Luke 8:26
One of the great bible gurus of Instagram recommended starting on December 1st and reading a chapter of Luke every day until Christmas, so I took up the challenge. Pretty quickly that schedule got sidelined because I would be reading along and get stopped on something I wanted to ponder and would have to return to finish that chapter the next day. So here I am on December 12 still staggering along in Chapter 8. ….and today I only make it from verse 26 to 38. So I don’t anticipate finishing the whole book by Christmas.
I feel the “pace” building as I read the chapters leading up to this point. It really feels like the energy of Jesus’ teaching and miracle working has been ramping up; rapid fire teaching punctuated by miracles.
Jesus was traveling around with his disciples healing people and speaking to the gathering crowds. He was teaching and often used parables to make his point, which wasn’t super straightforward. It required paying attention. It took drawing meaning from what the people of that culture understood about life and applying it to the stories he was telling in order to pull out his message.
The parables held hidden wisdom that could only be received by people who wanted to understand and were willing to do the mental work and personal introspection to get it. The twelve disciples who Jesus chose to go with him were at no advantage over anyone else in trying to understand what Jesus meant. They were struggling to keep up too. It had to be exhilarating and exhausting.
By verse 22 I can imagine the disciples being relieved when Jesus says “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake”. After all, they are fishermen and getting in the boat and heading out on the water probably felt like a return to something that was familiar and comfortable. They sailed off and Jesus fell asleep. All was well. Then a bad storm came up which began to swamp the boat. It was bad enough to terrify those seasoned watermen so they woke Jesus up and he told the storm to stop and it did…. and they arrived at the other side of the lake, just as he had said they would.
I can feel the fatigue of the twelve as they dragged themselves on shore.
By the time they got the boat taken care of they turned around to see Jesus having an encounter on the beach with a demon possessed, homeless, naked man who was hollering at the top of his lungs. They were probably all…”Man!! Can we just have a minute of peace?!?For the love of Pete(r)!”
Crazed Naked Guy is yelling out “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg of you, don’t torture me!” I wonder if the twelve guys thought “Does Jesus know this guy? How does he know Jesus’ name? That’s weird”.
I stopped reading here and thought about the whole scene.
A man driven by demonic influence approaches Jesus. Jesus didn’t go looking for him, but the demon knows that Jesus knows where they are and what they are up to. Through the man the demon speaks to Jesus, addressing him both by Name and Position of authority and begs him not to use his power to torture him.
It struck me that while people, including the disciples who Jesus chose to be closest with, who have by this time witnessed some wild and divine stuff did not yet know WHO they were dealing with. BUT, the demons from the spiritual realm knew exactly who they were dealing with. They approached Him, understanding His place of authority over them. And as crazy as it sounds, they begged him for mercy, to not be sent into the Abyss.
Jesus asks the demon’s name and he answers “Legion. For I am many.” Then “they” (the first recorded pronoun issue) begged Jesus not to order them into the Abyss but instead let them go into a herd of pigs who were in a field nearby. “Jesus gave them permission and they entered the pigs and the herd ran down and hill and into the lake and all drowned”.
News traveled fast of what had happened and people came out from the town to have a look. Verse 35, “and they found the man whom the demons had left, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind”. The people were freaked out by what they had heard and now what they see and they asked Jesus to leave their area.
The man, formally know as Crazed Naked Guy begged Jesus to let him go with them, but Jesus refused him and sent him away saying “Return home and tell how much God has done for you”…so the man did just that.
And I stop again short of finishing the chapter…already 4 days behind the recommended schedule. I have a bunch of thoughts swirling around in my head and decide to bullet point them in order to put them in some order… but can already tell that it’s not going to be all that orderly. My thoughts are sprouting branches faster than I can put them down on paper. The bullet points are growing sub-bullet points…. It’s getting messy. ... so I edit...
-The inhabitants of the spiritual realm ALL know Who is God and Who IS the Ultimate Authority over all…The Most High God
-Though we people may have walked with him, encountered him and experienced some divine stuff, we seem to fall short of acknowledging what even the demonic creatures know, that God has the authority and power to do as He wills… and He always prevails.
-Begging from God can go a couple of ways. Sometimes he gives people just what they beg for and sometimes he denies them.
The demons begged for Jesus to spare them his wrath and to let them go their way into the pigs and Jesus granted what they wanted. In the end though their choice took them to destruction.
Formally Crazed Naked Guy begged Jesus to go let him go with and Jesus refused. Jesus had a better plan, that led to good outcomes…not destruction.
I think about the people from the town who heard something crazy and went out to the lake to see what was going on. What they experienced was way outside of the norm and it freaked them out. Their reaction was to ask Jesus to move on. It was too weird for them. He was too much for them. He knows that we are a fearful creature, but, being a lover of people, he cared for them too and wanted them to know the truth about his intended message even though they had dismissed him. So he sent Delivered Man back home to his town to live among them, fully and clearly transformed, healed and restored to a healthy mind.
His purpose was to share his testimony of all that God had done for him.
It was his purpose because it is what Jesus had sent him to do.
This man’s torment went far beyond what the people from the town could see. He had been a man tormented by the occupation of his mind by influences bent on destroying him. He was a lonely, isolated outcast. He lived in the tombs outside of town among the dead. He carried no dignity or honor. He didn’t have control over himself and as a crazed man he would often be put into chains by guards. Though restrained he had the supernatural, demonic strength to break free from that physical bondage.
Crazed Naked Guy had quite a reputation.
Jesus wanted him to go home and testify not only of having the demonic power to break physical chains, but to declare the power of Jesus to break the internal, demonic chains that had held him captive for so long.
As time quickly ticks away and I’m still chewing on all these thoughts I tried to wrap it all neatly up in what became a four pronged takeaway… which isn’t neat at all...too many prongs.
So I edit.
I’m left with this prayer.
Jesus, Son of the Most High God, How you love us! It’s inconceivable.
You take the wreckage of our lives and make even it useable to declare your glory.
You take all of it and let us use it for good instead of the destruction that the Enemy had intended for it… to fill with shame, to dishonor, to put us in physical, mental and emotional bondage and to isolate us.
Let me know more of the Person and the Position and the Power of You, Jesus…
The One whom the demons beg for mercy.
Let me submit to where You want to send me rather than beg for where I want to go.
You send some to far away places…like disciples on journeys and missions.
And others you send back to their own home towns where their life experiences have created scars, hurt relationships and gained reputations from the years before they had an transforming encounter with You.
You do it not so that they suffer more shame, but in order to be a walking testimony of a life changed by your power.
And you do it to restore.
Thank you for the illustration of the way you remove our shame and restore and replace honor and dignity and let us lives free of mental and emotional bondage. You gave that man the chance, by denying him what he asked for and sending him back to the place where he carried the reputation of Crazed Naked Guy and allowed him to become known as Delivered Man, or Transformed Jerry.
You are so gracious to often deny what we ask and even beg for so that you can restore our honor and remove the stain of our shame.
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