Many people experience life as boring, a routine sameness that repeats itself season after season. This attitude can even invade our relationship with God. The life of the Jewish people in the times of Jesus was centered around a strict, rigid, rituals in the temple and synagogue – or we could say unchanging and boring. Even the religious leaders repeated the same message year after year, often citing their teacher or master, who proclaimed the same message. They were so unconvincing that they had to cite Moses to justify their own uninteresting words. Words that held little relation to the people’s daily lives. Words that were centered on an external set of laws.
Jesus bursts onto the scene and speaks of a personal experience as connected to everyday life. This new message of forgiveness, service, love, peace, and communion is so powerful and personal that the people were astonished simply by his personal authority. He often says: “you heard it said so and so, I tell you such and such”. Even though the message is new and demanding, the people heard and saw his personal authority to propose this new way of living. This is not someone repeating something learned at rabbi school.
Then to seal everything, the announced Word is followed by marvelous deeds or miracles. The announced Word of love and communion becomes a reality right before their eyes. The miracles left them amazed.
This astonishment and amazement before the Word and authority of Jesus is what pushed them into conversion and a new life with each other and with God. Each Christian and the whole Christian community live in a state of joy from that astonishment and amazement and everyday shares that with everyone.
“What is there about his word?
For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits,
and they come out.”
When is the last time you shared or announced your own astonishment and amazement at the power of the Word of God in your life?
Image: https://medjugorjemalta.blogspot.com/2014/09/lk-431-37-jesus-drives-out-impure_2.html