Tornadoes, hurricanes, fires—our lives can be turned upside down, so quickly, so completely.  The news cameras are almost always there, after, on the scene, filming people carefully picking their way through what used to be their living room, or their bedroom, picking up a framed photograph or some other memento.  It’s sad.  We think to ourselves, Oh, how sad, how terrible—everything has been taken away from them!  All their things, ruined.  How will they ever put their lives back together again?  How can they ever recover?  And we can begin feeling all anxious inside, for them, sort of, sympathetically, but also for us, squirming at the very thought of any such thing happening to us.  God forbid!

There may have been a time in your life when it seemed like disaster had overwhelmed you.  A death.  A divorce.  Loss of a home, loss of a job, loss of the opportunity, the dream you had been banking on for so long.  It feels like your life has been shattered: the stormy winds have blown clean through you; the fire has burned it all away.

Did you take note of what the people in that region said to Jesus, after he had driven all those demons out of that wretched man?  They asked him, more likely implored, begged him, to go away (8:37).  Go away, Jesus, for God’s sake, go away!  Who says that?  This is Jesus!  We’re supposed to invite him in, be glad that he came.  We don’t tell him to go away.

But plenty of people do.  Even today.  Maybe you’ve tried, after carefully preparing the ground, gently testing to see if it would be okay, maybe you’ve tried to talk about Jesus with someone you know and care about.  They’ve told you to stop.  They don’t want to hear it.  Keep your Jesus to yourself.  We can feel a bit hurt and confused.  Why don’t they want to hear about Jesus?  What’s so bad about Jesus?  What’s wrong with Jesus?  Why don’t they want him?

I expect the disciples were wondering the same, when the people in that region asked Jesus to go away, told him to leave them alone after Jesus had done an amazing, miraculous, powerful work of salvation and healing.  A wild man, a possessed man, scarcely a human being, dwelling in the tombs, was restored through Jesus Christ.  A man who was as lost as lost can be—if you’re looking for life, you’re not going to find it dwelling among the tombs!—that lost man was found.

Before, he was a force of death, confusion, and fear.  Jesus came, spoke—didn’t even speak to the man himself so much as to the evil dwelling in the man, told all that sin to get out, go away (8:29).  The sin, the demons, so many demons, so many sins, begged Jesus not to incarcerate them (8:31).  For whatever reason, Jesus chooses not to consign them to the deepest darkest prison, and he permits the evil spirits to enter a herd of pigs—Jesus and his disciples aren’t in Jewish territory, here.  What do the pigs do?  Immediately, they rush headlong over a cliff into a lake to their death.

There, but for the grace of God, that possessed man would have gone.  Swine with a death wish—that’s not a very pretty way to portray the lost.  Swine with a death wish—that’s not a very pretty way of portraying us before Jesus came into our lives.  Maybe we need to see the ugly before we will receive the good.  God has a way of saying, Do I have your attention, now?

Those swineherds, seeing what happened, are thinking to themselves, the owners aren’t going to like this!  Off they run to tell what they just saw (8:34).  Yes, they are scared: it’s not every day you see an entire herd rushing off a cliff to their deaths.  They are also staggered by the realization that their jobs are gone.  What will they do?  How will they pay their bills?  What will they tell their wives?  We think our lives are in our own hands, until we realize it isn’t so.

The owners, hearing about what happened, are staggered at the realization of their vanished wealth—pigs had some value, after all, and a man’s wealth in those days was reckoned according to his possessions.  Their portfolios just took a devastating hit!  And they would be eating a little less richly, that year, too.  More lentil stew, less pulled pork.  If they were anything like me, I would be kind of ruined at the thought of no ham!

So, they all go and ask Jesus to leave, go away, even as they see the formerly destroyed man restored, clothed, peaceful, intelligent, happy.  Seeing him on top of it all only increases their fear (8:35).  Well, that’s all well and good, but what about my property?!  We know, here in Texas, that the eleventh commandment is “Y’all shalt not mess with my property.”

Disaster has befallen them.  They know the source of the disaster: Jesus.  Lots of people know Jesus is a source of disaster.  It should never surprise us when someone tells us not to talk with them about Jesus.  Jesus has the power to tear our world apart.  We read about this possessed man dwelling among the dead, and he seems sort of scary to us, or at least very weird, but he’s no stranger: he is everyone around us who has not received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  He is everyone around us dead in their sins.  Those sins see Jesus coming and say, Oh Hell no!  Jesus sees those sins and says, time to go.

