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Gospel Reflection – January 13, 2026
New Creation
The “new beginning” we spoke of yesterday is clearly seen in the miraculous birth of Samuel from a woman who could not have children. This expresses God’s creative power: He made everything from nothing, and He is ready to save the world and humanity from that state “less than nothing,” which is sin and death.
However, while the first Creation was an act that depended exclusively on God’s sovereign will, this new creation requires human cooperation to be complete. That is why it needs a long preparation. Salvation history—which is also human history—arrives at the “fullness of time” feeling, in a sense, exhausted. This explains what we see in today’s Gospel and many other passages: the experts in the law and the prophets (the scribes and Pharisees) have lost their authority. Their teaching doesn’t attract anyone, it doesn’t help anyone grow, and it has turned into an empty, sterile formality.
But this doesn’t run God’s creative power dry. That power is now manifested definitively in Jesus Christ. The authority Jesus teaches with isn’t based on power that imposes or crushes; it is based on a life-force that restores and heals whatever is sick or affected by evil.
Today, we see Him act against a spiritual form of this evil. It is striking that the man possessed by an “unclean spirit” is found inside the synagogue. This shows us that evil spirits don’t know or respect boundaries; they don’t just affect “those other people” or “outsiders.” Anyone can be possessed by evil spirits: spirits of grudge, resentment, unforgiveness, rejection of others, prejudice, pride, laziness, lust…
These bad spirits feel uncomfortable around Jesus. They yell at Him and try to get away from Him. Any of us might have experienced this when some form of spiritual evil harasses us (as temptation) or nests within us (as a bad attitude or behavior). We try to avoid an encounter with Christ—sometimes directly (by skipping prayer or avoiding an examination of conscience), and sometimes indirectly (by rejecting correction from a friend or questioning Church teaching just to justify ourselves).
But Jesus came precisely to put an end to these evil spirits. He exorcises them if we let ourselves be challenged by Him—if we submit to His beneficial and liberating authority. And if we do this, if we let His grace work in us so that the “new creation” becomes visible in our lives, we become His witnesses, actively helping His fame spread everywhere.