Go home to your people!

[AI translation] I have read only the ending of this strange story as the basis for today's sermon, because I want to focus not so much on the miraculous healing, but on what happened afterwards. We have already seen, through various stories, how Jesus heals, how an extraordinary change of life takes place in a person through a personal encounter with Jesus, how Zacchaeus and the blind beggar are transformed by the encounter with Jesus. Here too, we are talking about an extraordinary change of life, but let us not focus on that, but rather, so to speak, on the very first fruits of this change of life. In short, what I want to talk about today is how the life of a man who has met Jesus continues.Wonderful things happened to this man from Gadara. What it can mean when Jesus Christ enters a person's life, we can see in this story. According to the biblical account, this unfortunate man was in a terrible state. He was possessed and tormented by evil, demonic spirits. The possession was something different from what is called insanity today. A possessed person was not a lunatic, but someone who was particularly susceptible to demonic influence and who therefore became an unwilling instrument of satanic forces. This phenomenon is particularly common between the two turning points in the history of the kingdom of God. First, at the time of Jesus' first coming to earth, when the kingdom of God is being ushered in by the appearance of Jesus as King of the kingdom of God, the satanic power senses its imminent demise. That is why it is gathering all its strength to thwart the redemption, and why it is that during Jesus' sojourn on earth, demon possession was so common. The other critical moment is the time of Christ's return. The more history progresses towards its end, the greater the efforts of Satan to rob Christ of His church.
Now, I am well aware that many people cannot believe in the existence of the devil, and there is nothing in the world that can give the devil greater pleasure than not to believe in his reality - for that is how he can most unabashedly carry out his destruction in him. Scripture speaks of it as a personal power, and this distorted human soul also shows quite clearly the possessing power of an evil spirit. It holds the soul captive, destroys and ravages it as the vampire does his victim. The devil delights in corrupting and destroying the masterpiece of God, man, in body and soul. That is why the demons that Jesus cast out of that man wanted to enter into the herd of swine that were grazing there, and that is why the swine ran wild into the sea. The demons definitely wanted to destroy something, if not a man, then an animal! Preferably humans, of course, and this is the deepest background to the tragedy of the pigs. The devil foresaw it well: if the owners of the flock found out that the devils had entered the flock with Jesus' permission, they would not want Jesus among them. Jesus' presence means a material loss for them. And when they know this, they will not want to hear from him again. They ask him nicely to leave their borders. To these people, a pig is worth more than a saved soul, or their own salvation. So they did the most terrible thing: they sent Jesus away. Lo and behold, Satan had a great success!
But now let us see what happened to this man? The devil's work in his life must have started when he ruined his family life. Here, we have just read that he had relatives, but one sad day this man left his wife and children and wandered aimlessly on the roads. He sank deeper and deeper. He had a hellish passion: he walked around naked, among decomposing corpses, living in tombs. The devil always makes a man obsessed. Attempts were made to restrain, restrain, tame this unfortunate animal man - but they failed. He became a blight on the whole countryside. No one was safe around him.
And then Jesus came! In the presence of the mere, the fearsome demonic power shrinks like mould in the sunshine. Have you not experienced that when you are truly with the Lord, in quiet spiritual conversation or prayer, in worship, in Bible study: you begin to release the pressure, the bonds loosen, the thoughts and feelings clear - the devil flees? After all, the cross of Calvary is a perfect reality for the devil. There the curse was broken, there the satisfaction and reconciliation took place. In that death there is forgiveness and justification for all repentant men. This Jesus is enough if he speaks but one word and the legions of devils flee from him! And when the astonished villagers rushed over to see what had happened, they saw the ex-devil sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the one who had the legion! They can hardly believe their eyes! Would this calm, neatly dressed man be the same one who had been in the tombs before, the one everyone was so afraid of? Yes: the same, and yet someone quite different. The same person, but recreated: cleansed, healed, redeemed and sanctified.
