These two stories are usually handled separately but they are a unit, both with the same theme. The key verses are 25 ("Who is this, that even the wind and waves obey him?") and 39, where Luke draws an explicit verbal conclusion that Jesus is God, or at least that is the witness of the man who has been delivered from a legion of demons. The focus of both stories is on Jesus.
In both stories, Jesus upsets the established order. He is, in Jackson Browne's memorable words, "the rebel Jesus" in that his authority overturns what we have come to expect as normal. We know that the weather is beyond our control, but Jesus stills the storm. Who is he? We know that demon possession is beyond our control, but Jesus deals with a legion of demons out of hand. Who is he? The stories return again and again to this question, implicitly and explicitly.
People today tend to evaluate Christianity based on the behavior of the church. While the church needs to regulate and monitor itself, and there is an enormous responsibility for the church to reflect Jesus' character -- not letting anyone off the hook here -- judging Christianity based on the church is a little like judging a restaurant based on its website. (And yes, people do that often.) The real test is Jesus himself, and he alone lies at the heart of the movement he began. Churches, structures, hypocrisy, liturgies, factions, boredom -- none of this sticks to Jesus.
Notice that Jesus inspires fear in both segments of this story. We get entrenched in our own assumptions. As a teacher of mine once said, we like comfortable problems better than uncomfortable solutions. The disciples go from terror over the storm to being afraid about Jesus and his identity. The people of Gerasa are consumed by terror and ask Jesus to leave their area. Even though he has just set free a man they had tried and failed to liberate, they cannot get excited about Jesus remaining among them. They are in every kind of terror -- economic, spiritual, social -- and it prevents them from welcoming the healing Jesus brings.
Perhaps the most chilling thing in the whole story is one word in verse 37: "So". Because of their fear and their rejection of Jesus, he leaves their area. The uncomfortable biblical truth is that Jesus will honor our rejection of him. They have seen his power in undeniable fashion and rather than embrace his authority and the kingdom he announces, they send him home to his own side of the lake.
When Jesus comes to us he will not leave things the same. Jesus will not leave our established idolatries unchallenged. When we settle for "good enough," Jesus challenges us to live for him and for his kingdom. When we give in to the idolatry of our own comfort, Jesus invites us into adventure. But he will not force us to come along.
The good news is that being close to Jesus, while it may be destabilizing to our established orders and our settled expectations, is both the safest and most exciting place to be. It may not feel safe -- Jesus is surrounded by disruption of relationships and hierarchies -- but the abundant life of following Jesus is far better than our good-enough wineskins.
As I ponder this story, that is where my mind so often comes to rest. I think about the death-filled existence of the townspeople, the swineherds, and especially the pre-Jesus demoniac. Mark's description of his life is especially vivid. Maybe the demon-possessed man thought it was good enough to live among the tombs, to gash himself with stones, to occasionally venture into town bound with chains until the powers overcame him and he broke loose to terrorize the neighbors. It was certainly all he could expect, given his spiritual condition. But Jesus wanted so much more for him. At the end of the story, this man is miraculously free precisely because he recognizes that Jesus is the one who has freed him. The townspeople who reject Jesus are the ones left in chains.
So if you are feeling bound today, maybe by social convention or established orders or death-filled existence that doesn't seem to include hope or by economic structures that keep you in chains, imagine yourself a demon possessed man sitting among the gravestones on the hilltop above the lakeshore, watching a boat arrive on the beach below. You watch a dozen or so men get out of the boat and come up the hillside toward you. There is something about the figure leading the procession. Inside your chest where there has only been torment and death and hopelessness for so long, something stirs like a baby kicking in the womb: Hope.
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