Only Jesus…!

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Liguori Church

Greenwell Springs, LA

Sunday, February 1, 2015 

Today’s gospel (Mark 1:21-28) tells us that Jesus entered the synagogue and taught on the Sabbath day. As he taught, his audience was astonished because he taught with authority and not as the scribes. Jesus spoke from his heart. He taught with conviction because his message was the truth. He spoke of what he knew and testified to what he had seen (John 3:11) His teaching was derived from his personal and intimate relationship with the Father. It wasn’t a memorization of the litany of rules and laws, or derived from theological debates that were meaningless to the people. It was a simple teaching that can be summarized as follows: God is love; God loves you and God yearns for you. The scribes on the other hand got their knowledge from their long study of commentaries on the Law. Their teaching was not derived from their personal relationship with God. It was from the head and not from the heart. Jesus’ teaching brought about a positive change of heart and life. His message changed not only people’s lifestyles but also their conditions. The scribes, like the Pharisees would attempt to explain human suffering with no sense of compassion for the sufferers. The suffering persons might even be blamed for being the cause of their condition: “Either you or your parents have sinned” they would argue. But Jesus was only interested in setting children of God free. In John 10:10, he declares, “I have come that you may have life, life in its fullness.” In Luke 19:10, he says, “The Son of Man has come to seek (that is, to look for) and to save (that is, to heal and alleviate) the lost.” For these reasons, he performed healing and exorcism together with his teaching to show that his primary concern was to change the human situation not just to explain it.

Jesus’ power, goodness, righteousness and holiness are not hidden realities from evil spirits. The Devil and his demons know about Jesus. In today’s Gospel, they even called him by name: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God?”  During Jesus’ earthly ministry, it wasn’t the Devil that gave him a tough time. It wasn’t the demons or evil spirits that gave him a bad time. When Jesus showed up, they simply vacated. When he showed up, the demons fled from his presence. Wherever Jesus appeared, the demons disappeared. Light and darkness do not stay together. There is no meeting point between holiness and evil. 2 Corinthians 3: 17 says, “…where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. “ Those who gave Jesus a bad time were the religious people. Those who were resistant to him were the religious know-it-alls. The more they realized that Jesus of Nazareth was really who he claimed to be, the more they attempted to destroy him. The more they realized that he was the Son of God, the more they tried to get rid of him. The more they understood that he was the Holy One of God, the more they tried to kill him. As for the Devil and his cohorts, they leave when the Lord enters a place. 

Today, many people try to get rid of Jesus by simply ignoring him. But the danger of ignoring him is equivalent to the danger of ignoring a doctor, or the instructions on a drug prescription, or ignoring the directions on how to fly an airplane. Others try to get rid of Jesus by believing that he was just another interesting guy in human history. Some say he was just another prophet like all other prophets that existed. They just cannot see that Jesus is the Holy One of God. He’s the only One that causes the demons to tremble when he shows up! Only Jesus rebuked the demons with words: “Quiet! Come out of him!” Only he could say to the leper, “Be cured,” to the cripple, “Rise up and walk!” to the deaf and dumb man, “Be opened” and to dead Lazarus, “Come out,” to the blind man of Luke 18:42, “Receive your sight!” Only Jesus said to ten lepers in Luke 17, “Go and show yourself to the priest,” and on the way, ten of them were totally cleansed. Only Jesus rebuked a raging sea to the astonishment of his disciples who declared, “Who is this that even the wind and seas obey him?” (Matthew 8:27). Only Jesus could say to a sinner, “Your sins are forgiven.” Only Jesus could pick up a loaf of bread and a cup of wine and say, “This is my Body, this is my Blood.” Only Jesus died and resurrected after three days. 

Folks, we are not serving just one of the greatest men that ever lived. We don’t just have a relationship with one of the prophets or one interesting guy. We serve the Holy One of God. We serve the Light of the World. We serve Jesus, the second person of the Blessed Trinity. We serve true God from true God. And, “At the mention of the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11). We serve the One who alone can save!