[AI translation] This story, which I have just read in two parts, could be called: life change. There are two parts to the event described here: a miraculous healing and what follows. There are many similar stories in the Bible, but perhaps this is the most striking of all, showing the extraordinary life-changing experience of a person under the influence of a personal encounter with Jesus. It is not only about how Jesus plucks a man out of his utter hopelessness, but also about how such a man's life continues.1) For indeed, if ever there was a hopeless case, a man lost to himself, his family, society, a wretched man: then the so-called Gadarene was truly that. According to the biblical account, this wretched soul was in a terrible state: possessed and tormented by evil, demonic powers. This possession was something different from what we would today call mental illness. The possessed man was not a lunatic, but someone who could be particularly susceptible to demonic influence, and who therefore became an unwilling instrument of certain satanic forces. I am well aware that modern man smiles when the Bible speaks of Satan, the devil, hell. No such thing!" he says. It is strange because we are living at a time when humanity is under threat to its very existence, to its physical existence, as perhaps never before. It is not so long ago that racism wiped out millions of human lives, that millions of cities were reduced to dust and ashes by carpet bombing, that endless masses of people wandered in endless lines fleeing destruction, and now the possibility of a more terrifying nuclear war is looming over humanity. Hell has moved from the distance of the works of medieval painters and poets to the reality of film newsreels, press reports and the bitter individual experiences of many, many people.
I say all this only because modern man, of all people, has no reason to smile at the biblical images of satanic destruction. Of course, Satan and hell are not as they were imagined and portrayed in the Middle Ages. Nor is it as it is perhaps in the imagination of some people today, i.e. Satan is unbelief, Satanic power is atheism. No! It is not that at all! When the Bible speaks of Satan, it means evil, evil that is greater than man, that has superhuman power. Man is under its influence - not man who denies God, but man, many times, very many times, man who confesses God! Let us not look for Satan somewhere outside, in the world, but within, within ourselves. In fact, let me put it this way: there are far more Christian forces outside in the world than we think, and far more Satanic forces at work inside in our souls than we think. The Bible does not require us to believe in Satan, but only that we should not be lulled into illusions about him. Believe not in Satan, but in God and in the one in whom God has revealed Himself to us, Jesus, who came to defeat the destructive forces of Satan and hell as He did in the life of this Gadarene man.
In this story we see, as it were, a caricature of the influence of Satan's destructive forces in a human life. He behaves like a madman. He harms himself, seeks out the ugliest places, ostracises himself from society, attacks anyone who gets in his way, becomes degraded and loses all sense of morality. He has hellish passions, abandoning his family, his wife, his children. He wanders around aimlessly. And all the while he suffers terribly. The law, determination, persuasion, pleading, public opinion, do not help. Nothing can stop it. If you think about it, this is not such a rare phenomenon, or perhaps not so extreme. Is it not still the case today that someone simply turns his back on his family for no good reason, making life hell for him? Or is it the case of someone who harms himself because he has been taken over by a passion? Or is it that he or she is snarling at everyone who stands in his or her way, or that he or she is digging into people? Or is he degraded and loses all sense of morality? Or is it that he can't be restrained, no matter how much he's asked or threatened? Is there no such thing today? Of course not! There are plenty!
It is precisely here that we see the awesome, mysterious power of what we call, in short, sin. We often take it so lightly, trivialize it, play with it so frivolously. Indeed, sin is not only a little kicking out of the harness, a little going beyond what is free, what is fair, what is good, what is pure and honest, but sin is always a certain obsession, a certain bondage, a certain state of being at the mercy of some downward pull. A certain drift by some evil current above man. A gateway through which destructive, satanic forces break in and dominate one's body and soul and his environment. All of a sudden, man realizes that he is no longer doing what he wants to do, but what he must do. He is under the power of some force. Think of a drunkard, a sex addict, a lover of money, a tyrant. Like a man possessed, he obeys the corrupting force within him. He's driven by his passion, his blood, his passion.
Sometimes, the visible signs of such bondage are etched in one's face, one's expression becomes distorted, one is thrown out of oneself, a threatening yet alarmed fire flares in the eye, and sometimes only the heart secretly writhes in some kind of grip, almost a demonic grip. For such commonplace emotions as pride, vanity, envy, anger, hatred, are all bondage, the obsession of sin. Oh, there are many such gadarenes among us today, though perhaps in a somewhat more respectable form than in those days! And we are so soon ready with the verdict: a hopeless case! He cannot be helped. Well, the story shows that there is no hopeless case for Jesus. It is precisely that Jesus, who had been given up by everyone, who had been abandoned, despised, despised, despised, despised, despicable, came to this whole region for this man, for this one. Jesus sees the wretched man in a different way than anyone else. Jesus does not resign himself to the fact that man is what he is: obsessed, mad, degraded - but Jesus always sees a different possibility for man, a different life. Jesus sees in man the child of God. And this vision of Jesus is a creative vision.
