+ 2ndSunday after Pentecost – June 23, 2019 +
Series C: Isaiah 65:1-9; Galatians 3:23-4:7; Luke 8:26-39
Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When we come across stories in Scripture like we hear in Luke 8, it’s good to remember that these things truly happened. Luke records a real event about real people at a real time in a real place. Bizarre and wild as it sounds, Luke is a reliable historian. And this is a true story.
And yet it does not cease to be a story.
Today’s Gospel reading has all the marks of a good summer blockbuster movie. It’s a dramatic, suspenseful story of a hopeless and helpless man whom Jesus rescued. It’s a story that shows the reality of the devil’s work, and yet his ultimate defeat and destruction by Jesus. Above all, it’s a story that reveals Jesus’ compassion and mercy.
Like every other story in Scripture, it’s all about Jesus crucified and risen for you. His saving work for this Gerasene man and for you. This is a true story of his grace, mercy, and love us who are just as helpless and hopeless as the man Jesus saves, even if we are better at hiding it than he was.
Now, Luke doesn’t go on to tell us much about what happened after Jesus exorcised the demons and saved this Gerasene man. But at the end of the story Luke writes that the man “went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.”
So, for the next few minutes, as you hear this story again, I invite you to use your imagination. Put yourself in the shoes of one those nameless townspeople in the region of the Gerasenes. Imagine this story from their point of view. Imagine that you’re one of the people this man witnessed to about all that Jesus had done for him. And that in hearing this good news, as St. Paul says, faith came by hearing the word of Christ.
Now, normally, this was a pretty quiet town in the region of the Gerasenes. The herdsmen tended their pigs. The townspeople went to the market. Fishermen cast their nets in the lake. Life was pretty ordinary here. But that all changed one day when some strange thing started happening in our ordinary town. That guy from across town was running around naked in the desert again, hanging out with the dead – that guy used to give me the creeps. And then there were those farmers griping about how they lost their herd of pigs in the lake. Strangest news of all was the man and the pigs were all possessed by unclean spirits. And at the center of all of this was some Jewish rabbi named Jesus from Nazareth of all places.
Now, unlike the herdsmen and the Gerasenese chamber of commerce, who wanted Jesus gone from their town and out of their region for good, there was something peculiar about this rabbi from Judea. Jewish rabbis usually avoid Gentile territory, but not this teacher they call Jesus. He came by boat, across the sea of Galilee to the opposite side, out of his way, out of his home country to rescue a helpless, hopeless man. He wasn’t just passing through. It’s like he wanted to be here. Wanted to find and save that man. Wanted to find and save me. To find and save you too.
I’m not proud of it, but like my neighbors, my friends, and my family, I was afraid too. Who wouldn’t be? This is normally a pretty quiet town. But then Jesus shows up. Performs an exorcism. A man possessed by a legion of demons who’s one day out there running around the tombs naked and wounded and yelling things out at anyone who passed by, and then the next day, he’s sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed. In his right mind. Like nothing ever happened. Better than he was ever before. The man who was demon-possessed had been healed. And then the demon-possessed pigs running off into the sea. Crowds of angry, fearful people.
So, yea, I’ll admit it, I was afraid. So I went along with the crowds and yelled for Jesus to leave. But truth be told, I was far more afraid of whatever possessed that guy and drove those pigs into the lake, than I was afraid of the guy who defeated a legion of demons with a word. And saved a man no one cared about. No one even went near that guy. He was always running around naked. Living among the dead. Sure sounds a lot more like death than life to me. And yea, some of his family had tried chaining him down a few times but he’d always just escape and go back out into the wilderness again. Back to a prison with no bars.
Until the day Jesus came. He was not afraid. Not afraid to come near the – what’s that Jewish word again, oh yea, unclean spirit. Jesus went to the most unclean of the unclean and he cleansed him. He went to the man naked and clothed him. He sought out the outcast and brought him home. He cared for the helpless and hopeless. He walked into the tombs to bring this man out alive again. He battled the demons and won. He rescued that guy. And me. And you.
That’s what that Gerasene man told me. Jesus came for him. For me. And for you. I know he would have rather gone go away with Jesus. But I’m sure glad he stayed. Glad Jesus told him, Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you. Glad that he told the whole city – even those angry farmers, even those fearful, skeptical friends, like me – how much Jesus had done for him.
Because that’s how Jesus saved me, through the word of a man Jesus had saved too. A word that brought joy out of hopelessness. A word that brought life out of death. A word that clothed the naked. Cleansed the unclean. Rescued the lost. A word that saved.
A word that comes to you as well. You see, Jesus finds and saves you just as he did that Gerasene man. And in a similar way. Jesus became unclean for you. Jesus became the outcast, alone on the cross for you. Jesus hung their naked and assaulted by the devil for you. Jesus went into the tomb…but came out alive again for you.
He does the same thing for you as he did for that Gerasene man. Here you are, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Clothed in his life, death, and resurrection for you. And in your right mind. The mind of a baptized child of God. The mind of Christ.
So today we do as Jesus gave the Gerasene man to do. You are saved, Rescued. Restored in Jesus, therefore, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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