Haloween

‘Halloween’ began nearly 2000 years ago in Ireland as a Celtic festival involving the warding off of ghosts.  It was co-opted by the Roman Catholic Church 609 AD.[i]  Immigrants from Europe revived old country traditions around “All Hallows Eve” in the United States in the 19^th century.  The day became associated with vandalism until there was a shift in the 1950’s.  At that time, Halloween morphed into the family-friendly neighborhood holiday we now celebrate.

 Today, Halloween is a $6 billion industry in America.  Some Christians feel followers of Jesus should not celebrate Halloween.[ii]  I respect the argument Jamie Morgan makes in the article cited in the footnotes.  I don’t agree with him, but I respect the case he’s making.  If a person’s participation in Halloween festivities truly is a celebration of witchcraft, then I would join him in renouncing all participation in the day.  In this line of thinking, I would renounce non-Christians legends around Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, and other holidays.  But, I think you can have a good time with costumes and candy without giving any ground to witchcraft (which is real and very dangerous), just as I think candy canes and Old St. Nick are OK for Christmas.  Our legends and traditions are part of who we are and they don’t have to be inherently evil or in conflict with our deepest reality, our identity in Christ.

For my family, Halloween is a time to enjoy dressing in costumes and being out in the neighborhood with friends.  It is communal and family fun.  Aside from the need for added rigor in dental hygiene, I find Halloween harmless.  It brings my family tremendous happiness when we look at old Halloween trick-or-treating photos.  My oldest is now 14.  Soon he’ll be too old for this.  The thought of it makes me sad. 

My decision as Christian to participate in what I see to be a benign, religiously ignorant holiday should not be taken to mean I don’t believe in spiritual warfare.  I most certainly do.  I believe demons are real and roaming about, spreading mayhem and harming people on the earth.  I have been present for exorcisms, both successful and unsuccessful.  My reading for this morning, Luke 4:31-37, is one of many passages which deal with demon possession.  Before Jesus exorcises the demon, it is able to throw the possessed man to the ground.  Jesus saves him, but some damage has been done. 

Yes, I believe demons are very real.  And maybe, Halloween can be a time for demons to wreak damage in the lives of men and women.  However, I believe demons are just as potent at all times of the year.  We constantly must be on our guard against the wiles of the devil (Ephesians 6).  Prayer is how we stay on our guard.  We have to, through worship, prayer, Bible reading, and acts of service, build up our relationship with God in Jesus Christ.  We have to learn to listen to and heed the voice of the Holy Spirit.  In these ways, we are connected to the God who protects us.  In the light of God, those dangerous demons are utterly impotent. 

---

[i] http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween

[ii] Here is one article that makes this point - http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/52738-why-christians-absolutely-should-not-celebrate-halloween

Uncertainty

Uncertainty in Christianity

At our church, much of the preaching during the Fall season has dealt with the afterlife and the unseen spiritual realm.  Also this year, members of our church have gone on mission trips to Ethiopia and witnessed exorcisms.  The direct confrontation with the demonic is not a normal part of our practice of Christianity.  Many in our church have never seen exorcism and do not know what to make of it when they hear stories of it actually happening in the 21^st century.  A lot of Christians today would say, yes they believe in demons when reading about them in the Bible.  But, no they have never encountered demons and do not really expect that will happen in their lives.

I believe the exorcisms are real, and I am not upset that I had not been a part of that prior to my Ethiopia trip last March.  I was not upset that I had never seen or experienced an exorcism; nor was I upset or skeptical when it happened.  I am aware that Christianity is bigger than me.  There are places in the world and places in our own country and even our own state where Christianity is lived in forms and language that is very foreign to me.  My experience of following Jesus is not the experience. 

We easily accept the variety that exists in the faith when we think of worship forms.  We know in some churches everyone dresses in “their Sunday best.”  Worship is very structured, very formal.  There is a lot of responsive reading.  In other churches like ours, there is structure, but not as much.  Ours is a bit more free-flowing time.  We have several elements on Sunday morning (offering, praise singing, preaching, benediction), but not as many as say a Catholic church.  And there are churches with far less structure than even us.  In some, especially newer, start-up churches, everyone is in blue jeans or very casual dress, the pastors included.  There is a period of 45 minutes devoted to worship singing.  Then there is 45-60 minutes of preaching.  That is it.

