Introduction: Call it nearly fifty years of social conditioning, most of it spent with either myself or my children in school, but I just can’t seem to get around the fact that Labor Day weekend marks the beginning of the new year. Though I realize the new calendar year begins on January 1, and the new church year begins on the first Sunday in advent, there is nothing quite like the sense of newness that the month of September brings. There is a different feel, a different pace, even a different smell in the air as August closes and September opens. It’s more distinct, to my mind, than any other time of the year.

 

Therefore, it’s not inappropriate that we begin this “new year” with plans to focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. For, when Jesus arrived on the scene of world history, he brought with him the presence and power of the kingdom of God in a distinctly new and restorative way. One of the clearest demonstrations we have of this is the miracle of the healing of the mute man. As the dust of the discussion following this miracle settles, this is what we hear Jesus declare: “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.”

 

So, as we begin to explore the life of Jesus as presented by Luke, we want to think about what it means for Jesus to have ushered in the kingdom of God. What is new with his coming? What promises of God is he fulfilling? What does it mean to live newly, as kingdom people and think, newly, in a kingdom way? How are we to understand the truth that if the kingdom of God has come, there are obviously still a lot on non-kingdom like things, a lot of “old” things, still going on in the world? Including the book of Acts, Luke has written 28% of the NT, more than any other author, even Paul (at 24%). So the early Christian community has clearly been formed and shaped by his work. I trust and pray that we will be as well.

 

I. A Miracle Turned Upside-Down

            A. We begin then, with this miracle, which one author has called a “miracle turned upside-down” (Darrell Bock). What he means by this is that in most of the miracle accounts that we find in the gospels, most of the attention is given to the setting and the nature of the miracle – where the people are, what’s been going on in their lives, and how Jesus gets involved and performs a particular miracle. But in this one, all of that is taken care of in less than one verse. The rest of the account records the reaction to the miracle which, I think, highlights its importance. What, then, are these reactions?

 

II. Two Reactions from the Crowd

            A. First, we get two different reactions from the crowd that has witnessed the miracle. At first we see that they were amazed that a man who had been mute could now speak. But then it becomes clear that there are serious doubts that begin to surface. Notice that these doubts have nothing to do with the miracle having happened. There was no doubting that something miraculous had taken place. From our place of historical distance, that’s often the difficulty we have. But it might be helpful for us to notice that it wasn’t a difficulty for those who had been with Jesus, even his opponents. They were too close to Jesus to deny that something supernatural had just happened. Instead, we see these reactions.

 

            B. First, it was suggested that Jesus’ extraordinary capabilities could be attributed to Satan, identified as “Beelzebub, the prince of demons.” Somehow, it was thought, this guy Jesus must have been some kind of sorcerer, practicing a brand of “black magic.” A second alternative, suggested by others in the crowd, was that whatever Jesus had done it was not good enough for them. This Jesus still needed to prove what he had done, back it up, as it were, by doing something even grander and more spectacular. A “sign from heaven” they called it.

 

            C. To sum these reactions up, we might say that the first group rejected Jesus by saying his claim to authority was suspect, while the second weren’t yet ready to commit but wanted to find a way to sit on the fence a little longer. Sadly, these reactions aren’t really that strange to us. When it comes down to it, our life of faith, our view of the world, really begins and ends with Jesus. If we don’t like who he claims to be, and who he therefore calls us to be, one possible way out it to deny or diminish his authority, claiming that it’s not from God but from somewhere, or someone, else. We end up believing we can take it or leave it without any consequence. Or, like the second group, we wait for Jesus to perform just one more time. If he acts to fix this or that situation in our life, or in or world, well then, we reason, we’ll give ourselves to him. In reality, that’s really more like using Jesus for what we think he should be giving us than seeking to be in relationship with him for who he is. Unfortunately, if he doesn’t, we conclude he doesn’t love us, but if he does act, we can be far too inclined to take what he’s given us and move on without him.

 

Illustration: I’ve been reading in recent days from 1 Kings, the beginning chapters of which detail the rise of King Solomon to power. His downfall, however, begins with the things he begins to accumulate, not only gold and silver but especially his accumulation of foreign wives. What happened is that these women that he married turned his heart away from the LORD and toward their pagan gods. The LORD was grieved, the narrator notes in 11:9, “because his heart had turned away from the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.” In other words, neither God’s miraculous presence, nor his gifts, directed Solomon’s heart in the right direction; Solomon had begun to use God for what he could get, rather than walking with him for who he is.

 

III. Two Responses from Jesus

            A. Well, to these reactions of rejection and fence sitting, Jesus has two responses. To the first group, who believe he is a tool of Satan, he says they have made an error in logic. If Jesus has just exorcised a demon, through the power of Satan, then that would mean that Satan had endorsed a civil war against himself! The evil one may be many things, but he is not be stupid enough, Jesus explains, to divide his kingdom in that way. “If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” Such a household would soon fall to pieces, Jesus tells the crowd.

 

            B. To the second group, Jesus says that they have made an error in vision. The sign he has just given them is heavenly enough. What the devil had sought to destroy, Jesus has healed.  He has freed a man from isolation and restored his true humanity. This power of God that is operative through me, Jesus declares, is the very finger of God.

 

            C. The “finger of God” is a phrase worth pondering. It would have taken Jesus’ listeners back to the dramatic and liberating event of the Exodus, particularly the ten plagues God visited upon Pharaoh to encourage him to release God’s people from slavery. Interestingly, the first few plagues, the blood in the Nile and the frogs, Pharaoh’s magicians were able to reproduce by their “secret arts.” But when it got to the third plague, that of the gnats (and all the remaining seven, for that matter), they could not do so. They were led to conclude, and they said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God” (Ex. 8:19). As he uses this phrase, Jesus is recognizing that yes, some in the crowd were correct – there are other powers out there. But there is a power that is stronger than them all, the power of the LORD, and that is the power, and the authority, in which Jesus operates. Jesus’ work is like a divine painting, etched by the finger of God, that sketches out the arrival of the Kingdom.

 

It’s as if the healing of the mute man is an audiovisual display of what the coming of the Kingdom of God in Jesus means. It means that Jesus has come, not just to liberate a single people, but to bring healing and restoration to all who would receive him. It means that Satan’s cause is ultimately a lost one. It means that though, as Psalm 112 infers, we may experience bad news (and bad news will still come upon us because God’s kingdom is not yet here in its fullness), that the one who fears the Lord need not fear bad news because the one who brings good news is far stronger than the one who causes bad news! It means that the best thing we can do in the meantime is to follow the one to whom God’s finger points, the one who will truly bring release from all that enslaves us.

 

In this regard, God’s finger this morning points us to the table, where we remember and celebrate that the power which enabled Jesus to defeat demons is the same power that enabled him to defeat sin and death, through the miracle of his own death. Let us go there now, confident that God’s reign and rule is present and active in this place and in our world.