Mark 1:21-28

The Kingdom Exemplified (1) – Evil is Exorcised

Mark did not necessarily have any clear idea when events happened in the life of Jesus. He constructed the time line himself, and deliberately situated the following event at the beginning of Jesus’ activity. He placed it where he did to shed light on what was to follow. Jesus encountered evil, as personified in the evil spirit possessing the man in the synagogue. Jesus proved himself stronger than the evil spirit; and Mark in this way immediately identified him as the strong one mentioned earlier by John the Baptist.

Mark 1:21-28 – Jesus Casts Out an Evil Spirit

They went into Capernaum. In the next episode the reader would be told that Capernaum was where Simon’s home was located. So probably the walk into the town meant simply a walk up from the wharf where the disciples’ boats had been moored.

The encounter happened within the city, not out in the open. Generally speaking, the city was not a preferred location for Jesus. Mark had shown us that the God whose day was approaching would meet his people in the wilderness where John had been at work.

Whenever Mark recounted exorcisms or healings, it was not so much the event as the special circumstances of the event, or its positioning in the narrative, that was the point of Mark’s selecting it.

The details were important. The episode happened in the synagogue - the domain of the rabbis and the scribes. In Jesus’ time the cities and towns of Galilee had their synagogues where people gathered, particularly on the Sabbath, to listen to the Scriptures and be instructed by the rabbis. 

The scribes were men who had formally studied the Jewish Torah and were regarded as its qualified interpreters. There were scribes in most of the varied groups and sects in the Judaism of the day. Generally they were committed to the religious status quo, and were generally jealous of their own prerogatives.

The incident in question happened on the Sabbath, the special day of the Jewish calendar.

The accepted wisdom of the day believed that to name persons was to control them. The evil spirit named Jesus, hoping to take control: “I know who you are ... Jesus of Nazareth ... the Holy One of God.” John the Baptist had identified Jesus as the stronger one. Mark showed us that in this contest Jesus was indeed the one in control, the stronger one: Jesus silenced the spirit and cast it out of the man.

The Symbolism

Mark gave no details about the man: he had no name or history. Mark’s interest in him was primarily symbolic.

In the temptation story, Jesus had engaged with the beasts, the demonic powers embodied in the cultural ethos of Israel and Rome. In this incident he encountered evil in the synagogue on the Sabbath, both elements that served to enshrine the cultural and religious attitudes and institutions championed by the interpreters of the Torah. 

The amazed crowds explicitly compared the teaching of Jesus and its authority with that of the scribes, underlining the parties in the confrontation. For Mark, Jesus taught primarily not by words but by deeds of power.

The people contrasted the authority of Jesus with the authority (or lack of it) of the scribal establishment. Mark clearly saw the authority of Jesus embodied in inner strength. He contrasted it with the institutional power of the scribes. Jesus’ strength was not a question of his capacity to coerce or impose his will. Instead, his personal strength appealed to the inner truth of persons, setting them free and empowering them to become ever more fully human.

Did Jesus Cast out Real Evil Spirits?

Though Mark selected and positioned the exorcism in his narrative for symbolic reasons, what was the historical reality behind the story?

In actual fact, the popular diagnosis of possession by evil spirits referred generally to what would today be recognised as mental or nervous illness, or in some cases as epilepsy. The symptoms are often such that persons seem to be not really their normal self; in their depression they sometimes feel they are evil and cannot explain why they think and act the way they do. A natural supposition of the time was that another personal reality had taken control of them, a personal reality that was destructive and evil. 

To say that many cases assumed to be possession were really natural pathologies does not rule out the possibility, of course, that real instances of demonic possession sometimes occurred. Such things are difficult, if not impossible, to prove empirically. People’s assessment will reflect their belief system.

Being fully a man of his time, Jesus naturally accepted the common diagnosis of his day. There is no record that Jesus was aware of his own power and authority over demons during the years of his earlier life in Nazareth. After his death he was remembered, however, even by non-believers, as a powerful exorcist and healer.

In the case under review, the possessed man took the initiative, challenging Jesus.

We may perhaps assume that Jesus engaged with him from the depths of his own love and inner truth, with the integrity from which flowed his undoubted authority. That love and inner truth may have penetrated to the depths of the possessed man and enabled him as in a mirror to see his own truth and to break free from the lie that had oppressed him. In the process Jesus himself may have become consciously aware of his own power over evil, untruth and destructiveness. 

Next >> Mark 1:29-31