In worship the fact that there are many different forms does not bother us.  Neither should it bother us that discipleship is lived out in different forms.  I often talk about how science and faith are complementary.  I give a lot of attention to formal education and high-levels of expertise in different professions.  I note how those specialties co-exist with and relate to living as a Christ-follower.  Why?  We are a church with many experts, specialists, and people who are in graduate training to become experts and specialists.  We need to deal with the interchange of science and faith.

In other churches, the needs and issues are different.  The culture is different.  The Gospel remains the same.  God is the same.  However, from perspective, as wide as we may think our worldview is, our view of God is limited.  That does not make it less than someone else’s, just different.  Some of us get a little freaked out by the thought of exorcisms.  One guy I talked to in Ethiopia was confounded.  He could not understand that we don’t do exorcisms.  It is a normal part of his faith life.  And, as he astutely noted, exorcism is right there in the Bible (Mark 16:17).  How could we not do it?

I did not have a great answer for him.  I simply invite Christians I meet to enter into uncertainty when, in their Christian walk they encounter uncertainty.  I don’t mean rashly go in where angels fear to tread.  But I do mean that just because something is foreign to you or me, does not mean it is an illegitimate Christian practice.  God will reveal the truth if we humbly seek it as we see Him.  Prayerfully enter the unknown unless God forbids it.  Doing so can expand one’s view of God and grow our faith.

The Unseen World

The Unseen World (Luke 9:28-36)

       A week ago, I did a wedding, Carter and Rachel.  In an effort to maintain tradition, they were kept apart once Rachel was in her wedding dress.  Carter would not see her in the dress until she walked down the aisle.  However, to get from her changing room to the foyer at the back of the sanctuary, Rachel had to walk down a hallway right next to where Carter and I were waiting.  The door from the hallway was open. 

Rachel’s sister Sarah said, “She’s coming.  Have Carter turn away.”  He turned, but he could hear them in the hallway.  Not seeing one another, Rachel and Carter made small talk.  Then, in those nervous pre-ceremony moments, Sarah asked me if I could pray for the bride and groom.

I stood in the doorway, straddling the door frame.  I extended my arms in a posture of blessing.  One arm was on one side of the wall, toward Rachel.  The other was on the other side, toward Carter.  We all got a laugh out of it, God included, I think.  Prayer is conversation with God.  It is holy and important and serious.  However, God loves us and wants us to have joy and laughter.  A pastor straddling a doorway trying to bless bride and groom without them seeing each other is kind of silly.

But it is more than that.  The whole scene came back to me five days later as I thought about how to conceptualize the Heavenly reality all around us. 

Consider this account from Luke.  Peter, John, and James, feel privileged because they are invited into an intimate moment with Jesus.  There are 12 disciples, but of the 12, these 3 are privileged to have this personal time with him.  So, they make the exhausting climb to a summit.  It is literally going to be a mountain top experience.  It will also be more than they expected.

As Jesus prays, his appearance changes.  He gleamed white.  More than the color white, the words Luke uses to describe the event clearly communicate that Jesus instantaneously had a glow we would understand to be otherworldly.  Something else was there with these disciples and Jesus and somehow Jesus was thoroughly aware of this and had always been.  Yet, the disciples had been completely blind to it prior to that moment. 

Then, they were blinded by it – by the realness, the glistening of that other world.  As overwhelming as it was for them, Jesus effortlessly stepped from one world to the other.  Jesus stood in both worlds at once. 

To call it another world might not be the proper description, not if Dallas Willard is correct.[i]  He believes our physical location in Heaven will be this universe; there is, in his estimation, no other universe; no other plane; no other realm.  I have been saying “otherworldly,” but in truth what we are talking about is parts of this world that are always present and quite real, but unseen.  By “unseen,” I mean we are unable through sensual observation to access this portion of the world. 

It is here; all around us.  It is real and affects us in numerous ways.  But we are powerless to control or even influence the unseen world.  We are affected by it but cannot affect it.  This is what is referred to in Ephesians 6:10. 

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. ¹¹ Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹² For our^[b] struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. ¹³ Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. ¹⁴ Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. ¹⁵ As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ With all of these,^[c] take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Most of my dealings with this passage begin in verse 12 – “our struggle is against … cosmic powers of this present darkness.”  We become sort of freaked out thinking there are demons at the dark corners of reality messing with us, harming us in sinister, indirect ways.  In fact, if this is correct, that is absolutely true.  There are dark forces, agents of evil.  Their success comes in opposing God by injuring those loved by God.  We are the beloved of God they would damage.