We know what sins are: fornication, whatever that is; pride—which I thought was a good thing to have; anger—we’re always supposed to be chipper, right?  Vanity—nobody likes that; greed, well, who likes Republicans, anyway?  So, none of us is really a sinner, in that sense.  We’re not so bad, really.  Just live a good life.  But what is a good life?  What is the ultimate good towards which we aim our lives?

If you aim your life toward anything other than God as the ultimate good, you are aiming your life at sin.  Have you been aiming your life at success, achievement?  You’ve been aiming your life at sin.  Have you been aiming your life at comfort or security?  You’ve been aiming your life at sin.  Have you been living for pleasure?  You’ve made it into a sin.  Have you been aiming your life at popularity, at being liked?  You’ve been aiming your life at sin.  Have you been aiming your life at conformity and complacency—don’t rock the boat, just look at what everyone else is doing and imitate them?  You’ve been aiming your life at sin.  I think one of the reasons God sends Jesus to us is so that we may have an even clearer sign and example of where we’re to aim our lives: Jesus comes, saying, here!  Here I am!  Come to me!  This way!

Yet so many don’t listen.  They don’t want to.  They know very well, even if only intuitively, that Jesus has the power to tear their world apart, the values upon which they had built their lives.  Jesus doesn’t show us the way of popularity.  He doesn’t show us the way of conformity or complacency.  He does show us the way of success, but not worldly success.  He does show us the way of security and comfort, divine security and holy comfort, and it is demanding, fearsome—there’s so much suffering and rejection, so much stumbling and failure, and so many who fall away.  If we have any wisdom at all, holy wisdom, pointing the way to life, we know that our keeping on the way has precious little to do with us and everything to do with the one who calls us, claims and saves us, who guides us.  God is at work in you to win His victory.

It may be that, to get to you, Jesus tore your world apart.  I hope that isn’t the only way Jesus can get to us!  The demolition doesn’t always happen all at once.  Jesus sometimes dismantles our lives one part at a time.  Our former world has to go: the world still beckoning to us.  The life we’re supposed to have, according to the TV, can seem very attractive—nice home, nice cars, trucks, and boats, nice appliances, nice TVs—all three or six of them—nice clothes, nice vacations, nice experiences in nice exotic places, nice food, nice bodies.  Here is fulfillment; here is happiness; here is peace.  So many idols, so many demons, eager to take up residence in us.  Demons?  Dang, pastor!  Should you never have nice things, then?  I’m not saying that, but I am saying let’s love our stuff a little less and love God a lot more.

Pastor and biblical commentator William Barclay puts the matter strongly: “More people hate Jesus because he disturbs them than for any other reason.”[1]  Jesus tells us, plainly, I love you, and you’ve got a big old idol stuck between you and me.  I will remove it.  Have you ever had an old tree removed from your yard, stump, roots, and all?  It makes a mess!  Have you ever had any remodeling done?  It makes a mess!  Have you ever lost your job?  It makes a huge mess.  Have you ever gone through a divorce?  What a mess!  Why, God?  Why are You doing this to me?  Can’t You just go away?  I like my world. My life, the way it is, the way it was.  We don’t really like it so much as all that, but we like the alternative prospect a lot less: God my security and God my happiness?  God my comfort and God my success?

We bank our lives on so many things, so many hopes and dreams for this life.  God takes them away.  Again and again, God comes to us and says to us, aim your life at me; put me at the center of your life; make me your foundation and aspiration.  After Jesus cleansed and healed that death-bound man dwelling among the dead, the man wanted to go with Jesus wherever Jesus would go.  Jesus, let me be with you!  Just let me be with you.  Yes, Amen.  Jesus says no (8:38-39).

Jesus knows that his own time on earth is short, and Jesus wants the saved to know that he is always with them.  You don’t need to come with me: I am with you.  We have to learn that, by faith, through grace, over time.  Jesus is here.  He is with us, among us, in us, right now.  As, by faith, through grace, over time, we learn that Jesus is with us, our lives continue to change, and we may just find ourselves, like that forgiven, restored, saved man, telling others what God has done for us.  Not everyone will listen; don’t be surprised or discouraged.  Some will listen.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

                [1] William Barclay, Gospel of Luke. Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  109.