That day when a possessed immediately recognized Jesus Christ as a divine power

«In their synagogue there was a man possessed by an impure spirit and he began to shout, saying: “What do you want from us, Jesus of Nazareth? You come to destroy? I know who you are: the saint of God!”. And Jesus ordered him severely: “Crazy! Go out of him!”. And the impure spirit, Strarking it and shouting strong, He left him ".

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This Sunday's evangelical song It forms part of what is commonly defined as the "day of Jesus in Capernao".

"During that time, Jesus, Entering Saturday in the synagogue, [the caférnao] he taught. And they were amazed at his teaching: In fact, he taught them as one who has authority, and not like the scribes. And here, In their synagogue there was a man possessed by an impure spirit and he began to shout, saying: “What do you want from us, Jesus of Nazareth? You come to destroy? I know who you are: the saint of God!”. And Jesus ordered him severely: “Crazy! Go out of him!”. And the impure spirit, Strarking it and shouting strong, He left him. Everyone was taken by fear, so much so that they wondered each other: “Which is never this? A new teaching, given with authority. He even commands impure spirits and obey him!”. His fame spread immediately everywhere, throughout the Galilee region ". (MC 1,21-28).

It is a collection of short episodes ranging from MC 1,21 until 1,34 that the evangelist contains over twenty -four hours. It starts with the morning prayer in the synagogue, described by the V. 21- Prayer still celebrated today by the Jews, which provides for the proclamation of the Torah, of the prophet and the subsequent sermon held by the rabbi - to get to the sunset of the sun, when now, finite lo Shabbat, It is allowed to bring the sick before Jesus. Jesus' activity is hectic: has no time except to teach and to heal. There is an adverb, "right away" (straight, euthys), Very important for Marco, which is repeated in vv. 21.23.28 - Unfortunately not caught by the Italian translation, but present in Greek - and even twelve times only in the first chapter, Forty -five in the entire Gospel of Marco; It indicates the haste of Jesus for which "time is accomplished" (MC 1,15): If the weather is accomplished, There is no time to waste to show how the kingdom has arrived among men.

The first activity that Marco tells us On Jesus is the fact that he taught with authority. The first miracle, Let's call it that, that performs is not a healing or an exorcism, But teaching. E, in proportion, Mark presents Jesus as a teacher, more than the other gospels: Five times the word in his regard Didachē - "teaching" - and ten times he calls him "teacher", reporting this title only to him. Teaching is one of the ministries of which Paolo speaks in the letter to the Romans (12,7), And it is perhaps the charity that we need most in times when it is difficult to transmit faith.

The others, to which Jesus is compared, are the scribes. But they do not have its own "authority". Even if they are not despised or decreased by the evangelist, Marco underlines twice (vv. 22 e 27) which he teaches in a very different way than them. The difference between him and the other "rabbini" could be at two levels. The first is that of the authoritativeness with which Jesus says things. Reading the texts of the rabbinic tradition, which were collected starting from the fall of the second temple, in the second half of the first century AD, We remain affected by the attachment to the "traditions of the ancients" - of which Marco in 7,1-13 - handed down with a long chain of these and sentences, but above all from the way these are listed one after the other, like a collection of different opinions but of the same value. The word of Jesus, on the other hand, has a more creative character and a greater weight: refers directly to the law and to God and, acquiring strength, His word is never just an opinion. But there is more and here we are at the second level of the authority of Jesus. His are not simply words, but they perform what they say. He is the "saint of God" (MC 1,24) and therefore his authority expresses the power of God himself: For this he teaches, exorcizes and heals, but always through a word that frees and saves.

The kingdom of God is a new creation in which, as already in the first, The words profitablely realize what they utter. This becomes evident in the second activity that distinguishes the advent of the kingdom in Jesus: the healing of the sick and the exorcisms. Where there is God with his kingdom, There is no room for evil and its powers: if they have to go.

In fact, Jesus does not let the unchanged spirit speak: «Take Tour», orders him. He does not want Satan to open his mouth and not only because the devil is "lying and father of lies" (GV 8,44). In fact it had already happened once the snake had spoken, And the sad story of man's sin began: The ancient snake to try to evil Adam had in fact inculcated the poison of doubt in Eva: "It is true that?» (Gen 3,1). If then he had been silenced, Adam would have won the temptation.

In this part of the Gospel according to Marco Christology is centered on the idea that Jesus is capable of recovering the fate of the first man. Who, When the devil is silent and also in the desert scene, or in the story of his temptation. Jesus is "chased" in that place (MC 1,12) Just as Adam had been "chased" by Paradise (Gen 3,24), thus sharing its misfortune, but leaving victorious from the test. At the end of it, Register Marco, Jesus "was with the fairs", that is, again in peace with creation, like Adam, "And the angels served it", that is, receiving the same honor that, according to a rabbinic tradition, God had given his most beautiful creature, The honor of being nourished by good spirits. Jesus, at last, It appears in Marco's Gospel not like a child, As instead in the Gospels of Matteo and Luca's childhood, but it arrives on the already adult scene, man made, As Adam was also created adult.

The day of Capernao takes place on a Saturday, The day when God rested after creating man. On this day Jesus can bring the world back to his original beauty, through the same creative word who made the universe and which allows him to exercise his strong authority; but also exercising on that day, Saturday, a special lordship. The "Son of man", how we will listen to another Sunday, It is "Lord also on Saturday" (MC 2,28). The time is of God and Jesus affirms this sovereignty over time by making healing on Saturday. And they are healings that touch men and women who had lost the reason for their disease because of their illness. For a healthy person, The development of the activities along the arc of the week aimed at a fulfillment in sabbatical rest: the encounter with God and with his word permeated with meaning and hope the existence.

For a disabled person, which was excluded from the sabbatical rest and the space of the temple, Here every day of the week was loaded with the same pain and suffering. The healings of Jesus on Saturday interrupt this indistinct flow of time in the body of the sick and restore to men and women who have lost sense of time his full value through Saturday. The healing of that man "possessed by an impure spirit", that that day of Saturday was right there where Jesus was also present, It is the beginning of a new Saturday, that is, a new creation, in which in the center there is the life of every person to be saved. As the rabbi and philosopher Heshel wrote:

«We must feel overwhelmed by the wonder of time if we want to be ready to receive the presence of eternity in a single moment. We have to live and act as if the fate of all the time depended on a single moment " (Heshel A. (J), On Saturday, Garzanti, Milan 2015, p. 96).

 

From the Hermitage, 27 January 2024

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