But the passage does not begin with “cosmic powers of this present darkness.”  It begins “be strong in the Lord in the strength of his power.”  A moment ago, I said we cannot access or affect the unseen portions of reality.  God can because God created all the realities of the world, every realm of the universe.  We have access to God in Jesus Christ. 

In the armor of God, we can stand in the face of the devil’s attack.  We read in Ephesians of the belt, the breastplate, the shoes, the shield, the helmet, and the sword.  Those metaphors call us to truth as we understand it in Jesus.  In reading the word, in our prayers and confessions, we must know him.  When he is in us and we give him mastery over our lives, we are covered in his righteousness.  The shoes of readiness: we are ready to share our faith when it is the driving force of our lives and something we pay attention to in prayer and devotions every day.  To be ready, our faith must beat at the very heart of our lives.

Salvation is likened to a helmet and, as in other places in the New Testament, the word of God is imagined as a piercing sword.  When Jesus was confronted by Satan in the beginning of his ministry, he and the devil quoted scripture at each other.  Jesus’ living of the word was true whereas Satan’s was a diabolical manipulation.  We have to know the word and live it.  We have no authority in the unseen world, but with truth, righteousness, readiness, faith, salvation, and the word, we are in step with the God who has absolute authority.

I stood there in the doorway, standing both with bride and groom as they prepared to wed.  Jesus stands astride two worlds with the bride, His church, and the bridegroom, himself in glorified, divine form.  We are wedded to Him, but until that wedding, at the final judgment and resurrection on the last day, we wait.  While waiting, we live in what we can see, separated from what we cannot.

The great temptation is to suppose that this waiting place is the only real place.  Things that cannot be accounted for by scientific observation may be important, but religion, spirituality, theology – those are not real in the way the physical world around us is real. The world around is explained by science. That is what we are tempted to believe. 

The experience of the disciples on the mountain with Jesus as He is glorified is one example of testimony that there is more.  This does not negate science or lessen the importance of study and research and observation.  The work of scientists is important; even divine.  Scientists, operating in the work of observation and discovery obey the mandate of God to manage his world.  But they do not have the last word.  We look around and realize there is more here than meets the eye.

The disciples were given a glimpse into the next room of reality one that exists between where I am sitting and you are standing.  On that mountain top, when Jesus was suddenly aglow with a light few humans have ever seen, the curtain separating the unseen world was pulled back just a bit. 

We can’t know much by their experience.  It was too short and they were short on details in their later memory of it.  They were amazed by the glorious shine of Jesus.  Then they noted that Elijah and Moses were with him.  I have always wondered how they recognized these Old Testament saints.  There was no photography back then.  We do not have elaborate paintings of the ancients as we do from later periods of history.  Something about peering into the unseen realm gave James, John, and Peter recognition.  They knew it was Elijah and Moses.  How did they know?  I am sure they could not articulate how, but when they were permitted to see, they knew. 

They were also overwhelmed to the point of exhaustion.  In that reality, powerless, using every ounce of energy to stay awake, they heard these Old Testament giants allude to Jesus’ coming execution and glory in Jerusalem.  Moses and Elijah anticipated crucifixion, resurrection, and the attraction of Jesus.  The world would be drawn to God through the salvation he brought. 

Peter had the temerity to speak, offering to make temporary shelters.  He was not heard.  Nor was he chastised.  This was too much and he would have done better to stay silent, but either way, it did not matter.  God moved in, thundering from the thick of the cloud that settled on them. 

It is similar to the experience Moses had in Exodus, receiving the law.  Job too heard God speak from swirling, fierce storm clouds.  But Abraham experienced God as three men, a very different encounter.  With Abraham, there was a great debate between God and the man, and the debate was appropriate.  In the case of two disciples walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, Jesus sidled up as a fellow traveler.  He wasn’t there; then he was.  They did not recognize him.  Then he broke bread, their eyes were opened, and they could see.  And he was gone.  In Elijah’s case, God came not in the storm, but in the silence. 

