RBWords

When Moses spoke these words, he was claiming to speak on behalf of God. That is what a prophet claimed to do and his authority was given to him by God. When Jesus enters the synagogue as we are told in today's gospel scripture, he doesn't say that he is speaking on behalf of anyone else. He is speaking on his own! This raises the central question of the Gospel of Mark! Who is Jesus?

The early Christian community looked to the Old Testament to help them interpret their experience of Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew, for example, presents Jesus as a kind of "new Moses" who gives a new law from the moutain (the sermon on the mount). Mark presents him as the one whom God has raised up, but, he speaks not with an authority that has been given to him but rather with his own authority. This is why the people are amazed and puzzled. All other prophets were "credentialed" by God and claimed to speak on God's behalf. Jesus speaks on his own behalf and casts out demons on his own authority. Since human beings were not supposed to have that kind of authority, the question then arises: Who is he?

Ultimately all of us answer that question in one way or another. We may simply "accept" what has been given us in the teaching of the church over the centuries. Or we may come to terms with what the scriptures reveal to us and shape our faith accordingly. Jesus in today's gospel is clearly more than a prophet. Who is he? AMEN