Sunday June 20, 2010 Luke 8:26-39

Greetings, on Friday my son graduated from Chaska High School. What a milestone for us. As most of you know it also brings back a lot of memories. Coming from a small school in western Minnesota I hadn’t seen so many graduates in my life for high school. His class was about 639; mine was about 165 quite a difference. To those of you out there who have any kind of graduate, congratulations.

Our text for Sunday continues in Luke but some sections of verses have been skipped over. When the lectionary does this you can miss the full story and impact of what is occurring. Prior to our verses Jesus and the disciples set out for the other side of the lake. This doesn’t mean much to us unless you realize that the other side of the lake was Gentile area. Jews avoided Gentile areas because they were pagans and raised pigs. Jews didn’t eat pork and considered it unclean. Now Jesus is directing them to go there. On the way a storm develops while Jesus is asleep in the boat. The disciples become afraid because they think they are going to die and is this a sign that they shouldn’t be going into Gentile area? They wake Jesus and he rebuked the storm, quieting it. They wonder who is this that the wind and water obey him. They knew from the Psalms in the Old Testament that God controlled the wind and the waves so who is Jesus that he can control them too?

V26-27 The group arrives on the shore of the Gentile area and note that only Jesus stepped out of the boat. A man who was possessed with demons met Jesus. He wore no clothes and had lived in a graveyard. This would be revolting to Jews and very ritually unclean.

V28 When the man saw Jesus he fell down and yelled at the top of his lungs, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” Ironic, the demons possessing the Gentile man knew who Jesus was – Son of the Most High God; the Jewish disciples who had seen him still the storm didn’t know who he was. This is the first time in Luke that Jesus appears on Gentile soil and immediately is met with demons who call him by a remarkable title – Son of the Most High God.

V29 Jesus, by his authority, had commanded the demons to come out of the man and now they beg for mercy. These demons had completely controlled the man.

V30-31 Jesus asked the demon “what is your name?” and he replied Legion for he had many demons. They begged Jesus not to send them to the abyss-the bottomless pit.

V32 There was a large herd of pigs feeding on a nearby hillside and the demons begged to be sent into the pigs so he gave them permission. Jesus has such authority that the demons must ask his permission to move to the pigs. He controls them.

V33 The demons enter the herd of pigs and the pigs rush down the bank into the lake drowning themselves.

V34 The swine herders saw all of their pigs kill themselves and are in shock. Their livelihood is ruined, they have no more pigs. They ran off to tell the townspeople what they had seen and what had happened to the pigs.

V35-36 The people who heard the story came out to see what had happened, similar to us slowing down on the freeway to see an accident. When they came to Jesus, who had driven out the demons from the man, they found the man in his right mind, clothed and sitting at the feet of Jesus. The reason he would be sitting at Jesus’ feet would be because Jesus was teaching him about the Kingdom of God. The man has become Jesus’ student. Remember the disciples are still sitting in the boat but have observed what has happened. Why weren’t they also at the feet of Jesus learning? They’ve seen Jesus still the storm and heal this man but still carry fear and prejudices. The people who had seen this sight were afraid; they didn’t understand what was going on. The man possessed by demons had been healed. He is in his right mind, normal. They knew him as a madman.

V37 The people ask Jesus to leave. They are afraid of what has just happened and have lost their income. It’s best if this man just get out of here. Jesus got into the boat where the disciples were waiting.

V38 The man who had been healed begged to get in with him, but Jesus sent him away. Why? The man was a Gentile and Jesus wouldn’t be accepted by the Jewish people if he had a Gentile disciple following him. Instead he gave the man a mission.

V39 “Return to your home and declare how much God (not Jesus) has done for you”. In other words spread the message I have just been teaching you. Get the Gentiles to listen to what God is doing in the world. Become my disciple here in your homeland. So the man went away proclaiming how much Jesus had done for him. Why Jesus and not God? Because the man now “sees” that Jesus is God’s Son, healing with the authority of God. He equates the two, while the disciples don’t make that connection even though they live with Jesus; they don’t “see” him.

Did this man do the job Jesus sent him to do? He must have since in the book of Mark, Jesus feeds 4000 men plus woman and children in Gentile territory. This man did exactly what Jesus had told him to do and the harvest of that feeding is the evidence.

Do we, as American Christians with freedom to worship, miss who Jesus is like his disciples did? It seems the church is actively growing in the places that most persecute it. They are more attentive like the man possessed by the demon. The church in America seems to be in a decline. Do we just take Jesus for granted because we have all we need? Do we overlook our own hopelessness and need because we have the ability to buy our way out of unhappiness by purchasing stuff to try to fill us up? This demon possessed man, who had absolutely no hope, watched God float up to him in a boat one day and through faith his life was changed forever. What will be your reaction when you “see” God floating up to you?