Our series through this season of Lent is “I have decided to follow Jesus.”   We have followed him into the desert where he was tempted, and we followed him as he ministered to the crowds and involved his disciples in feeding them.  We are learning, that to follow Jesus, is to get some of the dust of the Rabbi on us.  If we’re going to follow Jesus, we’re going to get involved.

        This week, we have a story of the power and authority of Jesus, and we’re going to learn, not everyone is eager to follow after this Rabbi.

Matthew 8:28-34

 When he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes,^* two demoniacs coming out of the tombs met him. They were so fierce that no one could pass that way. ²⁹Suddenly they shouted, ‘What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’ ³⁰Now a large herd of swine was feeding at some distance from them. ³¹The demons begged him, ‘If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.’ ³²And he said to them, ‘Go!’ So they came out and entered the swine; and suddenly, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and perished in the water. ³³The swineherds ran off, and on going into the town, they told the whole story about what had happened to the demoniacs. ³⁴Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood.

         Most towns have ‘em.   The crazy, the deranged.  The possessed.  The ones that embarrass the others, frighten the others, disturb the peace and the quiet.

In the last century, we institutionalized people like that.   Today, you’ll find them sometimes under a bridge, in an ally.  There was a time, Jesus’ time in fact, when they were left to live among the tombs.  Sort of a way an entire community could symbolically say to them, you are unacceptable…we wish you were dead.  In that day and time, such persons were believed to be possessed by demons.  Evil spirits, at odds with God.  At odds with all they encountered.

Demon possession is a baffling subject for most Christians today.   We have discovered the pathogens of disease, and the genes that lead sometimes to mental anguish.  We also understand more about addictions, and behavior disorders.   Yet, there is much we do not understand.   We may not be quick to chalk it up to demons, but we acknowledge there is that we cannot explain that disrupts the soul.  Just as we have a basic understanding of meteorology and cloud formations and how a warmer globe is producing stronger and stronger storms, there is still much we do not know.   We no longer believe evil spirits cause storms, yet…when hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast, there were those looking for the explanation beyond the edges of our world. The same is true for the storms of the soul.   We know some things….yet…    We are left to look for the explanations beyond our understanding, perhaps those explanations only God can know.

My mother used to look at me cross ways when I my behavior warranted it…and she’d say,  “Whatever possessed you to do that?”

Hear it?   Possession.   When there are those things we cannot understand.

        Jesus and his disciples have just arrived across the Sea of Galilee to the “other side,” the land of the Gadarenes.  There is some scholarly debate exactly where this area is located, and what city Jesus approached, but the point will become clear, this is a country “opposite Galilee.”   It is geographically opposite, it is religiously opposite, and Jesus’ miracle working in fact has just the opposite effect that it has in Galilee.  Among the Jewish people of Galilee, the miracle worker attracts a crowd who begin to ask to follow Jesus.   Jesus dissuades them, talking of the great cost to be his disciple, his follower.  They will have to leave behind everything to follow him.   But here, on this opposite side of the sea, the crowds who gather following his miracle are not there to follow him.   Quite the opposite.

        So when you hear the “land of the Gadarenes” I want you to think, “anti-Galilee.”   Jesus and his disciples take a boat to this “anti-Galilee” and no more do they put ashore than two demoniacs come running out from the tombs to meet them.

        Wait a minute…two demoniacs?   Haven’t we heard this story before, and wasn’t there just one man, filled with a legion of demons?   That’s right.   That’s how Luke and Mark both tell the story.   But Matthew’s version of the story has some striking differences from Luke and Mark.  One of those differences is that there are two.   Two demoniacs.  Two living among the tombs.  Two crazy, deranged people for Jesus to deal with. 

        Why two?   Don’t know.  It’s the same puzzle we have about Jesus riding into Jerusalem amidst the shouts of Hosannah.   Matthew has Jesus ride in on two animals, a donkey and her colt, while Luke and Mark both say there was only one, a young colt.  It’s an unanswerable puzzle Matthew creates for us. 

        Two demoniacs.  They are out here, living in the tombs.  Not good enough to live among the people of the city.   But left to the outskirts in the city cemetery, where they can do less harm.

        In fact, these demoniacs were so fierce, Matthew says, people didn’t even pass this way for being confronted with them.

        The demoniacs confront Jesus and his followers.  Those following close—and the demoniacs right away know who this Jesus is…

        “What do you have to do with us, Son of God?”   Hear it?   These are the first beings who recognize Jesus for who he really is and just blurt it right out.   “Son of God.”

        Up to this point, the only ones who have used this title are God, who, at Jesus baptism and again on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured said, “this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”   Also Satan, in the wilderness temptations, used the title mockingly, “IF you are the Son of God,” he had said…

        Now, these two demoniacs run out to meet Jesus, and the address is matter-of-fact.   “What do you have to do with us, Son of God?”

        Then they ask, “have you come to torment us, before the time?”   The time?   What time?  The demons know that their time is limited, that at the end of the age they will be punished for their opposition to God.  Their objection is that until that last judgment, they should be free to torment whomever they wish.   The “Son of God’s” appearance means that their time has been cut short.

So we have two questions with no answer.  “What have you to do with us, Son of God?” and “Have you come to torment us before the time?”   Jesus is unable to answer either question before the demons see a solution.  A large herd of pigs is nearby, and they beg, “If you are going to cast us out, send us into the swine.”  

        Jesus responds with a one word command.   “Go.”   Interesting how the power and authority of God works.   In the day, holy priests performed exorcisms with complex incantations and rituals.   Jesus has power and authority over the evil spirits, and can command them with a single word.  “Go.”

The rest of the story pretty much follows the same as it does in Mark and Luke.   The demons rush into the pigs, who in turn rush down into the sea and are drowned.

        The swine herdsman run into town to tell the whole story.  Probably because when word got out that the herd of pigs they had been responsible for had all been destroyed, they know they will be blamed…so they run to town with this wild story about the demoniacs, and this Rabbi, and the pigs running into the sea.

        The whole town come out to the sea side cemetery to see what this is all about.   I can only imagine the scene.  There, this Galilean teacher, from the “other side” and his entourage.   They hadn’t even made it into town and there’s all this trouble.

        The two re-formed demoniacs—no longer the threat they once were, no longer the disruptive fierce force they once were.   And the whole bay of pigs, so to speak. 

        None of it made sense to them.   And there is the great value of the swine herd…lost.  Perhaps the meat that would have fed the greater portion of this city…the livelihood of the herdsman and the profit of the owners of the herd…all destroyed.

        Is it any wonder they wanted him gone?  This crowd, unlike the crowds in Galilee who earlier had come to Jesus and ask to follow as he worked his miracles among them, here the crowds beg Jesus to leave.   He has done enough here.   They beg him to get back into his boat and go back to his side of the Sea.   Back to Galilee.

         Not everyone desires to follow Jesus.  But there is much to be learned by those who have chosen to follow, who draw near to watch, observe, even participate in this Kingdom mission on earth.   There will be opposition as one follows Jesus.   There will be rejection.   But God’s authority and power are available to you.  To Jesus, and to those who follow, who disciple.  He’s off then, back to the boat.  He’ll return to Galilee.  And there will be many who need his touch there…