Luke 8:26-39
“We are All Spectacles”
Why are we here this evening?
Why are we not doing what most of the people in America are doing right this moment?…
Watching the Super bowl?
Kick-off was at 6:30 pm!!!
Could it be that something has happened in our
lives…
…something so great…
…that we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else?
Or could it be that we are searching for something…
…something we have seen in others, something we know exists, but have not yet experienced for ourselves?
What is your answer or reason for being here?
Perhaps you just don’t care for football.
In our Gospel Lesson for this evening Jesus meets a demon-possessed man who wants nothing to do with Jesus.
He is afraid of God.
The presence of the Holy for him is a tormenting thing.
But in the later part of our Lesson we see a new man.
Legion is healed.
He is sitting at the feet of Jesus, not because he has to—but because he would not want to be anywhere else.
He’s hanging out with Jesus and he’s relaxed…perhaps for the first time in his life.
He is no longer fearful of God.
And he even begs Jesus to allow Him to come with Jesus onto the next town and the next and the next.
How many of us were like Legion before we were healed by Christ?
In our communities this evening, many people are like Legion before salvation.
They aren’t comfortable with God.
God is a fearful thought to them.
And yet, in our society there are many folks who are searching for something.
Notice how many “religious” people there are!
People are into gurus, transcendental meditation, Scientology, voodoo, witchcraft, and drugs.
The very fact that people are searching is proof that there is a void in their lives, for no one seeks for what he or she already has.
The word “religion” is a Latin word.
It comes from the root “to bind back.”
Thus, when a person is religious, he or she is trying to “bind” him or herself back to God—to patch things up.
But, of course, we cannot do this on our own.
If we are to be “put right” with God, we must allow God to do the work!
A man driving along the highway heard a strange clang, but he ignored it and kept on driving.
When he got home he realized that one of his hubcaps was missing.
Two weeks later, while driving home along that same stretch of highway he noticed his hubcap propped up on the side of the road.
Stopping to get it, he found a note attached.
It read, “I’ve been looking for you!”
The human race is like that lost hubcap!
We have no way to bind ourselves back to God…
…unless God comes looking for us.
But many don’t understand that God is looking for them…
…that God loves them that much!!!
So they are scared.
Perhaps they think they are too sinful, too lost, too useless for God to be interested.
There’s a story about a peculiar lost dog sign.
There was a big cash reward for whoever found the lost dog, and on the sign was a description of the dog.
It read: “He’s only got three legs, he’s blind in the left eye, he’s missing a right ear, his tail has been broken off, he was neutered accidentally by a fence, he’s almost deaf, and he answers by the name “Lucky”!!!
What causes a dog like that answer to the name “Lucky”?
It’s because he has an owner who loves him and wants him back.
And that is how it is for all of us.
We all have an Owner Who loves us and wants us back!
And this is the Good News of God!!!
God is searching for us all!!!
Jesus came looking for Legion.
Jesus bound Legion back to God, and Legion is no longer lost.
Instead, he sits relaxed and attentive…
…even excited, at Jesus’ feet!
At first glance, it may seem very odd to us that Legion was not overjoyed when he first met Jesus.
Legion was naked and unwashed.
He had no home, but lived alone in a cemetery, chained there by townspeople who were at their wits end with how to deal with him.
“Many times…” Legion “had broken his chains”… but the demon drove him into even more horrible situations.
What a miserable existence!!!
We can almost feel the self-loathing Legion must have had.
And this is the case with so many folks.
As humans, we are a hunted species, and we are often our own predator.
Ours is a generation of self-inflicted wounds.
Norman Rockwell has a painting of a little girl sitting in front of a mirror.
A movie magazine is in her lap and it’s open to a picture of her favorite star.
And as she compares what she sees in the mirror to what she sees in the magazine she frowns.
It is a tragedy to go through life disliking ourselves.
Salvation, for Legion, not only meant a new relationship with God, it meant a new relationship with himself!!!
A friend was sharing with me how he felt that he and his friends were a “spectacle” to the church they attend because they are homeless.
He feels as if people are staring at them, as if they are animals in a zoo.
But even if that is true, is it not also true that we are “all a spectacle”?
All of us have problems.
None of us perfectly fit in.
Some of us are a bit pudgy.
Others may be a little on the thin side.
Some might have a funny laugh.
Other’s might not laugh and smile enough.
We are all human beings.
We are all, in a sense, “a spectacle.”
And that really is a bit of a relief!!!
A few weeks ago, our family or part of our family had our pictures professionally taken in a park in Knoxville.
When the pictures came back, Clair and I were a bit disappointed in how we looked.
Everyone else looked good, but neither of us thought we looked good.
Later, when Clair was speaking with her mother about the pictures her mother complained that she and Clair’s father didn’t like the pictures either.
They couldn’t find one in which they felt that “they looked good.”
And then, she said that there didn’t appear to be any good “family shots” of all of us together…where we all looked good.
When Clair told me this, we had to laugh as I said, “Maybe the problem is not the photographer. Perhaps we’re just an ugly family.”
We are all a spectacle in one way or another, are we not?
The sooner we accept that the better off we will be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually!!!
When Legion learned that God accepted him no matter what, that is when Legion began to accept and love himself!!!
And his self-inflicted wounds began to heal!!!
Legion’s relationship with other people were healed as well!!!
Christ bound Legion back, not only to God and self, but to his neighbors as well!!!
Christianity isn’t just about “me and my God.”
It’s about “my neighbor” too!!!
Christianity binds us back to our
communities.
It brings us out of our solitary graveyards, and into the center of the LIVING!!!
How exciting is that?
In the country of the Gerasenes, which wasn’t Jewish land but Gentile land, Jesus comes face to face with a raving madman, who lives a tortured existence among the tombs.
Legion was a Gentile, and thus he was unclean.
He lived in a graveyard.
And graveyards were also considered unclean.
Add to that Legion’s madness, the fact that he lived naked and homeless, and near a herd of pigs—which were also considered unclean by the Jews…
And we’ve got a real spectacle on our hands!!!
But it’s not too much for Jesus!!!
Not only does this event demonstrate Jesus’ power over the forces of evil, but it also makes the point that no one is irredeemable, beyond the reach of Christ’s saving and healing touch!!!
Is that why we are here tonight?
Can we relate to this?
Remember the movie Forest Gump?
Forest is asked by his Lieutenant:
“Forest have you found Jesus?”
Forest answers : “I didn’t know He was lost.”
We are not the ones who find Jesus…
…Jesus finds us!
And as we look at the bigger picture of the Gospel…we find that at the climax Jesus Himself will end up naked, isolated, outside a town among the tombs…
...shouting incomprehensible things as He is torn apart on the Cross.
And that is how the demons will ultimately be dealt with.
That is how healing and salvation
takes place!
That is love!!!
That is God.
And that beats the Super Bowl any old day!!!
