Mark 5.15 And they
came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion,
sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. – St.
Mark
Jesus encountered a man in the region of the Gadarenes
one day. The man had become in himself a haunt for the vilest and evil things.
He was regarded by the locals as demon-possessed,
and he was very dangerous. So, as Jesus approached him, he screamed: “What have you to
do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not
torment me[!!!]” (the exclamation points aren’t in the text, the
screaming is). It says, Jesus was commanding the demons to leave the man (Vv.
7&8)
Imagine, you and your pastor are walking through a
part of your town and all of a sudden a man comes rushing at you screaming about God and Jesus and
swearing up a storm. You haven’t done anything except be there, and here’s this
lunatic screaming bloody murder just because you are. It’s not a pleasant
thought to me. My thought would be: run, or call the cops.
And so you begin to pray and before you know it, the man
is in his right mind and is more like a little kid than a confrontational monster.
The man begins to honestly ask about God and maybe tells you he used to go to
church and Sunday school when he was a child. He reveals he’s from a rough
childhood, and there’s been significant abuse of various kinds in his life as a
child and a young man. The rage and the anger is a result of all that.
So, you arrange to get him some clean clothes and some
food, and he winds up at your church the following Sunday and there is great fear among your people that he is the
very man who has terrorized that part of your town for quite some time. And
people are afraid; they’re very suspicious. They keep their distance.
Imagine you’re with Jesus and all of a sudden the very man He’s
healed is now being rejected for being in his right mind, and Jesus is being
rejected for shining His light into a blackened soul and bringing life in
instead. It’s hard to understand the incomprehensible, the unstoppable, and the
non-conventional. In America these days, we either let the mental run loose, or we run from them. God has a heart for those
who’re trapped in circumstances beyond their control. Most normal people can’t
or won’t identify.
The power and presence of God isn’t for the faint-hearted,
or for the know-it-all. The power and presence of God in our day is for setting
the captives free, for giving sight to the blind, and for liberating those who
are oppressed either by man, or by devils. The power and presence of God is not
containable or controllable, but it is
for the benefit of those who cannot help themselves and the includes just about
all of us, all of the time. And as weird and confusing as it appears sometimes,
it reveals our own powerlessness, and our need for the presence and power of
God in our own lives.
Father, may I not
fear the results but simply trust that whether or not I understand, You love us
all from the greatest to the least, and You care for us in ways we cannot
understand. Help me to trust and rejoice that You are in the business of bring
life into death, light into darkness, and friendship into loneliness and fear.
You’re a good, good Father – it’s Who You are…amen.
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