Mark: 5:1-20
The heading says Jesus heals a man with a demon, but the beginning paragraph shows us that the man has a whole lot of demons living in his...I don't know, head, body, spirit-whatever he had a lot of them and they were running the show. It is the demon(s) that speaks to Jesus and control the poor man's life. These demons don't want to leave-but say 'Jesus don't torment us and don't send us out of the country; please send us into those pigs.'
Why? I don't know. There were certainly enough of them for each little demon to have its own little mind to control. But they don't do it well. The man was always thrashing about and lived alone in the tombs, so he couldn't have offered much life to these demons. The pigs, either didn't like the demons-or the demons didn't like themselves because as soon as they were free of the man they flung themselves into the sea and died. Are demons bent on self-denial, and self-destruction? It seems they ruined the man's life well enough.
This man has a sit down in his own clothes calmly and has a nice chat with Jesus. AHH. That sounds good. The poor people who were used to the man out of his mind weren't so peaceful. They knew what to do with the little life this man had; they just stayed away. The pig-farmers lost their entire cash crop. Did they ask for reimbursement? Did they rejoice that this man was alive and none of his demons had come to trouble their lives? No, they said please, Jesus get out of here. You scare us. We don't know what to do with this occurrence.
The man understandably wishes to stay with Jesus. Jesus gave him his life back. Jesus cared enough not to walk away or stay away. Jesus came directly into his life, and brought him out of his locked-in life. But that isn't all Jesus does for the man, he doesn't say this is the end of all the good things that will happen to you, there is more. Go to your friends and tell them what God has done for you.
This was not like what happened to the guys (the three disciples) on the mountain when Jesus said don't tell anyone...that was only something they saw, but this is something that changed the man. This was his own story and his friends will know the difference because, just as yesterday's scene affected more than the blind man, this new life for this man affected all his friends and those that knew of him before. All of them could see the difference, no one had to tell them there was a change, what the man could do is tell them how he came to be in his right mind, and how thankful he was for this new life. Are we able to see these changes in our lives and to give thanks for these changes, and tell people who has made the difference in our lives?
See you tomorrow.
-maggie
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