Binding the Strongman (June 9)

Readings, 2 Cor 4:13-5:1 and Mark 3:20-35
Image, The Harrowing of Hell, Lincoln Cathedral in Lincoln, frieze (c. 1150 AD, restored in 2009) 

Let’s start with the perspective of the family of Jesus. For whatever they suspect of him and his calling, there is no denying that over the past months things have dramatically altered. First, Jesus went out to be baptised by John. Then he disappeared to the wilderness for forty days. Following this John is arrested and Jesus heads off the Galilee to proclaim the kingdom of God and call disciples. After this he sets off on a preaching tour and you don’t see him for a while. News returns of miracles performed, conflicts entered, a movement growing. He sends out twelve apostles to proclaim his message and cast out demons. Only now he returns home but a crowd gathers with such intensity, that you cannot not even eat.
 
The family has enough. Rumours and crowds were one thing, but now people are outright declaring Jesus is out of his mind, and scribes sent down from the big city announce him demon possessed! Given all this, it is perhaps understandable that his family went out to restrain him. If not for their own sense of propriety, then for his own safety. Jesus, perhaps not helping his case, called everyone to him and spoke in parables (is this really the time for parables?). I can’t possibly cast out demons by the power of demons… how can that be profitable to Beelzebub? No, I am simply tying up the strong man so I can plunder his house.
 
His mothers and brothers come. If the extended family is unable to bring Jesus to sense, his intimates surely will. Their presence will calm the crowds and scribes, and if not outright halt Jesus’ newfound ministry, at least perhaps smooth its more intense edges. Instead, (and again hardly helping matters) Jesus refuses to admit them and declares to those present that his mother and brothers are only those who do the will of God.
 
Now, nestled within this family drama are two radical claims on the part of Jesus. Part of my reason for foregrounding the response and concern of the family is to do justice to their stark strangeness. For it is easy for those of us initiated in the claims of the Christian faith to take in stride Jesus’ promise to plunder the strong man and claim us as his kin. But this is the wild heart of the Christian faith. That this man from unremarkable origins would be the anointed one of God sent to destroy the powers of evil in this world. That this Jesus has been charged to set free the prisoners of captive sin, and make of humanity a new family defined not by blood or birth but grace and commission.
 
Jesus’ response to the charge of demon possession is to say, I wield a power far greater than any demon. Jesus’ response to the reproach of his family is to say, I wield the power to make a far larger family. It is little wonder he has raised such concern. Jesus stands in his hometown and makes the brazen claim to be able to bind the prince of demons and liberate all who languish in his captivity. Jesus stands in his home and makes the borderline offensive claim that his family are those who do the will of God. And if these strange claims meet our ears as the familiar good news of great joy, we cannot attribute this to our own power (be that of reason or trust). No, it is dependent wholly on the Spirit who awakens in us the faith that the one who made these claims was indeed sent down and raised up by God.
 
It is only with the gift of faith, graciously bestowed, that we hear these claims and feel in our hearts the eternal weight of glory. It is only under the umbrella of Christ’s grace, that we encounter these brazen claims not as off-putting but as a balm for the day by day renewing of our inner spirit. It is only as those who have been made a new creation that the earthly tent of this radical scene reveals a house not made with hands.
 
That is to say, that we ought not scoff at the concerns of Jesus’ family, nor the opposition mounted by the scribes and crowds. In the same way we should not find it perplexing that many today feel such claims of the Christian faith strain the limits of credulity, or fall beyond the pale of the plausible. We can have no arrogance in finding these claims beneficial to our soul, for we can boast in nothing but Christ Jesus our Lord. For even our faith is not reached by effort or ingenuity. Faith is a gift freely given; a grace generously bestowed. Not so that we may lord it over the world, but so we would serve the world. Faith is a gift so that the church might be that corner of the world that lives in the knowledge of Christ’s victory and is in turn sent to live as a new humanity, a new family, freely pursuing the will of God.
 
What then, we might ask, of those family members, those crowds and scribes, what of those who found no faith in Christ and indeed opposed, arrested, and mocked? Not every neighbour needs to know the house was plundered for it to be found empty. The gospels speak time and again of Jesus’ victory as final, his triumph as complete, his righteousness as sufficient, his grace as insurmountable, his love as unbreakable. As Paul writes, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, all are now justified by Christ’s grace as a gift. And what is more, Paul says, because of Christ’s faithfulness, the free gift is not like the trespass. For if sin did abound in Adam’s trespass, how much more does grace abound in Jesus Christ’s triumph. Indeed, Paul affirms, just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.
 
The church confesses that as strange as it sounds (and has always sounded) this man Jesus plundered the house of the sin and death and set the captives free, this man Jesus dwelt among us and made all humanity his kindred. We are, all, his own. Such is his power and faithfulness that conscious or not we receive all that was his by righteousness. This truth renews us day by day so that we do not lose heart, turning instead to the vital work of the will of God in service of the world; pursuing kindness, justice, and mercy at each turn.