Beauty surrounds us, but we usually need to be walking in a garden to know it - Rumi
Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 8:26-39), is at first reading a bit strange but it is most wonderful. Most exciting. Most reassuring, since it goes to the very heart of our Christian Faith.
Now, all Jewish literature, of which the Holy Bible is just one example, can be read on several different levels. It uses symbolism to get the message across. We need to unpick that symbolism to see what God is showing us. We need to look at this passage again, prayerfully and carefully, to see what we can learn from it. In the preceding verses Luke tells us that Jesus had calmed the storm that arose whilst crossing the Sea of Galilee. Today’s passage tells us what happened when they arrived at the other side. Jesus and His disciples had come to the province of Decapolis. The area where the Gerasene people lived. It is likely that the disciples knew the area having sold their fish in the markets there. Earlier Decapolis had been settled by veterans of Alexander the Great’s army. In Jesus’ time it had become a Roman province although many Jews also lived there. Essentially it was Gentile territory. That explains the presence of the pigs! Jews do not eat pork. It was considered unclean but the Gentile population would have no such dietary problems. On arrival they were met with a man who had been chained up under guard, in the desert outside the city for a long time. He was tortured by many evil spirits. They had caused him to tear off his clothes and break his chains. On seeing Jesus he fell at His feet and cried out His Name: “Jesus, Son of the Most High God.” When asked, he gave his own name as Legion. Legion is of course the name of a large cohort of Roman soldiers. It might be taken to indicate that he had a considerable number of problems. He begged Jesus to take those evil spirits away. To heal him. Jesus does just this by sending the evil spirits into the pigs to drown in the sea. When the townsfolk come to see what had happened they saw the man fully clothed, in new clothing since he had torn off his old ones, sitting at Jesus feet, at peace. Seeing the demon-possessed man cured they were afraid and asked Jesus to leave, which He did. We are not told where He went but that isn’t part of the story. All very puzzling but let’s look at the story again on another level. Maybe that will help us to understand God’s message for us today. The key to the story, I think, is that in Jesus’ time sickness was of thought to be the result of a sinful life. In that case, Luke is saying that the man had committed many sins in his life. Again, we do not know what they were. But they were many. In other words he was a thoroughly bad lot! As a result he had been chained up outside the city. He could do no more harm there. Yet the remembrance of those sins had driven him out of his mind. He needed to start again. He wanted to start again. He wanted to wipe the slate clean. But the events of his past life continued to haunt him. He could stand it no longer. He knew that God alone could forgive sin. And here, today, he recognised, standing in front of him was “the Son of the Most High God”! His reaction was to fall down before Him, confess his sins and beg for forgiveness. And that is exactly what Jesus did. He forgave him and gave him the peace he so fervently craved. But why were the townsfolk afraid? Because like the demon possessed man they knew that God alone can forgive sins and here was this itinerant Jewish Rabbi doing just that! Who was he? This was all a bit frightening. Best send him away. The pigs? They being unclean creatures, now symbolically bearing the man’s sins, were washed away in the sea. Of course water cleanses. It washes away the dirt and grime but it does not change the inside. It doesn’t alter the bodily form. If the swineherds had rescued the pigs from the sea, they would have found pigs. Dead pigs but pigs just as they had always been. I think we can now see how the message of this morning’s Gospel reading relates to us. As Jesus forgave the Gentile demon possessed man’s sins He has the power to forgive our sins, too. To take them away. To wipe the slate clean for us. To wash us clean. To give us new clean clothes. A new life. To give us peace. We are washed in the water of baptism. It doesn't change our physical form, we are still the same that far. But we are changed spiritually.. Indeed, that is the whole reason that He came to earth. The whole reason why He died on the Cross and rose from the dead. Jesus, the Son of God came into the world to save sinners. To save you and me!! The God who created the whole Universe, who put the stars in their place and made us from the dust of the earth came to earth to take away the sins of us, mere fallible humans. How amazing is that? And not just you and me but everybody who seeks Him and confesses their sins, regardless as to who they are. The God who created the whole Universe, who put the stars in their place and made us from the dust of the earth came to earth to die for us, to take away our sins. We mere fallible humans. No wonder the man fell on his knees before Jesus. So should we! After all, what have we done to deserve such love and compassion? Absolutely nothing! In fact just the opposite. We have sinned and continue to sin. But God’s love for us is unconditional. He knows that being human we will sin again and again. Yet He is always there waiting for us to come to Him. To ask His forgiveness. Forgiveness that He freely gives. A God who is prepared to do this for us deserves all the praise, and honour and thanksgiving we can offer Him! And the whole world needs to know that. Rather urgently in fact! Of course this is not some “get out of jail free card”. We need to repent. Truly repent. It is not a case of saying:” Sorry God” and then going away to do the same thing over again. We need to repent unreservedly. We need to mean what we say. And actually do something positive about it. We need to make a firm resolution to turn away from sin. When we leave here this morning, refreshed by the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist, let us proclaim to the world by our words and actions that: Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High God, came into the world to save sinners. In the words of the Agnus Dei, which I think encapsulates God’s message this morning, let us pray: “Lamb of God have mercy upon us and grant us Peace. Peace as Jesus gave peace to the Gerasene Demoniac.” AMEN
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AuthorI am an Authorised Local Preacher in an Anglo Catholic parish church, in the Diocese of Essex UK Archives
February 2022
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