1. But, I have to tell you, many of us do have trouble getting along with someone, that someone is ourselves. Yes, the battle I am talking about is a battle that is going on within us, in our hearts, in our minds and in our souls. This battle is an internal, inner battle. And all of us fight this battle within ourselves. How? How do we fight with and within ourselves? Well, we fight with ourselves whenever part of us wants one thing and another part of us wants another thing. For instance, we are having an internal battle when one part of us wants to do something and another part of us says: "You shouldn't do that.” Or we fight this battle within ourselves whenever part of us feels the urge to say something (something maybe harsh or critical) but another part of us says “You really shouldn't say that”. Or, the most common type of battle we fight within ourselves has to do with food. We all know this inner battle we fight. It is when part of us wants to eat something and another part of us says “No, you really shouldn't”.

2. Do you all understand the battle I am talking about? It is real, is it not? We really do fight battles within ourselves. It is kind of like there is a good guy and a bad guy in us. The good guy wants us to do and say the right thing. And we root for the good guy in us. We want the good in us to win. And we rejoice when the good guy does win. But sometimes the bad guy wins. Sometimes we do what we shouldn't do or say what we shouldn't say. And when the bad guy wins, instead of happy rejoicing we often feel guilty regret. Because some of the battles people fight within themselves are very serious battles with very serious consequences. Some of the inner battle people fight have to do with alcohol, drugs, jealousies, sexual urges, outbursts of anger, materialism, prejudice or a variety of other bad things that the bad guy within urges them to do. And if the bad guy wins too many of these battles in a person, then we wind up with a person who no longer listens to the good guy in them at all. And that, I tell you, is a very bad person indeed.

3. Now keep this inner battle we fight within ourselves in mind as we look at the Gospel lesson today. The story from the Gospel according to Mark this morning is an important story. This story is important mainly because Mark tells it right up front at the beginning of his Gospel. Yes, this is the very first miracle that Mark reports Jesus doing when he begins his ministry. "The first thing" in any story is usually important and is not put first by accident. Therefore we should sit up and take special notice of this first miracle Jesus did. And what is this first miracle that Jesus performed? Most Bible scholars call this miracle Jesus did an “exorcism”. And technically that is what this is. An exorcism is the casting out, the binding or the removal of a bad, evil, wrongful, unclean spirit from a person by means of a spoken oath or command. But for us today, when we hear the word exorcism we do not think of the definition. Instead when we hear the word exorcism, we think of all kinds of weird, strange and even scary things. We have the movie “The Exorcist” and ones like it, to thank for our ideas about exorcism. For in those movies the person who is exorcized is someone who is possessed by Satan himself. Therefore when someone is possessed you can see that they are. It is obvious. The person who is possessed by Satan turns hideously ugly. They look evil. They become violent. They do things that are so grotesque that I can not mention them here. And, of course, their head spins around.

4. This is the scary image that Hollywood has given us of an exorcism. But, surprise, Mark saw and described a real life exorcism performed by Christ, and it is nothing like the Hollywood version at all. Mark saw no special effects. He does not describe how hideous the possessed person was. Mark does not even mention a single head spinning around. Instead, what Mark witnessed is far different than the movies. So much so that what if we throw out our Hollywood ideas of demons and possessions and think of the whole idea of unclean spirits in a new way. For let me share some “what if's” for us to think about. What if the man with the unclean spirit was not much different than you and I? What if the man with the unclean spirit was just an ordinary person who was going through a really bad struggle and battle within? What if the man Jesus helped, was like any one of us who need Christ to help us defeat the the bad guy part of us and help the good guy part of us win?

5. Well there is evidence that points to the truth of this wider “what if” view of this first miracle Jesus did. The most striking evidence has to do with where this miracle happened and when. For we really need to see and take notice that this exorcism, this casting out of an unclean spirit by Christ, took place in Church on Sunday! Yes, the Bible tells us that Jesus was in Capernaum on the “Sabbath Day” and so he went to “Synagogue”. That is the exact same thing as saying Jesus was in town on “Sunday” and so he went to “Church”. And there, in Church on Sunday, Jesus met the man with the unclean spirit. The man was there in Church, sitting in one of the pews right beside his fellow Church-goers. And, Mark reports, that the man sat through the whole Church service. He listened as Jesus preached a powerful message that amazed everyone. It amazed everyone because instead of speaking like the regular preachers, Christ spoke with “authority”. And so it was only at the end of the service, as people were shaking hands with the preacher, telling Jesus how amazed they were and what a great sermon he preached, that this man suddenly shouted.

6. Why did this man shout out in Church? Maybe this man shouted out because the bad-guy spirit within him got the better of him. Maybe after hearing Jesus preach the true words of God with power and authority, the bad-guy spirit within this man knew it was only a matter of time before it would lose the battle for this man's soul. Maybe the unclean spirit within this man knew that if the man continued to listen and follow this new teaching of Jesus the Holy One of God, that its days of influencing the man to do the wrong thing were over. And so the bad-guy spirit within this man shouted at Jesus. And Jesus, recognizing the unclean spirit in him, shouted back: “Silence!” Jesus simply said. “Come out of Him!” And immediately the man was freed of the bad guy within. His inner battle was over. The good guy won.

7. This first miracle Jesus performed was a miracle of freeing a man in Church on Sunday of the bad guy within. This is an important miracle that deserves to be first in the Gospel. Because this is a miracle about how both Christ and Christ's teaching have the power to help us win the battle between good and evil in our souls and in our lives! I say both Christ and His teaching because Christ's teaching about God's way of goodness and love nourishes the good guy within us. And if we nourish the good guy within us, the bad guy does not have a chance.

C. I want to close with an old Indian tale I read. In this tale a chief tells a gathering of young braves about “the battle within”. "It is like two dogs fighting inside of us," the chief told them. "There is one good dog who always wants to do the right and the other bad dog always wants to do the wrong. Sometimes the good dog is stronger and is winning the fight. But sometimes the bad dog is stronger and is winning the fight." A young brave then asked the chief: "Who is going to win in the end?" "The one you feed," the chief answered. So it is. If we want to be free of that bad-dog spirit within us, we need to feed the good spirit within us on Christ and His word. Because let us know that Christ the Lord and His truth have the power and the authority to defeat whatever demons there are in our lives. Let us simply shout out to him in the midst of our battle and He will come to our aid.
Yes, let us shout out to the Holy One of God, and he will help us win… the battle within. Amen.