“Jesus and the Garasene Demoniac” Mark 5: 1-20

If you have had the opportunity to see Jesus at Sight and Sound, this particular story may seem familiar to you. In the musical, it is part of the song “To Rescue the One” - “He left the 99 when you were the one. He left the 99 when I was the one, now that man is the one. He is the one.” Its this powerful song sung from the perspective of the disciples about their transformative experience with Jesus that has led them to this, this place that they probably though they would never be, in order to offer that same transformation for someone that society has written off. 

I have to imagine that the disciples, however, are a little skeptical at first when they cross the sea and find themselves in the most unclean of unclean place. They followed Jesus to the tombs, this place of the dead who were considered unclean, in the land of the Gentiles, an unclean people. Maybe they started to whisper amongst themselves at first, wondering what in the world Jesus has brought them here for. 

Then they see him. A man with an unclean spirit. A man who lived her amongst the tombs. The towns people were so afraid of him that they had tried to chain him up, only he would break through the chains again and again. He could no longer talk. All he could do was howl. Hurting himself with stones. This is the one that Jesus had came to see.

But before Jesus could even call out to him, the man sees Jesus, runs to him and bows down before him, asking what Jesus could want to do with him. Or rather, the demons inside of him cried out to Jesus before Jesus asked them their name and they said that the were called Legion, many. 

And Jesus, with all of the strength and authority that we have seen in the last few chapters commands the demons to free the man, leaving him and going instead into two-thousand swine. 

When the towns people looked at this man, all that they were able to see was his affliction, that he was so possessed that he needed to be left alone, chained up if at all possible, and ignored the rest of the time. They could no longer see his humanity, so they cut him off from society. 

See that’s what happened back in Jesus’s time when it came to uncleanness. It wasn’t just about you being identified as unclean, you were then isolated, kept apart from other people, out of fear that you could contiminate them or hurt them. 

But because worship was a communal thing, so when you were deemed to be unclean, you were cut off from the body, and didn’t have a way to access God through worshipping with others. 

But here comes Jesus, to one of the most alienated people that we find in the Gospel of Mark, and seeks him out. Specifically. To offer him freedom, hope, and restoration. 

Friends, if this story tells us anything it is no one is beyond the reach of Jesus Christ. Yet, how often are we like the towns people, picking and choosing who we are willing to bring the Gospel to. Who are the people we sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly cut off, because of our own fear or thoughts of who is worthy to come into the presence of God?

Jesus came, dear Church, to seek and save the lost. But that isn’t just the lost who are acceptably lost. Those who we think its okay to talk to or be with. Jesus came for even people like this man, maybe most especially people like this man, who are cut off from society. Cut off from the Church. 

When I went to school in Pittsburg, I was blessed to be part of church communities that understood who they were there for. There was a big church right across from campus that was known for being pretty swanky. It was the church I also attended for campus ministry throughout the week. But what impressed me the most with that church is that on Sunday, when folks wandered in from off the street who were housing insecure, they were given the place of honor to sit. Even if they would get up and down throughout the service or raise their voice, they were treated as one of the body. They understood what it meant to treat others as Jesus treated this man. 

But I have also been part of churches were this didn’t happen. Where people whispered about folks struggles behind their back or shunned them because of what they were wearing or how they acted. While studying abroad, one of the places I spent time volunteering was a drop in center for those struggling with addiction and those engaged in prostitution. And the stories I heard about how folks were treated by churches still breaks my heart all of these years later. Because the Church missed the point - that Jesus came to bring healing and freedom not just to those who we think deserve it, but will go seeking out those who others have written off.

This man literally had his life transformed because Jesus came to him and healed him. In Sight and Sound’s Jesus he explains it as, “He saw me. I won’t be the same.” Jesus didn’t just see this man visually. He saw into his heart. He saw who he could be when he was set free. This man who had lost his name, his place in society, his humanity, Jesus restores him and then sends him out to be a missionary, declaring what happened in his life. 

The most frustrating part of the story, however, is that the town’s people. They weren’t changed. They didn’t get it. In fact, they saw this man completely transformed and their first instinct isn’t to be in awe or worship Jesus or ask to follow him - its to ask him to leave. To leave their neighborhood. To go away. 

Compare that to the man, who begs Jesus to follow him, but Jesus has another mission for him in life. 

Friends, are we the people who are begging to follow Jesus on the mission, no matter what it may be and no matter where we may be called to go, because we are so moved by what Jesus has done for us? Or are we the people sending the man away and quite frankly sending Jesus away as well?

Because here’s the thing - Jesus didn’t just change peoples lives back in scripture. He’s still doing that today. Jesus is in the people changing business for the sake of the Kingdom. And if we are going to follow him we better be giving testimony to that, but also be willing to go to those Jesus reached out to in compassion to be bearers of the Good News. 

All too often as the church, we have lived out of a place of fear. Fear of others. Fear of change. Fear of what God may be doing, instead of one of awe. Instead of one of anticipation. Instead of one of proclamation. 

It’s time to be unleashed from fear. Set free from that which holds us back from proclaiming the Good News - that Jesus searched for us, found us, and changed us. Because he loves us and because he knows us. In the words from Jesus, “The leaper, the blindman, the deaf and the lame, the sick and the broken. He know their name” 

How has Jesus changed your life and how are you proclaiming it? Amen.