The vision of people who see in others only the evil, the irredeemable: they are driven to death. He works death, for he fixes the wretched man in the fact that there is no escape, no improvement, no hope. But Jesus sees the good, the other, the solution, into man, and he sees it in such a way that the good appears in him, comes to life, and the raging, miserable victim of sin is freed, purified, transformed. Sobered, pacified, renewed. He is healed. And the great thing is that this is still the case today. With you, with me, with the one you've given up. Whatever your opinion of yourself, of other people, of others about you, Jesus sees in you the person you can become through His power. He sees in you the child of God, the eternal preciousness for whom He sacrificed on the cross. He sees our lives against the background of his own redemptive death and resurrection: he sees himself in us. And with this creative vision, new life appears in man. For there, on Calvary, an unheard of great thing happened: the defeat of Satan. There the curse was broken, there the satisfaction and reconciliation took place. In that death there is the power of forgiveness and renewal for all repentant people. And victory over evil.
In the presence of Jesus, the awesome power that tormented the unfortunate victim shrinks like a snowman in the sunshine, shrivels away like a beaten dog. Whatever the power of sin, greater than sin is Jesus! He is here among us now in His Word, so that He may absolve you and me, free us and make us different. Feel that in being with Him, in quiet spiritual conversation, in prayer, you begin to be freed from the pressure. Untie the ropes, clear the thoughts and feelings. The devil flees. A change happens, as in this story, that people can hardly believe their eyes. The same person - and yet someone completely different. The same person, but cleansed, recreated, healed, redeemed and sanctified.
2) This healed man asks Jesus to stay with him. It is as if he feels safe here against all demonic powers, close to Jesus. But Jesus sends him, "Go home to your own" (verse 19b) What this means is that you are truly with me, you are safest against all satanic influence, when you testify of me with your redeemed life where they know what you were. Show what you have become where you live your daily life. It is precisely by sending this man back to a life of witnessing in his own environment that Jesus draws him to himself.
"Go home to your own!" Let's put it this way: to your family. Because this man has a family, children, a wife. Go back to the people you left behind. Let that long-suffering family, above all, benefit from God's mercy on the father. May the home be happy and peaceful again. Go home! Don't send a message, don't write a letter saying you have met the Saviour of life, but go in person. Be yourself the good news, the witness incarnate, the authentic proof of God, the living letter of Jesus. Imagine this man coming home. Everything he says and does is a living testimony to the power of God. His whole renewed person is a tangible gospel. Great joy! The whole atmosphere is changed. The wife is happy, the children are happy, there is no more fear as there used to be. Everything is so beautiful and good, so incredibly different now than it was! Such is the power of Jesus.
Go home to your own! May the very first blessing of being with Jesus flow home! At home, may the first faces be revealed, the first tensions be released. Above all, let our home, our family circle, be filled with the air we have breathed in prayer, in the Word, in communion with Jesus here. The most difficult place to live in a truly changed, Christian way is at home, because nowhere are we more closely and permanently interdependent than in the family circle. It is here that we have the most opportunity to make life easier or harder for each other. It is here that we live out our true selves most uninhibitedly. But it is also the most important area, the home, because it is in the family circle that characters are formed and future generations grow. The life of our Church, of our people, depends crucially on family life. It is well known from statistical data that most crimes have their roots in a broken family life. On the health, purity and strength of our homes, 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 make or break the whole of public life. So, "Go home to your own, and tell them what great thing the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." (Mk 5,19)
Surely someone has experienced the joy of praying together in the family circle, of sitting here with our children or parents, of sharing the blessing of communion together. 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 spouse, my parents, the people of my house: all those whom you have entrusted to me! Here you are, with Christ, a guest at His banquet. He feeds you with His grace, heals your heart, cleanses your thoughts, sanctifies your feelings, perhaps awakens new resolutions in you. And after all this, He says: "Go home to your own, and tell them what great thing the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you." Yes, this should be the first step forward for a person who has truly met Jesus.
Amen
Date: 15 March 1964.
Lesson
Mk 5,1-17