In Their Synagogue

It was the Sabbath in Capernaum. Jesus walked into the synagogue and began to teach, and the people were stunned. He taught “as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22). The scribes quoted the rabbis who came before them. Jesus spoke as the One who wrote the Book.

Then Mark adds a line nobody in that room expected: “Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit.” (1:23)

In their synagogue. On the Sabbath, in the house of prayer, sat a man held by something unclean.

When the Holy One walked in, the spirit couldn’t stay quiet. “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are, the Holy One of God!” (1:24)

Jesus answered with two commands: “Be quiet, and come out of him!” (1:25)

The word for “be quiet” is phimōthēti. It’s the word for putting a muzzle on an animal. Mark uses it again when Jesus speaks to the storm on the sea: “Peace, be still!” (4:39). The same voice that quiets the wind muzzled the thing that held this man.

The spirit convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, and then it was gone (1:26). Luke, the physician, adds that it threw him down in the middle of the room, yet it came out “and did not hurt him” (Luke 4:35).

Luke tells this story right after Jesus stood up in His hometown synagogue and read from Isaiah that He had come “to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Luke 4:18). Soon after, in Capernaum, a captive was sitting in the room.

The man did nothing to earn it. He never even asked. The spirit did all the talking, and Jesus answered with grace.

This series has now shown four kinds of unclean: leprosy, a twelve-year bleed, a child who had died, and now an unclean spirit. Every time, Jesus came near, and every time the uncleanness was what had to leave.

Plenty of us have sat in church holding something we couldn’t shake, an old shame or a fear that talks louder than the sermon. Jesus still walks into the room. He knows what’s holding you, and He has the authority to tell it to go.

What have you been carrying into church that you’ve never brought to Him?

On Friday: God justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:4–5).