First Reading: Isaiah 65:1-9
1I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that was not called by my name. 2I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; 3a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks; 4who sit in tombs, and spend the night in secret places; who eat pig’s flesh, and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels; 5who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day. 6Behold, it is written before me: “I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their lap 7both your iniquities and your fathers’ iniquities together, says the Lord; because they made offerings on the mountains and insulted me on the hills, I will measure into their lap payment for their former deeds.” 8Thus says the Lord: “As the new wine is found in the cluster, and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,’ so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all. 9I will bring forth offspring from Jacob, and from Judah possessors of my mountains; my chosen shall possess it, and my servants shall dwell there.”
Psalm 3
1Lord, how many adversaries I have! how many there are who rise up against me! 2How many there are who say of me, “There is no help for him in his God.” 3But you, O Lord, are a shield about me; you are my glory, the one who lifts up my head. 4I call aloud upon the Lord, and he answers me from his holy hill; 5I lie down and go to sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. 6I do not fear the multitudes of people who set themselves against me all around. 7Rise up, O Lord; set me free, O my God; surely, you will strike all my enemies across the face, you will break the teeth of the wicked. 8Deliverance belongs to the Lord. Your blessing be upon your people!
Second Reading: Galatians 3:23-4:7
23Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
1I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Gospel: Luke 8:26-39
26{Jesus and his disciples} sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 29For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) 30Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. 32Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. 34When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. 35Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 36And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. 37Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
A Tortured Man
I must admit, my name does have its advantages. For many, it’s a conversation starter. I get questions like, “How’s Cujo?”, or “How’s Christine running?” Most of the time I get asked, “written any new books lately?” You’ve heard my response to many of these questions. And while most of the time the conversations are routine, there are occasions that it’s been fun as well.
For example, when we were stationed in New Jersey, we lived for a time on Elm St. We did have a good bit of fun on Halloween when it dawned on people that Steven King lived on Elm St! Aside from having the same name as the author, we share little else in common. He’s a writer of horror novels and I can’t stand anything that has to do with that genre, either in print or on the big screen. I’ve only read one Stephen King book, a short story called The Raft, and I’ve only seen one horror film, The Exorcist. The book scared the stuffing out of me, and I had to leave the movie. For me, entertainment categorized as horror is one thing, but when the story includes demonic possession, well that’s a whole new level of fear. What does surprises me is that Hollywood hasn’t taken our gospel lesson for today and made a movie about it.
The man of Gerasa was a tortured man! His hair was tossed and unkept. His beard was shaggy and matted with debris. His eyes were wild, saucer-like, and hypnotic, betraying his clueless and clothe less dilemma. He beats and cuts himself with sharp rocks until blood flows, clots, and flows again. Dark bruises dot his skin like a leopard’s spots. He lives in the cemetery. Imagined and real demons are his companions. The citizens of Gerasa have tried to contain him, but their shackles and chains crack and break by his strange and superior strength. How does one control this level of madness? How do you manage that level of chaos? He isn’t the poster child for tourism; no one wants to be near the local.
Pilgrims, and even the locals avoid the area. They’re clearly afraid. The members of the community know the situation is beyond their capabilities. Do they even fully comprehend that satan is at work here? Now I do want to pause here for a moment and highlight the first verse that always captures my attention when I read this story: in verse 28 we read, “When he, (the demonic) saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before Him and said with a loud voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torture me.” Think about this possessed man’s proclamation.
No where in our gospels does it say that Jesus sent disciples ahead to announce His coming. Yet the demons who possessed this man knew they were in the presence of God’s only Son. More than that, they recognized His absolute power and His absolute divine authority. For you and me, children of the Most Hight God, this one verse should give us comfort. We serve the one true living God and satan and his minions are under His complete subjection.
Heaven and earth, the physical and spiritual realms are all under Christ’s authority. Isn’t this why we regularly pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven?” So, as we ponder this text, the question we should be asking is, do we truly recognize the power and authority of God? The demons know, this is why they asked, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”
“What is your name?” Jesus commands. “Legion” with his face to the ground, the demons respond with a quivering voice. A Legion represents 6,000 soldiers in a typical Roman army. This man was possessed by so many demons that darkness truly was in charge. Stop for a moment and envision 6,000 bats in a dark cave and you can begin to imagine a legion. Satan, demons, and evil, like bats, favor darkness and despise the Light. Noted author John Killinger tells a powerful story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada.
The man is in a deep state of depression. He’s so depressed that he can’t even bring himself to go downstairs to the restaurant to eat. He’s usually a powerful man, the chairman of a large shipping company, but at this moment, he’s absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life… and he lies there on a lonely hotel bed far from home wallowing in self-pity.
