This is Scary!
Posted on Jun 19, 2016 by David Whetter
Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in each of us.
For the past several weeks now, we have heard about the great healing works of Jesus. We have read stories about how he healed the centurion’s slave without even being in her presence. We read about how he raised the dead man in Nain so the man could continue to care for his widowed mother. Last week, we read about how Jesus offered forgiveness to a woman who had many sins and whom the world had rejected. Jesus had been busy and had created quite a stir, and people all over the lands were talking about him and the great healing he was offering, and many were beginning to follow him. But all the while this was happening, one question continued to be raised: “Who is this man?” Even the religious leadership, as we heard last week, wanted to know who he really was. Was he a real prophet or was he just a regular guy that needed to be expelled from the community for false teachings?
The answer to this question is given loud and clear in our Gospel story today. Now, before I go into the answer to the question and what it means for us, I think we need to take a look at where we are in the story. Between where we left off last week and our story today, Jesus had spent time with the crowds that had gathered around him teaching them with parables, and then he offered the disciples some private lessons on the meaning of the parables. Then Luke tells us that, “One day, [Jesus] got into a boat with his disciples and said to them, ‘Let’s go across to the other side of the lake’” (Luke 8:22). Now, while they were sailing, a terrible storm came up on the Sea of Galilee and the disciples feared for their lives, but Jesus awoke and commanded the wind and raging waves to cease, and they did. His disciples then asked the same question that everyone else had been asking: “Who then is this…?” (8:25)
Now, everyone wants to know who this is, and it is at this point we begin our story today. Jesus and his disciples arrive on the opposite side, in other words, not Jewish territory, and we are told that a “wild” man who is possessed by many demons immediately meets the group, and when the demons see Jesus, they immediately address him directly by saying, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” (Luke 8:28) This is one of the questions in scripture that truly fascinates me. For weeks, Jesus has been traveling in his own land, healing, offering God’s promise of forgiveness and welcome, and no one, not even the experts, can see or hear God’s revealing and healing presence. No one can recognize who Jesus really is, not even his own disciples. But when Jesus leaves the safety of his own land, when he encounters a “legion” of demons, those who are enemies of God and God’s ways, he is recognized immediately. “Jesus, you are the Son of the Most High God!” they proclaim. The question of who Jesus really was, and is, has been answered. He wasn’t a mere prophet. He wasn’t a mere man. He wasn’t an enemy of God and God’s ways. No, he was one with God, and he was the one who could, and would, bring about God’s will in this world.
When you hear this proclamation, don’t you just want to shout out, “Alleluia! Praise be to God”? This is great news. Jesus is the Son of God, and Jesus is now in our presence. What better news could the people of Jesus' day want, or what better news could we want? But joy and praise were not exactly the reaction of those around him when his true identity was revealed, was it? I mean, you would think that when the people heard that Jesus had healed this man who had been terrorizing their community that they would have been filled with joy, but instead we are told that when they came and saw what had happened and when they saw Jesus, “they were afraid” (8:35). Instead of being filled with joy over being freed and wanting Jesus to stay with them, they asked Jesus to leave them because they were “seized with great fear” (8:37). Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Who would be seized with fear in the presence of Jesus, our Lord and our Savior? Well, maybe, we, too, are seized with fear when we realize Jesus’ presence in our lives.
Being in the presence of Jesus is scary. Jesus offers us freedom. Jesus challenges us to face the unknown and work for justice and peace. Jesus challenges us to stand up to our culture and confront the injustices within it. Jesus doesn’t expect us to create laws and walls to bring about these things. No, instead he freed us and challenges us to tear down laws and walls and enter into relationships with those we don’t know, with those we fear, and even with our enemies so that we might tell of the great things God has done for us so that we might come together with those whom we thought were our enemies and do great things together. Oftentimes we prefer laws and walls, for they are easier,, but as Paul said in his letter to the Galatians, “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law…Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came…now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith” (Galatians 3:23-26).
The problem is, in Christ, we are freed from the law, and that scares us because, without specific laws, how will we know what is right and what is wrong? How will we judge and be judged? It is our belief that we need the law. In fact, sometimes wouldn't we rather have the law than Christ, if truth be told, because with the law we can justify our actions and our inactions? Our justification is no longer in the law, though; our justification comes in Christ. As followers of his, we are now called to live to the will of God.
Our becoming an RIC congregation and developing a Welcome Statement that proclaims all are welcome here was never about following the Law. It was, and is, about doing what is right in the sight of God. What is right, you say? Well, we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. Doing what is right is about being willing to enter into relationships with others and sharing what God is up to in our lives. It is about sharing the Gospel and letting other in the world know that they, too, are loved and honored by God.
Our work this year figuring out where and how to do our ministries in the future was never about this building or our history, but it has always been about how we can better live in the presence of Christ. It has always been about how we can better grow God’s kingdom here in this community and the wider community around us. But this is scary, and it is difficult because it would be so much easier if someone would just tell us what to do. But that is not how God works or how we have been created to be God’s people. No, like the man with the legion of demons, we, too, have been freed, and instead of sitting safely in the presence of Jesus in this place, Jesus says, now that you are free, go and tell the world what God has done for you.
Like the townspeople in the story, we, too, are often seized with fear. But the good news is that Jesus has freed us and we have been filled with the Spirit and empowered to be the followers of Christ we have been created to be. We need only let go of our fears to see the incredible future God has in store for us. Jesus, the Son of the Most High God, says to us, go, do the scary work I have taught you to do. Go, tell the world how much God has done for you! Amen