God is not bound by form.  Your encounter will not be Peter’s.  Or John’s.  Remember John, exiled on the island of Patmos.  The risen Lord appeared in a frightful form and called John, in a vision, right to Heaven.  For John Wesley, the 18^th century evangelist and founder of Methodism, God spoke as a reassuring warming in his heart. 

For me, it was a physical, but unseen impossibly heavy weight lifted off my head.  I had driven to Florida to meet a group of friends.  One, a young woman, was someone I thought I would eventually marry.  She was not interested.  It fell flat.  And while it may seem small, that kind of rejection hits a young man hard. I found myself driving back to Northern Virginia alone.  I thought, OK Lord.  Now I have 12 hours of driving to stew.  And for 45 minutes, I drove in a blind, disappointed rage. Then, I physically felt an iron weight lifted off me.  No, I had not been wearing any type of headgear.  My head physically weighed as much as it had when the drive started.  But, something spiritual happened – something far more real than if all I had done was take off a hat.  The weight lifted as God told me my story would not include marrying that young woman.  God did not promise I would meet someone much better.  God never made that promise.  God just drew me to himself.

I go on with experiences of God worshipers in the Bible or believers through history or stories of people I know or of my own experiences.  The unseen world is real.  It is terrifying for those who do not come under God’s protection.  Only God knows who God will cover.  But we know we can turn to Christ and all who in Christ are under God’s covering.  That is why the passage from Ephesians does not begin with cosmic powers of darkness.  It begins commending us, the reading and listening church, to stand strong in God’s power.

At the end of the mountain top experience, the mighty voice in the cloud tells Peter, James, and John “This is my son, my beloved; listen to Him.” 

There is an unseen world, one more real than we can take in with our five senses.  Do we want to live in it in unrestrained joy?  We seek the Holy Spirit and in the word of God we listen to and heed all Jesus has said.  As elusive and possibly ominous as this all may seem, it boils down to a simple truth.  Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  We listen to him.  In Him the unseen becomes seen.  Or as Paul says it in 1^st Corinthians, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now we know only in part.  Then we will know fully even as we are fully known.”  For us to get from now to then, we follow Jesus.

AMEN

---

[i] D.Willard (1997), Divine Conspiracy.  I will attempt to summarize some of Willard’s observations in chapter 10 of Divine Conspiracy.

Run From Jesus or Follow Jesus

Instead of teaching, Jesus told stories  - stories about planting seeds, good and not so good soils, small seeds that grow to become enormous bushes, lamps.  Jesus compared the grandest of ideas, the Kingdom of God, to these simple, everyday things.  Speaking to crowds along the seashore, he told parables, and those who could discern the message understood.  Those who could not understand what Jesus was saying, well …

As twilight set, Jesus told the twelve they should get on the boat and head to the other side of the water.  The experienced sailors jumped to it with no problem until the wind kicked up.  No man of the sea is so experienced as to be able to overcome all weather.  Even the best boatmen are sometimes lost to sea and the 12 disciples feared this very fate as the waves rose and tossed them about.  Is anything more humbling that being made aware of how small we are?  The boat was swamped. 

Yet Jesus lay on a cushion in the stern, sleeping through it all.  The hours of teaching, expending creative mental energy, all the while outdoors in the sun and breeze had drained him.  “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing” (4:38).  He woke and gave the storm a concise, sharp tongue-lashing.  “Peace!  Be still!”  The winds and waves had not sinned; they behaved the way the seas and lakes and oceans are supposed to behave.  They acted as God had created them.  But now God was telling them to knock it off and they did. 

Cranky, Jesus turned to the wide-eyed disciples and demanded to know why they were afraid and where was their faith?  They began asking, whispering to one another, hoping he wouldn’t hear, “Who is this?”  Who is this that has called us to follow him?  Students seek out masters, but he sought us.  People like us don’t get to study under true masters – not fishermen or rebels, and certainly not tax collectors.  He called us, and he’s greater than the greatest masters.  Who is this?

And so it was that they landed on the other side of the lake, heads shaking, questions rising.  They walked inland into the region of the Garasenes.  Ahead was a graveyard. 

