The man had been dwelling among the tombs,
and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.
In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains,
but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed,
and no one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides
he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.
This man possessed by a legion of demons was representative of a whole people apart from God. For apart from God, we all dwell among the tombs because we must come to Jesus to have life (see John 5:40). Apart from him there are shackles and chains whereby we try to enforce some kind of consensus morality, but those who are bound by them are too strong to be held by them. In our own day the Christian heritage of our culture feels like chains for those who now reject that heritage. And although those chains would help keep people safe and prevent them from doing harm, since, to those who are still dominated by evil, they do feel like chains, they can't help but attempt to break them. We clearly see that they are strong enough to succeed.
When we look at our world today we do see so many restraints on evil being removed. We see such aggression between groups, and even self destructive behavior far worse than the demoniac "bruising himself with stones." There is probably even a degree to which spirits like Legion affect our own behavior. When we don't walk by the Spirit we too experience the commandments as burdensome even though they are not meant to be burdensome (see First John 5:3). We too sometimes pull against restraints meant for our good. But we only feel restrained by the commandments when we are not walking but the Spirit but have instead reverted to living in the flesh. At such times we too become a danger to others and to ourselves. Like the demon we fear the freedom that Jesus offers.
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I adjure you by God, do not torment me!”
Jesus does want to set us free. But we must allow ourselves to let go and be changed. And not only we ourselves, but also the world around us will be turned on its head by the exorcism Jesus wants to perform.
As they approached Jesus,
they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion,
sitting there clothed and in his right mind.
And they were seized with fear.
...
Then they began to beg him to leave their district.
We so fear the change Jesus offers that we often resist it. Even though he wants to restore us to our right mind we often prefer the condition of Legion, violence and fear, to the unknown. We choose the devil we do know over the healing that is new and comes to us from outside ourselves. After all, we may need to even go so far as to restructure our entire economy if we really take him seriously.
The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea,
where they were drowned.
We are not meant to be held bound by chains. We are not meant to need them. Jesus wants us to walk in the freedom of the Spirit of God. He himself has the power to free us so that we can do so. If our culture has been relying on profits from things unclean we should not count this cost when we're weighing the offer, for the offer is truly a choice between death and true life.
Though it is hard for us to believe, we really can live like the great saints of old, those of whom the world was not worthy, approved because of their faith. And better, we can live by the Spirit, having received what was promised. We can choose to let the Lord to make us perfect just as he began to do for the man in the Decapolis. With that man we can become witnesses to the healing power of Jesus.
Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis
what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.
No comments:
Post a Comment