It is also evident from the fact that the healed man now presents himself with a beaming face, with a new found life, to Jesus, who is about to leave, asking Him to let him stay with Him! Nothing is more natural than that the forgiven, cleansed, born again man always wants to stay near his Saviour, because he feels that he is free from all demonic powers, protected, when he stays near Jesus. And yet Jesus did not agree. He sent him away, saying, "Go home and tell your people what great things the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you." It is as if He were saying: it is then that you are truly with Me, it is then that you follow Me, it is then that you get into My ship, it is then that you are safest from all the attacks of the devil, it is then that you testify of Me. Where they know what you were, there show what you have become: what you have received in grace, what Christ means to you! Be a missionary of everyday life. At home, tell and show God's "great work": the greatest thing he does for his own, that he has had mercy on you! The best defense against Satan and his demonic hosts is offense. Proclaim the glory of God in word and life! Testify of what He has done for you. This is the true battle against sin and temptation!
Believe that Jesus is right. When the ascended son or daughter comes out of the shelter of family life into life, parents usually warn their children with great concern: "My son - or daughter - you know that you have a vocation in the environment in which you are placed. Tell and show them who Christ is, what grace is, what the Christian, redeemed life is! This is the most powerful and effective defence against evil! The ex-devil wants to stay with Jesus. Well, that is precisely why Jesus sends him to testify to his own, to draw him to himself, to draw him and himself into a very close relationship! And this is always the case: if you do not constantly strive to spread the kingdom of God by your conduct, your words, your prayers, you deprive yourself of many spiritual blessings, you deprive yourself of the joy and freshness of faith, or even lose it altogether. Your certainty that you are a child of God is shaken, you begin to doubt, in short: Satan is tempting you! So, "go home to your people and tell them"!
Several times in the Bible, Jesus sends the healed, renewed man home to his family: so it is here. This man has a family, a wife and children. Let him return to those he has abandoned! Let them: the wife, the children, the family who have suffered so much, benefit first of all from God's mercy on the father! As the first blessed fruit of the grace experienced, may the home be happy and peaceful again! Therefore, "Go home to your own!" Go home: do not send a message, do not write a letter saying that you are healed, but go in person. Don't send the message, but be the good news yourself, the incarnate witness, the only authentic proof of God, the living letter of Christ. Imagine this man coming home: no matter what he says or does, he is a living report, a message of grace, of God's salvation! He also speaks by his actions. His whole renewed person: a tangible gospel! From an older vagabond to a careful father! The raging, uncontrollable passions have been tamed. The whole atmosphere has changed. The wife is happy, the children are happy, and there is no longer the fear and dread of the past. Everything is so nice and good, so incredibly different at home now!
"Go home to your people..." I cannot stress this enough to ourselves now! May the very first blessing of being here with Christ, at home, flow out! At home, may the first faces be lifted, may the tensions be released by the grace of God at work in you! Above all, let us fill our homes, our family circle, with this air that we breathe in prayer, in the Word, in communion with Christ. We are responsible for our own! In no circle of human life are we so closely and permanently interdependent as in the family circle. It is here that we have the greatest opportunity to make life easier or harder for each other, to be a blessing or a curse to each other! To exercise ourselves in selfless service or selfish exploitation. This is where we live out our true selves, where we are truly who we are, without rehearsed roles, without masks, ourselves!
The situation, the state, the life of our Church, of our people, depends to a great extent on family life, on the state of family circles. Statistics show that the roots of most crimes, burglaries and murders go back to a broken, disintegrated family life. On the health, purity and strength of our family life, the whole moral life of the country, of humanity, stands or falls. What happens in the children's rooms, in the kitchens, in the bedrooms, can be decisively for the good or for the bad of the whole of public life. That is why I would like to underline and emphasise once again very strongly the words of Jesus in our Word: "Go home to your own and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." (Mk 5,19)
For all of us, this is the first and foremost missionary duty. Do you know what this world needs most? Missionaries at home, witnesses in their own family circles. Have you ever experienced the joy of praying with your children, sitting here together and taking communion with your loved ones? And what joy it will be to stand before the throne of God and say: 'Here I am, Lord, redeemed by the blood of Christ, not only for myself, but for my children, my partner, my parents, the people of my house, all those you have given me, those you have entrusted to me!
Behold, now you are here with Christ, you are His guest. He sits you at His table, He feeds you with His grace, He fills you with Himself, He works in you. He casts out devils from you, heals your heart, cleanses your mind, sanctifies your life, and after all this He says: "Go home to your own, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you." This is what must follow the Lord's Supper, what must be the very first fruit of Christ's work in you - the very first step forward for a person who has truly met Jesus!
Amen
Date: 25 Sept 1955.