good." (6) Is Jesus your Lord? Once you see Jesus as he really is you will either hate everything he stands for or you will be willing to give your life for him. What is your decision?
1. Patt Morrison, "Does He Love Sports More than He Loves You?" LADIES' HOME JOURNAL, January 1998, p. 102.
2. Bruce McIver, JUST AS LONG AS I'M RIDING UP FRONT (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1995), pp. 85-89.
3. SALT OF THE EARTH, January/February 1995, pp. 34-35.
4. 2000 Years of Jesus," March 29, 1999, p. 55.
5. GROWING DEEP IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
6. E-zine: DAILY ENCOUNTER (http://www.actsweb.org/encounter.htm).