Once, I went away for three days of uninterrupted study.  Someone generously let me use a cabin by a lake.  I walked inland, and came to a cemetery in a churchyard.  I took my time, studying the headstones.  This was out in the country, midweek, about 11 in the morning.  No one was around.  Uninterrupted, basking in the rural sounds, I tried to imagine that place in the late 1800’s.  Many of those buried were children.  The funerals would have been mercilessly hot in June and July, and potentially freezing in December and January.  In that quiet reflection, I felt the Spirit of God speak into my heart.

Jesus and the disciples did not enjoy tranquility.  As they came to this ceremonially unclean place, a cemetery with above-ground tombs, a horrific roaring assaulted them.  It was a prelude to a remarkable scene.  How do we envision what rushed at them?  Mark was not striving for drama, but even his straightforward reporting cannot contain the force of this event. 

Metal shackles could not contain this man – he snapped them apart as if they were paper.  His body was a wreak – dirty, bloodly, bruised, hair going everywhere, beard matted, filled with who knows what; indescribable wildness in the eyes.  What inflicted such harm?  The man did it himself.  Mark does tell us the entire community in the village nearby could not contain the madman or restrain him.  They tried, but he flung them aside like unwanted rodents.  He howled and screamed.  He was death living among the dead, one whose body still lived, but one completely overcome by evil. 

An entire village could not calm this rage, but at the sight of Jesus, he threw himself on the ground, bowing at Jesus’ feet.  Jesus was one of 13 people, walking at the head of group.  Yet the demon possessed man seemed utterly indifferent to the disciples.  The demons disdained Jesus, yet they also feared him tremendously.  For them, there was no mystery.  He was the very presence of God.

The demons who ravaged a man’s life and kept an entire town in fear were now reduced to begging.  They pleaded that Jesus might send them into a herd of pigs.  Can we even realize the mixing of awfulness for Jesus, for the disciples all of whom were Jews, and for the first readers of Mark who were most certainly Jews?  What was worse for them, pigs or gentiles, or demons?  All three are right here, converging on the disciples, and the only one in control, the only one with authority is Jesus.  All other powers are reduced to nothing before him – raging storms at sea; armies of demons.  It’s all insignificant. 

When the Jesus demanded the demons’ name, they collectively said “Legion.”  That doesn’t just mean there were ‘1000’ of them.  A legion was a unit of Roman soldiers.  Jews, Egyptians, Greeks – all feared the coming of a Roman Legion.  Legionnaires dominated through intimidation.  Was this pack of demons trying to put some fright into Jesus by calling themselves “Legion?”  That couldn’t work because Jesus was not scared of Rome.  In him there is no fear.

He sent the demons to the pigs and the pigs went mad, rushing over a steep bank and into the sea where they drowned.  Pigs gone; demons gone.  What about the Gentiles?  Here we see God in the flesh.  Yes, he came to redeem God’s chosen people, Israel.  He also came as Lord of all creation with a message of salvation for all people, even non-Jews.  Here, in the Garasenes, among the tombs, Jesus claim authority.  The Kingdom of God had come here and He was Lord in this place of all places.  But then, he is Lord of all places. 

The keepers of the pigs, stricken with freight, ran to town to report that a group of Jews were with the graveyard madman, and all the pigs went crazy, and now the madman wasn’t a madman anymore, well … the townsfolk had to come see for themselves.  And they did.

I wonder if they brought torches and pitchforks.  After all they had kind of designated this as the area to warn the kids about.  Don’t go down to the graveyard, kids, there’s a wild monster down there and he’ll eat you.  They had built up quite a life avoiding the unfortunate man they had relegated to there.  Their response to a demon they could not confront was to accept the dehumanization of the poor possessed man.  Let that one suffer at evil’s hand, and we’ll all be safe staying away from him.  We won’t confront the evil in our own lives – jealousy, greed, gluttony, laziness, faithlessness, prejudice.  We’ll ignore all that and pretend that all the evil in the world is in the demoniac who lives in the tombs. 

Were they ever upset to arrive and find him clothed and in his right mind.  Did they remember what he was like, before the demon came?  Was he the town blacksmith or the town tanner?  Maybe a farmer?  Perhaps he had been quite an important man in town, the grounds keeper in the graveyard.  Maybe some evil he committed opened his heart to the invasion of this beastly legion of demons.  Whatever they case, they could dismiss him now, as the sole possessor of evil.  They had to deal with him as a community member, a neighbor and brother.  Their whole worldview was upset at this change in things.

