Do we recognize Christ’s presence in our midst?

In the Gospel we proclaim this day from the Evangelist Mark, we as readers and listeners join the action in medias res — “in the middle of the situation.” The Lord Jesus is at the start of his public ministry. He has just entered Capernaum, which many scripture scholars believe to have been the home of St. Matthew (Levi) the Tax Collector, as well as the site of one of the Lord’s many healings. Note, too, that Mark’s Gospel is thought to have been written earlier than the other Synoptic Gospels (meaning Matthew and Luke) and is more basic in the details provided than the other accounts (some of whom have this proclamation occurring in the synagogue in Nazareth).

In the passage we read today, the Lord Jesus has just entered into a synagogue where he taught the congregation and left them astonished. Note that those who hear the Lord Jesus teach and preach are reduced to wonderment, because, according to Mark’s Gospel, “(T)he people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”

Soon after this experience of the Word of God Incarnate proclaiming the word in the synagogue, Jesus encounters the presence of the Evil One. “In our fallen world, Satan and all his evil spirits are prowling about the world, seeking the ruin of souls,” as the traditional St. Michael the Archangel prayer reminds us.

This possessed man, described as one “with an unclean spirit,” cries out at the mere sight of Christ and declares in his fury, in his frustration, in his anger, “(W)hat 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!”

Let’s just stop here for a moment: the demons of hell, these fallen angels, recognize without any doubt whatsoever, the one standing in their midst, this son of the carpenter from Nazareth, is the Holy One of God, the Christ of God, the Messiah, God Incarnate among them. They recognize him and they react in fear and in their loathing of God and the things of God. But make no mistake — these evil spirits know with whom they are dealing — the very Son of God who, in a few simple words, casts them out, rendering them helpless and hopeless, so efficacious is the word of the Word made flesh.

Do we? Honestly, do we recognize Christ’s presence in our midst? In the midst of a dark and often dreary fallen world, do we see Jesus, the omnipotent, the omniscient, the all-loving, all-merciful one standing in our midst, casting out the demons in our lives, those things that weigh us down, that make us forget who we are, namely, “holy ones of God?”

The 20th century spiritual writer Thomas Merton, after many years of living the Trappist lifestyle, was permitted to leave his abbey to go shopping for his community one day. This is from his work, “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:”

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. … This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. … I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

You’re all walking around, shining like the sun. Despite sorrow, despite sin, you and I are created in God’s image and through baptism are conformed to his likeness. On your worst day, when everything seems to be going wrong, don’t lose sight of that.