We finished our last class by talking about Mark’s record of Jesus’ first preaching in Capernaum followed immediately by the first miracle that Mark records, Jesus’ healing of a demon-possessed man. Both His teaching and the miracle caused the people in Capernaum to be “astonished” at Jesus’ authority. They recognized that He didn’t teach like the scribes, but had an authority that they had not heard or experienced before. He was not simply telling them something He had received from another He was the very embodiment of His teaching. As we talk about often, when Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life” He was revealing that truth is a person. Truth is not an idea, a value or a principle; it is not relative or simply absolute. Truth is Jesus, it is all that He is all that He does and all that He says. There is no truth outside of Him. Paul wrote it this way in the letter to the Colossians, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (are held together).” (1:15-17) Jesus’ authority was not found in His knowledge or His charisma but in His identity, to acknowledge Him as the Son of God is to obey or disobey Him. As we discussed last time, “follow me” is a command not an invitation, it involves no negotiation on our part, only a decision of obedience or disobedience, submission or defiance. That is what the people in Capernaum recognized in His first teaching, they may not have fully understood Him as the Messiah yet, but they were aware that this man was not like other men and that His message was not one to be considered, it was one to believe or reject. My favorite quote from the late missionary Jim Elliot is a prayer that embodies this, “Father, make me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.” Jesus was and is a fork in the road for every man that has ever lived, upon being confronted by Him we must make a decision to follow or reject, obey or disobey, surrender or withstand.