My pulpit message notes: Go in authority and power

Go in Authority and Power

My Pulpit Message Notes are extracted from the sermon preached at the Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) Ngong Road on Sunday 2nd October 2022. Preacher: Rev. Mutava Musyimi. Scripture: Mark 5:1-43. Topic: Go in Authority and Power

Mark’s Background

Simon Peter is behind the writing of Mark. Peter ranks as one of the most influential personalities not just in Biblical history, but also in human history as a whole. He was a non educated fisherman, passionate man with many rough edges. He came from Bethsaida in Galilee and nobody from nowhere.

But once he met Jesus, he allowed Jesus to begin to recreate and redefine him. He became the main source of the gospel of Mark.

Mark is important in New Testament scholarship, because it is the foundation to the other two synoptic gospels. Mark was the first one to be written in the mid-late fifties and it is widely agreed, that it is a foundational gospel. Over ninety per cent of Mark verses is contained in the gospel of Matthew and fifty percent in the book of Luke. That’s how significant Mark and Simon Peter are.

Go in Authority and Power

In our series the rest of this month we are being commanded and encouraged to go in authority and power, to make Jesus known.

We need to go to the tail end of the fourth chapter to know what is beginning in chapter five.

At the end of chapter four, Jesus is at the Sea of Galilee and He tells His disciples, let us cross over to the other side. It is evening and soon enough there’s a howling windstorm. The Sea is in turmoil, it is rain and the boat is filling up with water. Those steering the boat are experienced fishermen and sailors who knew the sea well. But the Sea of Galilee was notorious for its unpredictability. It had a temper, you might say.

A storm and calm could succeed each other with no notice. Air rushes from surrounding hails. Mount Hamon, Tabor, the Galilean hills, could churn up the water without warning and that seems to be what happened this evening.

As the Sea is in turmoil, our Lord is asleep, on a cushion, in the stern, in the boat. The disciples wake Him up, complaining, agitated, “So you slumber away’, they seem to be saying, ‘unconcerned. Do you really care?’

Our Lord wakes up, rebukes both wind and sea, commanding them to be still and they obey instantly and theres is calm. In what is more of a rebuke than a question, He asks them, “Why are you so afraid? What do I need to do and for how long do I need to do it for you to trust Me? For you to get it? For the penny to drop?” Why are you afraid? Where is your faith?

“You call yourselves practicing Jews because many of these Jews were. Have you forgotten the crossing of the Read Sea in years gone by? I Am God. Sovereign Lord of nature and history. I Am God who acts and intervenes by the power of My word. I have the power and authority to rearrange the forces of nature and to bring to complete and total submission.”

Jesus frees ‘the violent man of the tombs’

So they cross the Sea and end up on the other side. They come to the country of Gerasenes, also known as the Decapolis. This was a league of ten cities that answer directly to the Roman governor in Syria. The presence of pigs, soon to

feature in the story, is testimony that we are now in Gentile territory. According to the Levitical law, pigs were unclean and forbidden and this is where Jesus is taking His disciples.

I have a feeling He is beginning to prepare Peter for him to understand that at the end of the day ministry is universal. Christian ministry is for all. A couple of years down the road, there will be a faithful centurion praying called Cornelius who will be led to a man who has also been moved to pray, called Peter. Before Cornelius arrives, a sheet will come down with animals, reptiles and birds of prey and Peter will complain to God, ‘I have never eaten anything that is common, or unclean”, and God will tell him, “What God had made clean, do not call common.”, As Peter meets the crowd later on he will tell them in Acts, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associated with a Gentile, or to visit him.

Jesus is beginning to prepare Peter for what is to come and to prepare all of us, the ministry out there is for all. Whatever their community, political affiliation, it is for all and that is the command of our Lord and that is what Peter is beginning to learn.

So Jesus steps out of the boat and He meets a man who is introduced to him as the violent man of the tombs. The tombs were the dwelling place of the wretched of the earth. The scam of society. This man is fettered in chains. Lacerates himself with sharp stones, emitting wild cries, he is an ear sore, an eye sore, an untenable monster, reject, annoyance and a burden to society.

This man is the way he is because he is controlled and possessed by demons. The sole function of demonic occupation is not only to control, but also to destroy the victim. The confrontation with the Saviour is therefore inevitable.

Our Lord wants this man free of demonic control and this man also wants to be free. So Jesus asks him, “What is your name?” He says, “We are legion for we are many.” And the demons can tell what is coming, because in the cosmic spiritual world, the network is clear. They know who they are and the demons know who Jesus is and they know where He is and what He is about. So they beg Him to send them out of the country.

“Please”, they say, “Send us to the pigs.” So Jesus agrees, and all two thousand pigs become the new hosts of these legion. They rush down the hillside and they drown in the Sea. This becomes breaking news in the area. People rush to confirm what the herdsmen have told them. They said what they had witnessed, what had happened to the violent man of the tombs. And as they come, the man is seated there, clothed and in his right mind and the pigs have drowned and gone.

The man in cured. And now there is a slightly different problem. The owners of the pigs look at the situation and Mark tells us, they were afraid and begged Jesus to depart from their region. The pig owners could live with the fact of demons in the man. They had gotten used to that. It was a simple fact and reality and as they say, ‘It is what it is.’ What they could not countenance and were unwilling to accept was the idea of demons in their pigs and the consequential loss of revenue.

The man looks at the situation and pleads with Jesus, “Can I come with you?” The man knows Who has healed him. He wants the warmth and the security that Jesus offers and of course the healing. Jesus says, “No. Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you.”

