GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
MARK 1:25
Put a Sock in It
During one after-school wrestling practice, Coach Smith was demonstrating a move. He and one of the students were practicing the move so that we could see how it was performed. The rest of the team stood watching and talking. Annoyed, the coach shouted, “Put a sock in it.” There was no doubt what he meant, so we stopped talking and watched him demonstrate the move again.
According to St. Mark, Jesus was teaching in a Capernaum synagogue one Sabbath, when a man with an unclean spirit tried to usurp his lesson by crying out that he was “the Holy One of God.” “And Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him.’” (1:25) Jesus rebuked the man using a colloquial expression, “be muzzled,” the actual word Mark used, which is usually rendered “be silent,” but could be understood to mean “shut up,” and he commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. “Be muzzled” was a stern rebuke like Coach Smith’s “put a sock in it.”
One lesson here is that the first step in thwarting evil is to silence it. When an unclean thought enters the mind, muzzle it. When the hand would do an unclean deed, muzzle it. When the foot would take a wrong step, muzzle it. When an unclean word would come out of the mouth, put a sock in it.
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