Chess with Jesus: Mark 1:23-26
The struggle between good and evil is seldom straightforward. While I like the traditional hero slays dragon and gets the girl motif because such stories are easily followed and satisfying in their resolution with a victorious hero, these aren’t always my favorite in the long term. The stories that use less predictable motifs – ones that read like a game of chess with feints within feints within feints – end up being the ones that feel deeply satisfying. Often the best kind of tales are those where timing matters more than might, where wit matters more than weapons, where grit perseveres under overwhelming odds.
It's this kind of story we have today. Jesus teaches, and immediately he meets an unclean spirit. If this was a straightforward slay the dragon story, the unclean spirit would have challenged Jesus to a duel to prove itself more powerful than Jesus. Since the confrontation is so early in Jesus’ story, it probably would have beaten Jesus only to have Jesus come back and beat it in the end. But that’s not what happens, is it?
The question the spirit asks through the man gives great insight into its tactics. The spirit knows it can’t stand against Jesus in direct confrontation; that's why it pursues discourse. It asks if Jesus has come to destroy its kind rather than challenge Jesus to a direct conflict of power.
Destruction is often not the best way to foil something. Outright destruction creates martyrs. Outright destruction creates sympathy for the destroyed. The unclean spirit knows that there is a better way to spoil Jesus’ work than to try and destroy Him - and fail.
All the unclean spirit needs to do is to make God’s plan unfold differently than God intends. In revealing Jesus's identity, perhaps Jesus becomes too popular too quickly and Jesus would no longer have the time needed to genuinely develop followers. Perhaps in the revelation of Jesus’ authority the spirit can force the people to fear Jesus’ power and stop listening to Him. In revealing Jesus’ identity, perhaps a situation between Jesus and Ceasar or Pontius Pilate arises before the timing is right. Any of those situations would prevent God’s plan from unfolding as He desires.
This is why Jesus’ response is so important. Jesus silences the unclean spirit first. There is no need for people to hear who Jesus is until He has cultivated the necessary fertile ground for that revelation to take root and grow. There is no need to risk the timing of God’s plan through a grand debate.
Jesus doesn’t leave it at silencing the unclean spirit, though. Jesus casts out the unclean spirit. As much as this story is about preserving God’s timing, it is also about Jesus’ relationship with humankind. The man with the unclean spirit needed healing. Jesus shows what the unclean spirit already knew: direct confrontation wouldn’t work.
The game of chess between Jesus and the powers of evil has begun. The struggle between good and evil is seldom straightforward.
