Back to Life--January 17, 2020

Back to Life--January 17, 2020

"Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, 'Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.' So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him." [Luke 8:35-39]

Jesus is always bringing people back to life.  

This is simply what he does everywhere he goes, for whatever people cross his path.  Deeply devout people, and people with wavering and weak faith.  Fellow children of Israel who spoke his language and shared his God... and foreigners across the sea like this Gentile man who had been possessed by a "legion" of demons.  Respectable, well-dressed, and dignified community leaders in the privacy of their own homes, and even people who are stark naked out in public rambling through the graveyard.  Wherever Jesus goes, he brings people back to life.  Even if they weren't physically dead.

That's the key to seeing what happens with this man we remember as "the Gerasene demoniac."  He isn't physically dead, but he sure ain't really alive... until Jesus comes into his world and gives him his life back.  However we conceive of the evil spirts that have control of his life at the start of the story, this poor guy has been cut off from his old life because of them.  His wife and kids haven't seen in him in who knows how long, both because he is impossible to be around, but also for their own safety.  His neighbors don't go out to visit him in the graveyard, and the spirits made him unwilling to live in a regular house.  He can't even have a normal human conversation, because the demons keep interrupting, and they won't allow him to wear clothes, either.  I don't know what you call that kind of existence, but it's hardly a life.  And all the things and people who made up his old life have been taken from him, and he has been plucked up out of the familiar streets and home routines like he was erased.  In a way it's even worse than dying, because he really is conscious somewhere out in the graveyards, aware that he's missing his old life and family, and they all know that he's somewhere unwell and without them, too.

That's why I think it is so important to see this moment at the end of the story as something of an act of resurrection.  After all, what else do you call it when Jesus gives you your life back?  And because that is Jesus' intention, that sheds a whole new light on why Jesus doesn't allow the man, healed and in his right mind, to come along with Jesus.  The whole point of this miracle was to give him his life back--now he gets to go back to see his kids and kiss his wife.  Now he gets to sit on his front porch with his morning coffee. He gets to sit and listen to his neighbors ramble on about the good old days. He gets all the little things that make up a life handed back to him. What other word for that is there than resurrection?

I have been thinking this week a lot about what we miss even by just missing a Sunday's gathering with our church families in worship.  I felt it when we took a Sunday off after Christmas to visit family, and we feel it when someone is sick and can't get out to worship on a Sunday, or when others for whatever other reason miss being in church any given week.  (And I hear echoing the wise voices of older saints from my memory who earned the right to ask their younger counterparts, "Missed you in church this weekend... everything all right?" with just the right edge of convicting seriousness and good-natured ribbing.) Even for missing one Sunday, we miss out on these little, beautiful details from one another's lives--the person who shares about a sick relative, the moment that someone else is brought to tears by a hymn they loved and could really use a comforting friend, the reminder about the potluck next week, or the celebration of who won a blue ribbon for their painting at the art fair last week.  

There are so many chances to be present with each other, sharing our lives with one another, and my goodness, that's just thinking about a single Sunday morning we miss!  Here in Luke's Gospel, the healed man has been pulled out of all the details of his whole life for a long time.  Who knows how long it's been since he's been able to hug his kids or talk to his best friend?  All of those things are what Jesus gives back to this man by telling him to go back to his home, where he can tell people about what God has done for him there.

This is what Jesus is doing all the time, of course. I almost want to suggest that there's really only one kind of miracle Jesus ever performs: resurrection and restoring life--it's just he plays it like a song in different key signatures over and over in different situations.  He restores life to the leper begging on the roadside by curing the leprosy.  He restores life to the woman at the well by treating her like a person rather than a pariah.  He restores life to the man possessed by a legion of demons by sending away the spirits so he can go back to his life and his home.  And yeah, sometimes, he just plain raises the dead for Lazarus and Jairus' daughter and others, too.  But in each situation, Jesus brings people to fuller life than they had before--not just restoring breath and heartbeat, but giving us back the things that make a life... life.

It saddens and convicts me that so often we all settle for less than life--choosing to miss out on those connections with people's lives because we've got other "more important" things to do, when we take the presence of those God has put in our lives for granted so easily.  Maybe this man's story will remind me in the future that it is a shame to miss out on those chances to "show up" for one another--at church, with family, with the friends who count on us, or even with the stranger whom God sends across our paths. And maybe I'll be able to see, too, how many dark powers I am tempted to give control over to in my life that would keep me from being a part of those beautifully ordinary details of other people's lives.  Maybe it will just help me to see my priorities clearly, so that I will better know how and where to spend my time.  But in any case, we all need this kind of resurrection that can pull us out of the foolish and rotten ways we've let ourselves be cut off from others in our lives, and that can bring us back to each other, and to what life is all about.

And that is the good news for us on this day, too: Jesus doesn't have to wait until our hearts stop beating to bring us to fuller life.  God's mission is not just to resuscitate our bodies and then leave us wasting our lives on making more bucks, climbing the corporate ladder, burying our heads in screens, or chasing after a more "fun" crowd to spend our days with.  Jesus calls us to life again, and quite often he sends us right back into those ordinary places to live our everyday lives again as new people.  Maybe it starts quietly, without anybody noticing at all, while you and I take an honest look at the things we have missed out on while we were busy chasing after other "more important" things that really aren't so important.  Maybe it starts as Jesus helps us get back into our right minds and remember the gift it is simply to be given our own lives back.

For whatever ways we have settled for a life that is less-than, may the living Jesus resurrect us.

Lord Jesus, call us back to life, and send us back into the wondrously ordinary details of our daily lives as new people.