I know who you are: the Holy One of God.Following the arrest of John the Baptist by king Herod, Jesus embarks on his mission of preaching the good news of God’s kingdom. In today’s Gospel passage, we see him enter a synagogue together with his disciples in order to fulfill his Sabbath obligations. And as he took his place among the other teachers, two strange things take place. First and foremost, the people are amazed at the teaching of Jesus. In their own words, Jesus’ teaching came forth with authority unlike the teachings they were used to. This aura of authority that accompanied the words of Jesus resulted from the authenticity of his being, as his subsequent teachings would later reveal. Jesus was not simply spewing some words that he had memorized. His teaching was authentic because it emanated from his very being. His life lent credence to his teaching. In other words, he taught what he lived. 
The second strange thing that happened on this day is that we get to know the identity of Jesus from a very unlikely source. A man with an unclean spirit happened to be present in the synagogue that day, and as Jesus continued to teach – perhaps pointing to the coming to an end of the darkness that had gripped the world – the unclean spirit burst out in shrieks and revealed to Jesus that he was the holy one of God. It is highly unlikely that the unclean spirit was making a confession. The spirits knew who Jesus was. They also knew that he was not going to let them continue with their business as usual. He had come to tell them that their time was up and to shut them down. And so by "recognizing" Jesus as the holy one of God, the spirits wanted to render Jesus powerless. However, Jesus was too smart to be distracted by the evil spirit’s “endorsement.” He proceeded to do that which he had come to do: he rebuked him. He was not going to let the evil spirit confuse him or to continue confusing his brothers and sisters. There was no room for the evil spirits and their works in the kingdom which he had inaugurated.