Jesus clearly made an impression. So much so that many important and powerful people decided it was necessary to kill him. But that’s still in the future. For now we’ve heard how the impression he made on his first disciples was so strong that they were willing to put aside their lives and livelihoods and follow him, with no idea of what they were letting themselves in for.
Today the scenario is a little different (Mk 1:21-28). We are still close to home, in the familiar environment of people that grew up around Jesus, maybe knew him and his parents, not in his hometown, but close by. Jesus has accepted his public role and is taking on the position of teacher, interpreter of the scripture, in his local synagogue. And this was no minor thing – as we hear in our first reading (Dt 18:15-20), those people called out of the community to speak for God, to speak the words of God, had an awesome responsibility.
Taking on that responsibility in your local community isn’t easy. We hear elsewhere (Mk 6:1-6) of the unsurprising reaction of the people of Nazareth, those who knew him best, along the lines of “who does this guy think he is!” In Capernaum they were more surprised than irritated. But Jesus clearly made an impression.
His impact came partly from the demonstration of his power – to command daemons – but is based on something deeper. He taught with authority. What does that mean? What was this authority that Jesus demonstrated?
Authority comes in many forms. The most obvious is what is sometimes called positional authority – due to your position as a king, or a judge, or a politician in power, you have authority to decide many things and control people. Jesus had none of that authority (as he acknowledged later in his little debate with Pontus Pilate, who had a lot of it). Authority may also come from your skills or knowledge – she or he knows their stuff, you should take notice of them. That was the authority of the scribes, the experts in scripture. That wasn’t what people saw in Jesus. So what was it?
One way we might connect to that recognition of his authority is via a concept that would have been completely alien to people of his time – we call it authenticity. Authenticity has a “been there, done that” element. This is somebody who knows what they are talking about, not from study but from lived experience. But more than just having that experience themselves, the person is able to communicate it and cause others to appreciate it.
And what is “it” in this case, what was the experience that Jesus had absorbed so deeply in his life that others felt it even when he wasn’t focused on it? The experience, the lived reality of loving and being loved by the Father. Jesus was God’s channel for making an impact on the world. No wonder he was impressive. No wonder people took notice.