The religious leaders of Jesus’ time had become guardians of tradition and rules. Those traditions and their own lifestyles had degenerated into a repetition of a boring life, boring preaching, and boring liturgies. Their word was rooted in the teaching of Moses, but they lacked the internal touch of the Holy Spirit that sparks new like. As Jesus often points out, their word had become a set of rules that was cold, heartless, lacking compassion, and not connected to God. While they cited Moses as their authority, they lacked personal authority, charism, and that connection to the living God. Their word did not create new life. Rather than being inspiring religious leaders, they had become religious police, controllers of external blessings and piety.
Jesus walks into the synagogue on the sabbath and proclaims the Word of God. This is not the repetition of boring rules and regulations. Nor does he cite a long string of excellent teachers or rabbis to justify his teachings. Rather he shows and proclaims the beauty of God acting in their lives that very day. The personal conviction, charism, authority, force, and experience of his teaching is remarkable. The text says they were astonished. This was something totally new to them. His Word clarified their lives and gave them a new orientation. His Word produced life and joy in a new way.
At the end of his preaching, there is a healing, the expulsion of an unclean spirit. Surely the folk in the synagogue knew that man. He was their neighbor and probably lived among them for many years. They knew how he talked; they knew his actions; they knew his lifestyle; they knew his temperament; they knew how he treated his neighbors. With all that internal uncleanness, he was right there in the synagogue and probably kept all the external rules and regulations of the Law. He probably even considered himself holy or justified in that system of external rules. That is why he was in the synagogue. But internally he was unclean. Jesus’ Word provoked an internal shift in that man – a new hope – a sudden awareness that something was off kilter in him. That is why he calls out. Jesus’ Word cleanses him and expels all the internal uncleanness.
The people in the synagogue who witnessed what happened moved from being astonished by his Word to being amazed by his action and the power of his Word. Being truly open to the Word of God produces astonishment and amazement in us. Jesus’ authoring does not come from boring rules and regulation but rather from the Spirit of God the produces astonishment and amazement.
Ask yourselves today: As an evangelizing person, family or community, when was the last time you shared with others your astonishment and amazement at the action of God’s Word in your life.
What is there about his word?
Image: CANVA CJ Dunn 29 August 2026 AI Generated.