Sunday 23rd am service
Reverend A Lewis BA. Cert Div.
THE MIRACLES Legion and the Gaderene
Swine
Good morning. Today I want to ask you
this question. What are you afraid of? Everyone is afraid of something. Anyone like a
good horror movie? A thriller? Even as children we enjoy those stories with
wolves that might gobble us up, giants that might eat us whole, wicked old
women who live in gingerbread houses. But what are our real fears, our real
deep seated worries?
As we come closer to Jerusalem
[23] But as they sailed he fell
asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled
with water, and were in jeopardy. [24]
And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he
arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and
there was a calm. [25] And he
said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one
to another, What
manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they
obey him.
Well he was about to show what manner of
man he was. They had already seen the miracles he performed and the miracles we’ve
studied during the past weeks hear at River Chapel. If you’re new to the church,
don’t worry, you’ll soon pick up the story. Each episode stands alone! Let us now read what happened when they landed.
[26] And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against
A sad man indeed. What were these devils
which he was possessed with? We don’t tend to talk in terms of devils these days
do we? But they are abroad nevertheless. They are the kind of afflictions that
we all have within us. Our disabilities, our ‘isms’. We can’t all see, or hear
or read as well as we might like to. Some of us have all manner of things that
blight us. In the modern world we call them ADHD, Tourette’s Syndrome, Autistic
Spectrum Disorder, Dyslexia; Behavioural Disorders of all shapes afflict our
lives. They have names – tags – but make no mistake they are there for a
reason. Like the storm that Jesus calmed – we need not be afraid.
[28] When he saw Jesus, he
cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to
do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I
beseech thee, torment me not.
You see, straight away he knew
who Jesus was. Do we always know when the Lord is speaking to us? I think we
usually do. How did he know? Well it tells us in the very next verse:
[29] (For he had commanded
the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him:
and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and
was driven of the devil into the wilderness.) [30] And Jesus asked him,
saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because
many devils were entered into him.
Legion. He called himself Legion because
He Was Many! He was not alone in his head this sad man. Perhaps today we’d say
he was afflicted with a Multiple Personality Disorder. He would have been cast
out from his community because, in those days, people would not have understood
his plight. How many of us here today fail to see the plight in others. We
accuse them, we blame them for their wrong-doing but we fail to see the wrong
in ourselves. But what did he, Legion, do? He was frightened to lose that part
of himself that he had grown used to. The part of him that was many. He’d grown
accustomed to his affliction. It was part of him and he was loathe to let it
go. Let us read on, vs. 31:
[31] And they besought him
that he would not command them to go out into the deep. [32] And there
was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him
that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. [33]
Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into
the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and
were choked. [34] When they that fed them
saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the
country. [35] Then they went out to see what was done; and came
to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at
the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. [36]
They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the
devils was healed. [37] Then the whole multitude of the country of the
Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them; for they were taken
with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again. [38]
Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be
with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying, [39] Return
to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he
went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus
had done unto him.
I was tempted to ask farmer Bowlby to
bring in his pigs for this particular service but… Where I grew up I had a
friend called Stringy Billy. Now Stringy Billy was trapped, a little like
Legion, but Jesus, through his bountiful grace was able to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A_NruH3eJE