His entire life he has been fastidious, worrying about everything, anxious and fretful, always fussing and stewing over every detail. And now, at mid-life, his anxiety has gotten the best of him, even to the extent that it’s difficult for him to sleep and to eat. He worries and broods and agonizes about everything, his business, his investments, his decisions, his family, his health, even, his dogs. Then, on this day in this Canadian hotel, he craters. He hits bottom. Filled with anxiety, completely immobilized, paralyzed by his emotional despair, unable to leave his room, lying on his bed, he moans out loud: “Life isn’t worth living this way, I wish I were dead!” And then, he wonders, what God would think if he heard him talking this way.
Speaking aloud again he says, “God, it’s a joke, isn’t it? Life is nothing but a joke.” Suddenly, it occurs to the man that this is the first time he’s talked to God since he was a little boy. He’s silent for a moment and then he begins to pray. He describes it like this: “I just talked out loud about what a mess my life was in and how tired I was and how much I wanted things to be different in my life. And you know what happened next? A voice! I heard a voice say, ‘It doesn’t have to be that way!’ That’s all.”
He went home and talked to his wife about what happened. He talked to his brother who is a minister and asked him: “Do you think it was God speaking to me?” The brother said: “Of course, because that’s the message of God to you and every one of us. That’s the message of the Bible. That’s why Jesus came into this world to save us, to deliver us, to free us, to change us, and to show us that, ‘It doesn’t have to be that way.’ A few days later, the man called his brother and said, “You were right. It has really happened. I’ve done it. I’ve had a rebirth. I’m a new man. Christ has turned it around for me.”
The man is still prone to anxiety. He still must work hard. But now, he has a new source of strength. During the week, he often leaves his office and goes to the church close by. He sits there and prays. He says: “It clears my head. It reminds me of who I am and whose I am. Each time as I sit there in the Sanctuary, I think back to that day in that hotel room in Canada and how depressed and lonely and lost I felt, and I hear that voice saying: It doesn’t have to be that way.” That’s precisely what gospel reading is all about.
Christ walks into the tormented life of the Gerasene demoniac, this madman, whose life was coming apart at the seams and He turns it around for him. Jesus gave him a new beginning, a new start, a new birth. At the beginning of the narrative, it sounds like a horror story. This wild-eyed, adrenalin-filled, madman comes running and shrieking out of the tombs. He’s unbalanced; he’s being held captive by a whole legion of demons, who are pulling and jerking him in every direction.
This is an eerie, grim, suspenseful, frightening situation. Jesus and His disciples have just come through a storm on the Sea of Galilee. It’s early morning and having survived that storm they’re thrilled to now set foot on solid ground. But, as they get out of the boat, they encounter a different kind of storm… yet another scary experience. They hear strange sounds coming from the tombs… shrieks, growls, screams, moans, the rattling of chains. Then, suddenly, a horrifying sight. A madman, naked, bruised, dirty, bloody and battered, with pieces of chains dangling from his arms and ankles, comes running and screaming directly toward them! What would you or I have done in that situation?
This was a perilous place, a heart stopping moment… a powerful, dangerous, berserk man, comes charging at them. Many I bet would have run for their lives… or jumped back in the boat. But not Jesus! Jesus stood His ground and faced the madman. Undaunted, unafraid… Jesus stood there and dealt firmly, authoritatively, with this wild man. And of greatest importance, Jesus delivered him. He brought peace to his troubled soul. He changed him. He freed him. He turned his life around… and Jesus can do the same for anyone who simply recognizes Him for who He is, the Son of the most high God. With this in mind, let’s look at three ideas out of this great story. First, we don’t have to be at war with ourselves. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Notice here in Luke that the Gerasene demoniac, this madman, was at war with himself. He was hurting himself, bruising himself, injuring himself. How often do we do the same? It might not be outward cutting and bruising, but what about the numerous ways we abuse our bodies and souls that others cannot see? As Pogo put it: “We have met the enemy, and he is us!”
One day a young father was shopping in a crowded supermarket. His three-year old son was with him. The little boy was riding in the grocery cart… he was misbehaving badly and causing all kinds of problems. Every time the father would put something into the cart, the little boy would grab it and throw it back out. If the cart got close to the shelves, the three-year old boy would just rake stuff off onto the floor. At one point, the little boy managed to crawl out of the cart and started running down the aisle, knocking over every display he could get his hands on, with his father in hot pursuit. No one in the store could help but notice the commotion.
People for several aisles could hear the father saying out loud over and over, “Just be patient, Tommy. It won’t be much longer. It’ll be O.K., Tommy. Be calm. Hang in there, Tommy.” Finally, a distinguished looking woman came up to the man and said: “I want to compliment you. I’ve been watching you and I want you to know that I admire you and the remarkable patience you have with little Tommy.” “O, but Lady,” the man said. “You don’t understand. His name is Michael. I’m Tommy!” Here was a smart man! He was right to start with himself. If we’re going to set our lives in order, we must begin with ourselves. And the only way to truly turn our lives around, is to turn our lives over to God.
