The Voice of Authority (Friday Devotional)

 

The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

- Mark 1:22

In his 19 years as the anchorman for the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite was one of the most authoritative voices in America. When he gave you the news—whether it was of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the moon landing, or any other monumental event—you knew it was true because Cronkite said it. Indeed, when he declared in a 1968 broadcast that he saw no possibility for the Vietnam War to progress past a stalemate, Lyndon B. Johnson was said to remark, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” Cronkite was an unimpeachable authority.

In our age of cable news talking heads, that sort of gravitas feels like a thing of the distant past. Our anchors today seem to come in three varieties: 1) the sunshine-and-rainbows anchors of morning news, who mix breaking news with cooking segments, 2) the combative, partisan shouters on cable, and 3) the mostly interchangeable, forgettable anchors of network news whose names you may not even know. Today’s anchors may give us the news, but they’re far from unquestioned authorities in our minds.

In Jesus’ day, there were certain authorities whose sacred responsibility was to read, interpret, and teach God’s Word to the people. They were respected as wise, holy men with answers to important spiritual questions, the kind of people you trusted to have all the answers. They were seemingly the experts on the things of God.

Then came Jesus with his bold proclamation that the kingdom of God was at hand, with his teachings that supplemented and at times outright corrected what the teachers of the law were saying. Again and again, he cast God in a different light than the teachers did—and again and again, his words seemed to bear more truth than theirs. While they were mere interpreters of God’s Word, Jesus was the Word made flesh. They were amazed at him—because he taught as one who had authority, not like the teachers of the law.

Today there are plenty of people who fill the same role the teachers of the law did, people who are professed authorities on the important things in life, from religion to family to politics. They talk and talk and talk, and we listen, and after a while we start to think maybe they’re making some good points.

But if you’ll listen to Jesus, you’ll hear what authority really sounds like. He is the measuring stick by which all others are to be judged; his is the voice of God; he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If you want to know whether someone is truly authoritative, compare their words—and their actions—to his.

We may not have a Cronkite to give us the news anymore, but we still have the Good News of Jesus Christ. May that gospel and the one who proclaimed it be the authority you trust the most.