But didn’t they celebrate their friend’s healing?  O no.  After putting the pitchforks down and hearing the story once again from the swine herders, the town elders quickly reached a conclusion.  Their eyes fixed on the one thing that paralleled the drastic changes of events.  A group of Jews had come to town.  No one doubted that the leader, Jesus, had done this.  No one questioned his power.  They simply did not want any part of it. 

There’s a lot of begging in this story.  The demons who exerted a hideous sort of tormented authority over the region were reduced to begging.  They begged Jesus to let them enter the pigs.  He did.  They died.  The town elders, supposedly the leaders in town, begged Jesus to leave.

What do we do when Jesus comes along?  The coming of Jesus is the coming of God.  The moving of the Holy Spirit is the moving of God.  What do we do when God moves in our lives and confronts us as a people, as individuals?  Do we beg God to let us leave, run away?  Do we beg God to leave?  If He stays everything changes.  If He stays, He gets to be in charge.  There can only be one Lord and it is Him.  So, in life, He will come along.  Every person has that moment when they have to decide about God.  Do we beg that we might be allowed to run away?  Do we beg God that he might go away?

The person healed of the demon possession knew that the coming of Jesus meant everything changed.  He had been living like a crazed animal, a rabid dog who couldn’t even find relief in death.  His was a living Hell that the 1000 demons in him perpetuated.  With no end in sight, he wanted everything to change.  He desperately wanted out.  When Jesus freed him from the grip of Hell, he begged Jesus with everything in Him.  Let me go with you.

When the demons begged for pigs, Jesus gave pigs.

When the terrified town elders begged for relief from Jesus’ holy presence, he left.

But, when the now healed man, in his right mind, begged to be with Jesus, Jesus said no.  The Gospel of Mark includes several miracles where Jesus tells all involved to say nothing.  Here, it’s the opposite.  “Jesus refused [him] and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you’” (5:19).  Was that a joke?  This guy had lost all his friends a long time ago. 

He did what Jesus instructed, kind of.  He into town and then throughout the Decapolis telling everybody how Jesus healed him.  Decapolis was a region of 10 mostly gentile cities.  The demonian of the graveyard was surely a local legend.  Now he was on the preaching circuit, showing himself, healed, sane, and ready for life because Jesus had come.    

Sure, Jesus left. But he also stayed.  The results of Jesus’ work, the man, healthy, living, breathing, and in the very center of society in those 10 important cities, daily testified that the Kingdom of God had come and that Jesus was and is Lord.  The man testified to Jesus with his words, but his very presence was testimony.  Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”  This was Jesus’ workmanship. 

Had the man gone off with Jesus, the town elders could have downplayed the entire event.  They could have found a new scapegoat on whom they would load all of the town’s guilt.  That type of buck passing would never work as long as the healed demoniac was around, speaking of Jesus.  I used to read these types of stories and wonder why Jesus wouldn’t let the healed people come.  Now, it makes sense to me. 

Before the cross, before the resurrection, before the birth of the church, before the missionary age in which Jesus followers spread out over the globe to share the good news of salvation in his name, Jesus walked the earth.  He told stories about seeds and lamps and pearls.  And people had to respond to the stories.  He calmed raging storms at sea.  He calmed raging people and exorcised the demons who tormented them.  And people had to respond to his actions, his miracles.  He taught with wisdom that exceeded Israel’s greatest religious minds.  And the crowds had to respond to the lessons he gave.  Before there were a billion people on this earth claiming the name ‘Christian,’ Jesus was known in a small nation.  God in human flesh came and announced that the Kingdom had arrived.  How would people respond?

How do we?

It’s the age of the church – the body of Christ doing God’s work in the world at the leading of God’s Holy Spirit.  Do we beg Jesus to let us just run away?  Do we be God to go away from us so we don’t have to deal with Him?  Or do we beg Him to let us go with Him?  It doesn’t get easier that way.  And we give up authority because He is Lord.  But then, that’s the real challenge.

Will we give up authority and live under His lordship?  One – at the last judgment, we will do that whether we want to or not.  Right now we can choose to do so.  The man possessed found out that Jesus is the one who heals, the one who rescues us from death and gives us eternal life and abundant life.    Because Jesus saved Him, he chose to follow Jesus and tell the world about the salvation Jesus gives.

What do we choose?  How do we respond to Jesus when He shows up in our lives?

AMEN