Some time ago, a young doctor came to see his pastor. He was down in the dumps, at his wit’s end. He said: “Everything’s gone wrong. I’ve lost confidence in my professional ability… my wife has left me. I can’t get along with my children. I’m cut off from my parents and my in-laws. I’m having conflicts with my co-workers. I’ve been drinking heavily. Everybody has left me, and I don’t blame them. I’ve been bitter and hostile toward others. I’ve done so many mean and cruel things, and now I have so many problems, my troubles are a Legion!” He paused and took a deep breath. Then, he leaned forward and said: “To tell you the truth, I think all my problems are just symptoms. My real problem is, I don’t like myself… and that taints everything I touch and do.”
Now I’m not a psychologist, but I think he was probably right. When we’re at war with ourselves, when our life and priorities are out of order, it damages and distorts every relationship. On the other hand, when we’re at peace with ourselves, when we’ve submitted our lives to God and to His service, we’re more loving, more patient, more thoughtful, more gracious… toward everyone we see.
Jesus came to set us free from the power of sin and satan. God has claimed you and I in the waters of baptism and we are children and heirs of the Most High God. And as children and heirs, we are special to God. He loves us! We are extremely valuable to Him! And we serve the One whom God has given all authority, in heaven and on earth. If we’re ever in doubt or wonder about that, Luther reminded us to simply remember our baptism. The story is told about the old man who was brought to a hospital emergency room late one evening, an apparent mugging victim.
He looked like one of the homeless. He was ill-clothed and dirty and disheveled, battered… and appeared to be unconscious. One of the young medical students took one look at him and said: “What in the world should we do with this worthless wretch?” The old man opened his eyes slightly and in an amazingly strong voice said, “Call him not worthless for whom Christ died!” Because of Jesus, we are special to God and that makes each of us supremely valuable. We have no need to be at war with ourselves, nor do we have to be at war with other people. As God reminded the man in that hotel room, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Once on 20/20 episode they did a program called “Neighbors at War”… showing how next-door neighbors do battle with one another, fighting one another, fussing at one another, suing one another, sometimes even shooting at one another because of a barking dog, or a noisy power tool, or a bouncing basketball. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn to befriend one another, to respect one another, to love one another?
A city newspaper had an article about a young man from a wealthy family who was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. Bill and his father had spent months looking at cars… and the week before graduation they found the perfect car. Bill was certain that on graduation night that car would be his. After the graduation ceremonies, Bill’s father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible! Bill was so furious that he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house. He and his father never spoke again, never saw each other again. His parents tried to reach him, but Bill refused to speak to them or see them… or read their letters. When his parents died, Bill came home.
Bill sat one night going through his father’s possessions that he was to inherit, he came across the Bible his father had given him for graduation. Bill brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier’s check…dated the day of his graduation – in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together! It’s sad, isn’t it? A misperceived moment, a fit of anger had cost Bill years of time with his parents. I hope Bill read that Bible cover to cover… because it has many lessons Bill needed to learn. The Bible contains lessons all of us need to learn, one of them being: You don’t have to be at war with other people. It doesn’t have to be that way! Finally, we don’t have to be at war with God. In today’s reading, Legion, the madman, was also cut off from God. “What have you to do with me?… don’t torment me, he says to Jesus.
Carl Michalson, a brilliant young theologian who died in a plane crash some years ago, once told about playing with his young son one afternoon. They were rough housing on their front lawn when Dr. Michalson accidentally hit the young boy in the face with his elbow. It was a sharp blow, and the little boy was stunned by the impact of his dad’s elbow. It hurt… and he was just about to burst into tears. But then, he looked into his father’s eyes and instead of anger or hostility, he saw his father’s horror and concern; he saw his father’s love and compassion. Then, instead of exploding into tears, the little boy suddenly burst into laughter. What he saw in his father’s eyes… made all the difference! This is one of the reasons Jesus is so important to us.
When we look into Jesus’ eyes we look into our heavenly Father’s eyes! When we look at Jesus, we see what God is like and what God wants us to be like! Jesus shows us the love, the compassion, the concern and the empathy of our heavenly Father… and that’s the good news of our faith. Jesus reveals that God looks at us not with angry, vengeful, condemning eyes, but with the eyes of love.
As children of our heavenly Father, we don’t have to be at war with ourselves, we don’t have to be at war with other people, and we don’t have to be at war with God. Jesus came that we might have life, abundant life. And because we have been given this abundant life, shouldn’t we do like as the delivered man did and go and proclaim throughout the whole city how much Jesus has done for us?
Amen