14.04 | He’s In Charge

Mark 1:21-45

‘And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”’

Mark 1:27

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One of my earliest memories is of having some building work done on the house that I was born into. The man doing the work was called Mr Pardow. I can’t remember anything of what he looked like, or what work he was doing. In fact, the only thing that I can remember about Mr Pardow is one line:

I’m in charge. 

I’d jump out somewhere in the house, and shout ‘I’m in charge!’ And he’d respond, ‘No, I’m in charge!’ 

I loved it. At 3 years old, it was right on my level. I remember finding it hilarious. 

Mr Pardow was a lovely man.

There was nothing unusual about that Sabbath morning in Capernaum. The residents of Capernaum, a small fishing village on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, walked there every week. Every week they’d engage in a similar time of worship, with a familiar pattern of liturgy and psalm and Scripture. The weekly synagogue service was a deeply formative part of their culture—a corporate habit that shaped their everyday lives under the authority of the Jewish Law. This authority was ancient. It was stable. It was consistent. It was good. It rescued them from being dragged around in their doctrine and practice by the whims of new rabbis. Their forms of religion had been ballast in their lives through turbulent centuries.

But this Sabbath morning, Jesus walks into the Capernaum synagogue. And, in Mark’s words, they found Him astonishing. 

Why?

Mark gives us one word:

Authority.

We catch glimpses of this across the Gospels.

Why do you forsake the command of God, He asked, for the sake of your tradition?¹

His authority surpassed their traditions.

You have heard that it was said, Jesus would say, quoting the Old Testament, but I say to you…²

His authority surpassed the Scriptures.

Jesus walked into that synagogue that morning and astonished them, because He walked into over a millennia of religious forms, and relocated all authority around one place:

Himself. 

He is in charge.

This being in charge was not restricted to the synagogue. It exploded from the religious space and invaded the fevers, leprosy and spiritual power of the whole town. Jesus’ authority is devastating to the things of death and darkness.

There is a sickly lullaby that can steal the vivacity of our faith. It is when we become followers of religious forms rather than followers of Jesus. Put a different way, it is when the forms of our religion become more truly our authority than the living, breathing, wounded and reigning person of Jesus Christ—the very same Jesus who astonished Capernaum and who right now is reigning with the Father.

We see this insidiously creep in so often.

When protecting our tradition becomes more important to us than participating in the dynamic movements of of God.

When being moral becomes greater to us than living in and from a life of exceptional love with Him.

When completing spiritual practices becomes our obsession rather than the Jesus that we seek through those very practices.

When our songs become a great experience for us, rather than an expression of devotion to Him.³

Is this heresy? 

Not at chance. It is a return to the core orthodoxy of our faith. Because Christian orthodoxy is not a set of doctrinal propositions or religious activities. It is Jesus. He is orthodoxy. Every single truth of the Scriptures and healthy tradition of our churches is not meant to leave us there; it is meant to take us to Jesus that we may abide nowhere more firmly than the extraordinary pastures of His heart.

Astonishing?

Yes, for sure. It rocked Capernaum, and it shakes our tidy sensibilities.

For this same Jesus is deeply and perfectly and majestically and astonishingly our only place of authority too.

Or, as Mr Pardow would have said,

He’s in charge.

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Reflect:

Think through the forms of my religion. My spiritual practices, my church services, my prayer times, my reading of the Scriptures, this devotional.

Check my heart. Have I remembered that the ends of all this is truly Him? That every single thing I do in my life only finds its fullness when it learns that my true destination, in all and every activity, is the Jesus who is my Lord?

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Pray:

Lord Jesus,

My traditions and practices are like a window—

The potential of them is to look through and to know and live in the beauty and glory of You—

And yet, sometimes, Lord,

I end up just staring at the glass.

My focus becomes what I can do,

And control,

And perfect,

And complete.

I get fussy about doing it right,

And critical about those who do it wrong.

Lord, I see that this way is smaller than your Way.

Would you, today,

Enter the synagogue of my rhythms

And astonish me.

Return me to the singular Lordship of you,

That what I find in tradition and song and Scripture,

Would be relentlessly a journey towards you,

That my life may be offered,

To the authority of your Lordship.

You are my King,

You are my God.

Shatter the darkness and pain in my city too,

That you may be visible as the true King of all.

In Your Name,

Reigning and astonishing Jesus my Lord,

Amen

Old Testament: 

For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:

Judges 1:1-3:11 | Psalm 48

1. Matthew 15:3

2. Matthew 5:21-48

3. Brennan Manning put it this way: ‘We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of knowing Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconnected and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.’ (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p.27)