My 2016 Lenten Journey--Day 27

March 7, 2016 ~ Day 27

My 2016 Lenten Journey: Exploring the Gospels to discover what following Jesus and becoming more like him would look like? ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32 NRSV).

Matthew 8:28-34 ~ In Gadara Jesus exorcises demons from a man, casting the demons into a heard of pigs. The pigs then rush headlong into the sea and are drowned.

Some call this story “hogwash”. [Sorry about that. (Snicker)]

Joking aside, there are problems if we become too obsessed over the details of the story. But if we can back away and go for the broader view, the story seems important, because all three Synoptic Gospels include it. So, how do we approach it? The mantra of real estate sales is, “location, location, location.” Perhaps a mantra should be devised for the reader of Scripture: “context, context, context!”

Judaism is a monotheistic faith, worshiping only one God. There isn’t a lot of concern in Judaism over spirits and demons. But, across the lake in Gentile land, there was a hierarchical pantheon of gods. They were (thought to be) everywhere: in the trees and rocks, in the water (think in terms of storms at sea). They were in the air above the earth and in the abyss beneath the earth.

And they also came to live in people: twisted bodies, distorted minds, curved spines, blind eyes, drooling chins, speechless throats: twisting, distorting, disrupting, dividing, hurting.

New Testament scholar, Hans Jonas, describes life in that time like this: take a tiny child—a toddler. Blindfold him; place him in the middle of the busiest intersection in downtown Chicago at rush hour. Take off the blindfold and leave him, all alone amid the whizzing, booming, thundering power all around.[1]

The controlling obsession was, “How can I escape evil today?” “Who can help me?”

In that pagan context, one apparent message is that Jesus has power over the spirits and the demons. They fear him and cower before him. Given the context, it’s also possible to discern the universal reach of God’s deliverance through Jesus.

Ironically, the people Jesus has just freed from the grip of demonic superstition are more afraid of him than of the spirits from which they’ve been freed. They ask him to leave.

If I am to follow Jesus, what demonic forces must I confront? What spirits of darkness imprison people, distorting truth, disrupting productive efforts, dividing people and pitting them against one another? And, am I prepared to receive ungrateful responses to my faithfulness?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9 NRSV)

‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32 NRSV).

That's the way it looks through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] The preceding discussion of spirts and demons is reconstructed from notes taken during a class taught in 1971 at Phillips Graduate Seminary by Dr. Fred B. Craddock.