Thrown out of Nazareth, Jesus returned to his adopted home at Capernaum. He hung out at the synagogue, and ended up preaching the sermon every week. He seemed to be going down well.
There was something different about the way he spoke. Rabbis at the time were very cautious - they didn't want to go out on a limb and say "This is how it is." So usually they would say "On the one hand this, on the other hand that," or "Rabbi so and so says this, but Rabbi such and such says that."
Yes, but what do you say? What do you say to me, rabbi? I've come to listen, what are you going to tell me to do?
Jesus seemed free of the usual hang ups, because Luke tells us that he taught with authority. People were amazed. They found it exciting, stimulating, mind-expanding.
And then one day, there was trouble. Spiritual opposition of an unruly kind. Some sort of demon or evil spirit had seized control of a man's mouth, and began shouting at Jesus.
Things like this happen rarely these days, but they do happen. I remember once a troubled teenager wove his way to the front of my church, seized the chalice full of communion wine and hurled it against the wall. He then fell asleep. Afterwards, he claimed he remembered nothing about it.
When it happened to Jesus, he cut the man short. "Be quiet! Come out of the man." The demon obeyed the instruction forthwith, and the man was unharmed. The level of amazement in the room promptly increased exponentially. This Jesus didn't just teach with authority, creatures in the spiritual realm obeyed his authority as well!
It wasn't the preaching, it as this miracle that made news about Jesus go viral. Perhaps Jesus was exasperated about that as I would have been. All those weeks of careful teaching, all those important lessons he was building up in people's minds - forgotten in a flash because something startling had happened.
People were watching him now. But not perhaps for the reasons he intended.
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