I find it interesting that Jesus says, “Go home to you friends and family” because they will not say, Look at the one who used to be crazy. Because in family and friends you know there is warmth, latitude that you don’t often find elsewhere. The man is somewhat lonely and a bit lost. It is not unusual. Many who have walked long with the Lord know that an extraordinary experience with God, when God discloses Himself for who He is, when you know His presence. That doesn’t happen often, it can be freeing and overwhelming, but it can only be a bit lonely.

Remember the story of Peter at the Lord’s transfiguration, when the glory of the royal presence, the, divinity and majesty of our Lord was for a moment revealed, Peter gets a bit lost. He wants three tents, one for Moses, one for Elijah and one for Christ. The Scriptures tell us, he did not know what to say. He was terrified.

Jesus heals the woman that haemorrhaged for many years and resurrects Jairus’ daughter

In the second half of chapter five we have two events that overlap. There’s a woman that has haemorrhaged for many years and the resurrection of a young twelve year old girl. So Jairus , the father of the girl, comes to Jesus and as he begins to join him to go to his house, the crowd is jostling. In the midst of all that confusion, this poor lady who had spent her fortune on physicians to no effect. As a matter of fact we are told, she got worse and not better. Her state of ritual uncleanliness not withstanding, she reaches out to Jesus in despair and faith, and with all the pain and shame, much of it privately borne, she decides that even touching His garment will be sufficient to dispense the healing that she needs and she is healed instantly.

Jesus feels power transfer. Remember, not every person who contacts Jesus experiences transmission of power, but in this case there is power transfer. To the extent that our Lord feels it and asks, “Who touched Me?” And before He can even begin asking that question, a woman is before Him, prostrating herself, full of fear, trembling and bearing her sob. Our Lord looks at her and says, “Your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. Be whole.” And the healing takes place and it is permanent.

This is not healing by osmosis. Our Lord is actively participating in this healing because of the lady’s faith. That is the connection. Faith is important. It is the gateway to God. What becomes clear as you read the gospels, our Lord has problems with fear and doubt. It is okay up to a point. Beyond a certain point it becomes rejection of the offer of faith. So Jesus/God honours faith and that is what we see here.

So powerful is this story that about twenty years later, Paul is in Ephesus in his third missionary journey. We are told God was doing extra-ordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out. That is the power of faith.

The story of Jairus’ daughter.

The healing of this woman had caused delay with tragic consequences on Jairus’ daughter. She died. And as Jesus is preparing to go the onlookers believe that His going there is an exercise in futility. Jesus overhears their conversation, ignores it and says, “Do not fear. Only believe. Let us go.” When they get to the house it is chaos, there’s weeping and wailing. Jesus immediately goes where she was with Peter, James and John, Jairus and his wife, “Little girl,” He says, “I say to you, rise.” She gets up and walks. “Give her something to eat,” our Lord says. The practical thoughtfulness of Jesus.

This is the third time in the gospel, that the Lord has put Peter, James and John on the from row of history. The other times are the transfiguration and the Garden of Gethsemane.

Prof. Edmund Clowney, of Theology in Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia says about this events we are talking about,

“Peter had seen Jesus and loved Him. Peter well knows that it is not his physical association with Jesus that joins him to the Saviour. It is not necessary for us to have been in Galilee with Jesus. Through the witness of Peter and other apostles we learn about what Jesus said and did. They bear witness through the Holy Spirit.

By the witness of the Holy Spirit we are brought to know and love the living God.”

We do not have to have been at Galilee two thousand years ago to trust this Jesus.

Peter wrote two letters; the first letter he wrote to churches in times of enormous persecutions during the reign of Emperor Nero. The second he was dealing with heresy, gnosticism. In the second letter he says,

“We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honour and glory from God, the Father, and the voice was borne to Him by the majestic glory, “This is My beloved Son with Whom I am well pleased”, we ourselves heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain.

Who is an apostle?

Sometimes the name ‘apostles’ gets rather misused. The apostles are the ones who were witnesses who sat on the front row and saw what Jesus did and were witnesses of his resurrection. And so they could go out and bear witness and keep a record that has impacted the church for the last two thousand years.

Remember after Judas committed suicide, the qualification for the man who would replace him was somebody who had witnessed the resurrection of our Lord. That was the only qualification. Of course he needed to be a believer and that is how Matthias replaced Judas.

Jesus’ resurrection different from all others

Going back to the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, this is one of four resurrections that are recorded in the N.T. The others are; the most famous, Lazarus of Bethany, Son of the widow from Nain and the resurrection of our Lord Himself.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was very different from all the other three, because all the other three died again. C.S. Lewis humorous statement when he refers to Lazarus’s death, “Poor Lazarus, he will have to do his dying all over again.”

In the case of our Lord, His resurrection was final. Amazingly, even as we are witnessing the resurrection of Lazarus, the son of the widow from Nain and Jairus’ daughter, when you come to the resurrection of Jesus, It’s a very different ballgame. It is witnessed only by angels. In the four gospels and even in Mark, when he talks of a young man who was in robes, we have to conclude even that was an angel. There isn’t a lot said, but I think his literary understatement on the person seated on the grave, because when you go to the other gospels the witnesses are angels.

They are the only link between the actual event of the resurrection of Jesus and us. They were the first witnesses and then they told women. Only angels are the constant witnesses of our Lord’s resurrection. They said, Christ is risen! Which human being would have described this most indescribable event? God is indescribable!

And so to Him who is blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, Who alone has immortality, Who dwells inapproachable light, Whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honour and eternal dominion forever. Amen.