What He has done for you

Storms are a fact of life. Real physical storms, or spiritual storms. When Jesus crossed over to the land of the Gerasenes, he calmed a powerful storm in the Sea of Galilee. Now Jesus calmed the storm that raged inside the soul of one man. ‘Legion’ the demons called themselves. And when the man was healed of this ‘Legion’, he was “in his right mind,” as Luke puts it. A Roman Legion usually had 6,000 soldiers. Were there 6,000 demons inside this man? Maybe not that many, but consider the large herd of swine. In one of the other Gospels we read that there were 2,000 swine that drowned in the sea. One demon per swine? 2,000 demons then?

This is a very tangible image of how Satan imitates Christ’s sending of the apostles by sending demons into people’s minds and souls. What the demons did to the swine is an image of what they do in human society. They attack individuals. But also the structures of societal order that depend on individuals – something very visible today. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,” the Scripture says, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).

Jesus called Satan the prince of this world. And I believe his activity is more focused in creating societal disorder rather than mental disorders of individuals. The mental disorders we see all around us are more the result of what society has become under the oppression of demonic activity. There are plenty demons in Washington DC, in Augusta, and in Portland City Hall. So no wonder we’re messed up.

The healing of the man is a marvelous picture of what happens in salvation. We leave the power of Satan and come under the reighteousness and power of Jesus Christ. This is why every baptism begins with renouncing Satan. Does that mean that the person being baptized is a satanist? Not usually. But we are immersed in a system that is under the sway of Satan. We leave that and enter into a new relationship with Christ, and also with his people in the community of the church. Now we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We are able to sit still and listen to what he has to teach us. We have a new way of thinking. As Paul tells it: “be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” This transformation and renewal happened to the man that Jesus healed. And Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you’ ”

There is more than one way to follow Jesus, and more than one way to be his disciple. The Gerasene man will be following Jesus, but not in the way he imagined. Instead of leaving town with Jesus, he would stay and witness to Christ among his own people. The gospel begins at home for all of us. Rather than going somewhere across the sea, or going off to a monastery, It is in our daily lives and in our usual surroundings that we witness to Christ and are made holy! The man was not only saved from something, but also to something: a life of discipleship that was witness to the transforming power of Christ and the gospel. Salvation is proven by how we witness!

Jesus was telling him, Carry the gospel home. Yes, before we go out to preach Christ to others, let’s take care of our own homes and our own neighborhoods. Isn’t that the case with all human endeavors? How can you be a counselor or therapist of others, when your own life and your own home are a mess? The results are plain to see all around us. And how can a priest guide a new Christian in the faith when he himself is questioning his own faith? People try to run the country when they don’t know how to run their own company or a community organization! “Declare all that God has done for you.” That’s what Jesus told the man, and that’s how we begin to speak as Christians. If you cannot say what God has done for you, you are not ready to speak to anyone else about Christ or to bring anyone else to church. 

The dysfunctions of the Gerasene town’s political and social culture are very much the dysfunctions of our own times: Lack of compassion, isolation, homelessness, addiction, demonic activity, secularism, suspicion, rejection of God and everything God does to bring hope and recovery to a community, priority on commerce and money over people. And yet, healing does still take place in the midst of a dark social environment, the gospel still gets revealed. But Jesus and his apostles probably wiped the earth from their feet as they left that town. As Jesus often told his disciples: Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you; nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

The English journalist and poet John Oxenham died in 1941. In his poem “Gadara A.D. 31,” he imagines the townspeople saying something like this:

Rabbi, begone! Thy powers
Bring loss to us and ours.
Our ways are not as Thine.
Thou lovest men, we—swine.
Oh, get you hence, Omnipotence,
And take this fool of Thine!
His soul? What care we for his soul?
What good to us that Thou hast made him whole,
Since we have lost our swine?

And Christ went sadly.
He had wrought for them a sign
Of Love, and Hope, and Tenderness divine;
They wanted—swine.
Christ stands without your door and gently knocks;
But if your gold, or swine, the entrance blocks,
He forces no man’s hold—he will depart,
And leave you to the treasures of your heart.

No cumbered chamber will the Master share,
But one swept bare
By cleansing fires, then plenished fresh and fair
With meekness, and humility, and prayer.
There will He come, yet, coming, even there
He stands and waits, and will no entrance win
Until the latch be lifted from within.

Until the latch be lifted from within. Have all the latches in your life been lifted from within?