Believing is Seeing

"They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “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.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him." (Mark 1:22-26, NRSV)

We need a radical reorientation. We need to readjust our understanding of the world and authority. We accept truth from all sorts of sources. We accept a truth that the news media puts out, our friends, books, but we lack the critical skills of discernment.

We walk around in this world, believing what we see. Our eyes dictate to us the truth, even though we know there are optical illusions. In this Mark passage we are confronted with a world that we rather ignore—the spiritual world. In this rational, still mostly modern world that we walk in, we don’t accept that demons and angels exist, at least not in the form talked about in scripture. Why do we trust our ideas—why are our senses our are mode of discerning truth?

Perhaps Seeing isn’t believing, maybe Believing is true seeing. In this passage, Mark doesn’t explain Jesus authority, but only that everyone recognized it as unique and instantly. Jesus’ authority is not based on our senses our perceptions of him. It isn’t based on his history of learning, but it is based on who He is. Whether or not we believe (or see for that matter) we eventually have to come to terms with Jesus’ authority.

Why is that the demons always can see Jesus? We need a radical reorientation of authority and belief.