Second Sunday after Pentecost: Luke 8: 22-39
- glcbmn
- Jun 25
- 6 min read
This is a story about fear.
It starts off with a small boat crossing deep water. The Sea of Galilee is about eight miles wide and 13 miles long—not huge, but no small jaunt either in an age before outboard motors. As Jesus dozes off, a mighty windstorm suddenly sweeps across the surface of the water, tossing the ship around, with high waves. The disciples are certain they will soon be swamped and drowned.
Throughout the ancient world, and certainly in the Bible, the sea represents death. It is the realm of chaos, of darkness, of monsters in the deep. The people of the Bible are terrified of open water, yet when they cry to Jesus, “Master, awake! We are perishing!” Jesus seems almost nonchalant about their plight. “Where is your faith?” he asks, and with but a word, he rebukes the wind. Suddenly the storm falls silent; suddenly the waves collapse.
And in many ways that calm is more terrifying than the fury of the sea. In ancient mythologies, the strongest of pagan gods is always the storm god, the thunder god. But to Jesus the storm is nothing, absolutely nothing. “Who is this,” whisper the stricken Apostles, “Who commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”
Having passed through the rages of the storm and waters of death, Jesus and the disciples now find themselves on the other side: amongst the tombs; amongst the dead.
In this pagan land of the Decapolis, in the city of the Geresenes, a raging lunatic comes crawling out of the graveyard to meet them. He is bound with broken chains, feral and unkempt, naked. In biblical times, being unclothed—or at least, improperly clad—was indicative of terrible shame. Slaves, prostitutes and madmen lacked true clothing as a sign of their loss of personhood. This unclothed man here lives in tombs, driven by wild voices, expelled even from his own heathen community.
And as if all this weren’t bad enough, the disciples have to face the horrific reality that the voices in this man’s head are likely not of his own making. There are powers at work here even deeper and darker than the subconscious human mind. This man’s head is full of demons—a possibility so disconcerting that many people today try to explain it away.
Yet in the ancient world, and many modern day places like Africa, Christians are familiar with demons. These know these spiritual entities oppose God, they seek to ruin humans. Ancient peoples thought they lived in caves, in deserts, and yes, in graveyards. People were and are afraid of their power and avoid them.
Yet here is Jesus, looking at this poor man. And suddenly these demons recoil in fear. “What have You to do with us, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” the devils shriek. “We beg You, do not torment us—do not cast us back into the Abyss!” First storms, then madmen, now demons? It seems no matter how terrifying the foe, Jesus is yet more fearful to them.
Who is this Jesus, that even the winds and seas obey him? Who is this Jesus, that even the black spirits of the Abyss rear back in stammering terror? And so with but a Word, as with the storm, this Jesus banishes an entire legion of demons from a man who for years has ripped up chains and raged savagely in the middle of the dead, his existence a living death. By the way, a Legion was 6,000 soldiers. That's how many demons are opposing Christ here.
But the story doesn’t end here! When the townspeople hear the shouting of the swineherds, they come out to see what is going on, and they are shocked to find their demoniac, their local madman, clothed and in his right mind. Christ has returned to him his sanity. Christ has returned to him his personhood. Jesus has given him back his name. He is a man again.
And how do the townspeople react to this astonishing turn of events? With joy and celebration? With rapture and awe? With praise of God?
No. They respond as I think we might, were we to witness such a inexplicable event. They react in fear. Who can this be, this ordinary-looking Jew from across the sea, that the devils flee headlong into pigs, and drown in the foam of the sea rather than stand before his face? “Please, Jesus,” the Geresenes ask, “please, we beg You, just go away.” He is too much for them to handle. Too much, really, for any of us to handle.
Amazingly, Jesus does precisely as they ask. He gets back into his boat along with the Apostles—who by this point must have gray hair and high blood pressure—and he returns to Galilee. Jesus, it seems, has come all this way, rebuking storms and banishing demons, for no other reason than to cure this one lowly outcast man: a man who had no home, no family, no name, and no hope of salvation; a man who was already living amongst the dead. Yet for this nobody, this non-person, Jesus crossed the stormy sea and faced down the powers of hell itself, all for someone whose name God alone knows
Little wonder that the man begs to return with Jesus to the Galilee. Oddly, this is the one request in today’s story that Jesus denies. But notice what he does say to him, because it proves to be the point of our entire twisted tale: “Return to your home,” Jesus says to the man, “and declare how much God has done for you.”
It is perhaps the most shocking thing that Jesus could possibly say. Right here, at the climax of our story, Jesus answers the question which the Apostles have been asking from the beginning. “Who is this,” they wonder, “that even the storm and the wind, the devils and demons, obey his command?” And now Jesus answers quite clearly: God. God has done this. In Jesus Christ, God Himself walks upon the earth. Terrifying doesn’t begin to describe it.
Within the hierarchy of the human soul, fear is a passion. It tells us when to flee, and when to fight. Like fire, fear can be a good servant but a terrible master. We cannot let our fears control us. And we cannot allow others to control us through our fears. Here we are, modern Americans, so rich, so powerful, so free—and yet so fearful. Afraid of getting old. Afraid of dying alone. Afraid of another war in the middle east. Afraid of our leaders, afraid of our neighbors. Afraid of watching our world come tumbling down around our ears.
But for those called by the name of Christ, we have the hard work of healing, defending, and forgiving; the hard work of loving our neighbor, and building a community founded upon mercy and mutual love. We are called to be brave enough to live in accordance with God's Word, no matter what the culture says. We are called to be courageous enough to pass on to our children goodness and truth and beauty, in the face of a world that celebrates what is filthy and foul and perverted. We are called to be bold enough to live in such a way that we will not allow violence and fear and prejudice to divide us.
Yes, every day we hear of wars and rumors of war. Terror attacks, assassinations, suicide bombings, manhunts, Iran, Israel—will it never end? And it’s closer to home. Your family is falling apart. Suicidal thoughts. Domestiv abuse. Substance abuse. Grandma is dying; another friend is diagnosed with cancer. Money is shorter and shorter. You are overwhelmed by your daily struggles to just make it through the week.
And yeah, it’s scary. And it's easy to want to just pull in, hunker down and survive. But that’s not our calling, is it? To just survive and use our faith as a feel-good self-help crutch. Nope, we proclaim to a world increasingly mad, raging among the graves, that Jesus is Risen and we shall arise! The good news that Christ Jesus is still Lord amidst this world's darkness, and that he is working even now to defeat the demons and clothe us in his mercy, and name us his.
Our world is filled with storms and devils. We find ourselves cast out upon deep waters, worshiping false idols, slaves to our desires, or living already among the tombs. But no one who has seen the face of Christ can ever seriously fear madmen or chaos or even death itself.
God walks upon this earth, wonderful and terrible and mysterious and unstoppable and all-loving. He is more terrifying than our terrors, more monstrous than our monsters, and he will walk upon waters and reduce storms and damn all the devils to meet us in our madness, to free us from our chains, to raise us up from our living death amongst the tombs and send us out to “Go! Go and declare what God has done for you!”
God is stronger than fear, stronger than hatred, stronger than death itself. Remember that, when evil seems to be increasing and terror gnaws our bones. Remember that Christ has died, Christ is Risen, and Christ will come again. Remember that he is on the march even now, and his victory is assured.
Remember this, and do not fear. For the very things that we are most afraid of, are themselves utterly terrified of the face of God made visible in Christ Jesus. And if he is for us, brothers and sisters—then there is nothing in this world to fear, because nothing can take us away from Him. Amen.