Sometimes, when I sit with my high school friends, I talk about the old me. The guy before I encountered Jesus Christ. The one who still lives within, lurking around and potentially threatening to break into all I am now and have done all I can do to cast away. The old guy – the one who was cast away – he would be a wretched man. Truth is, Jesus, alive in me – cast out that other person. I am made new; 2 Corinthians 5:17.
But, what was I like? What would I BE like today? What if this old me were living and walking and hadn’t encountered the living God? What if I was held down and tied to chains and wounded myself all the time – crying out for help and for other things in the name of rage and hopelessness? I would be kind of like this guy I read about this a.m. He was a man who had been wounded for many years, demon possessed and living among the dead – lifelessness and darkness all around him. He was a total outcast. He couldn’t be kept within reason, he hurt himself and probably others. He was a man controlled by evil and rages that come from all places dark. He came across the man named Jesus after He had been teaching the disciples about faith and following him, the cost of being a follower of Christ and dedicating their lives to the Holy God. He had spoken scripture to further communicate His coming to bore our diseases; He came to bear our Sin – this God-separating filth that keeps me from connection to God and His Kingdom apart from intimacy with Jesus. Saying ‘yes’ to the Son of God. Access to Him.
The demon-possessed man saw Jesus and His disciples approaching from their boats at the shore. The man couldn’t be messed with – no one would get near him and he cried out to Jesus with the voice of many….asking “What is it that you would do with us?” His name was “Legion”, meaning “many”.
Here it goes:
“Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon 5 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.[N] 2And when Jesus[O] had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea. 14The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15And they came to Jesus and saw the demon–possessed[P] man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 16And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon–possessed man and to the pigs. 17And they began to beg Jesus[Q] to depart from their region. 18As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.”
-Mark 5:1-20 (ESV) {Just1word}
"And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. 33The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon–possessed men. 34And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.”
-Mathew 8:32-34 (ESV) (emphasis, mine)
I was thinking about the old me and my ways of old. Wretched. Dirty. Ungodly. One who would not be worth much, on the inside. I tell my friends how I would not be pursuing things of God’s nature – but I would be so much different than I am, now. Not much different, really – just covered by the infinite love of God and my whole trajectory has been renewed and changed because of God’s pursuit of me. I am made knew. I walked around in a cemetery and begged and was wounded and wanted to cry out. I saw the face of the Lord and asked “what will you do with me?” – He sent the old me into a herd of pigs….he sent the old me to be cast out and tormented apart from me – forever. That is to say He took my Sin away…from me that I might never see it again – separated as far as the East is from the West. Never will they, my Sin and myself, meet again.
Those who saw Jesus heal this man and tell these demons where they could go and command with God-given authority, they ran into town to tell all what they saw. They were astonished. They pleaded with Jesus to leave. Why? Why would they want God’s Son to leave? Why, if after something so good and powerful would they want him gone?
Was it the change? Was it their reputation? Was it the thousands of pigs rotting in the waters of the sea nearby? I wonder if they were so ruffled by the power of God they didn’t know which way to look or go? I know how that feels? I have watched people encounter Jesus and call out to Him out of amazement of who He is and who they want Him to be in their lives…yet upon returning to their home-lives they can’t fathom a life with Christ because what they saw didn’t connect in their hearts….they still want to run – yet they still desire this life change and eternal peace offered by Jesus. Maybe you can relate…..a desire to connect with God and a desire to run from God in the same.
The man who had been cured from the evil in him approached Jesus and asked to go with Him. Jesus asked him to go and tell. Go, tell….about the mercy of God. Go and tell others about how God didn’t give what was deserved…..MERCY. Others marveled at this mercy of God.
What do you deserve? What is your life like? I deserve much worse. I remember the man lurking in the darkness looking to wound myself and others beyond what I could really control. Possessed by the darkness and roaming aimlessly to what? A life that did not point anywhere to God. Emptiness. DEATH.
Jesus set me free. I would do well to remember this man who fled into pigs to run to their death. To remember that Jesus calls me to life. He permits these others to be around me but those are not me – He is my life. He calls me to Himself. That is peace. That is Hope. That is my life. Thanks be to God for being in my life and allowing me to marvel at His goodness.
My friend, Ryan, sings a song called, “Change Me”. I am different forever and ever because of those words. Jesus. Changed. Me.
Blessings,
-ao
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