Encounters with Jesus: Be Accepted! The Woman at the Well

He heals the brokenhearted
And binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3

This week we see another encounter with Jesus. We see what it is when someone has been bullied and put down by those she thought she could trust. Her pain runs deep, as deep as the well she draws water from when no one else is around. She was the rejected, about to meet the one who would deem her to be accepted.

So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.  Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”  For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. John 5:5-8

Jesus arrives at a town in Samaria, and just outside this town is a well. This well is not a place that everyone goes to draw water, because it’s not the center well in the middle of town where the cistern is located. This one sits outside the city walls, where those who use it are exposed to danger. It’s in Samaria, a place of mixed raced people who had been placed there as cast offs after the Babylonian exile. This city was also a city of refuge so the citizenry was made made up of people who had to seek refuge after committing crimes. This town was a place to be in and out of quickly, like that last chance gas station before the hundred mile trek through the desert. Jesus sent his disciples into town to get the food, quickly, while He waited by the well.  The Jews of Jesus’ time avoided this area because of the representation of the mixing of their bloodline with the heathens. Yet Jesus passed through this place, and came to this town, to this well. The well was dug by Jacob, but Jacob dug many wells, and then moved on in order to not fight with his brother’s men. Throw into the mix that it is the middle of the day, when no one draws water.

 Nothing about this situation says something good is about to happen, yet something good is about to happen.

            This is what we already know about the woman at the well just from what John has said if I may paraphrase; we have a woman, who is so scorned that she cannot even go to the public facilities to get water with the rest of the exiled from the society of the pariahs, in the ghetto, where the outsiders live. She’s been so bullied, so rejected, and hated by so many that she chooses to avoid everyone and do for herself when everyone else isn’t around. She expects to be alone, but there is someone there. She draws her water without a word.

            Jesus breaks the rules of her life and asks for a drink of water. In that time period it was a way of asking for hospitality to ask for a drink or to offer a drink at the city’s well, but not at such a well as this out of the way place. In our time it would the equivalent as saying, “Hey, let’s go hang out and maybe grab some coffee.” He wasn’t just asking for water, He was befriending her. I often wonder if that made her smile, or if it made her suspicious. It seems by her reply it made her suspicious.

Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.  Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” John 5:9-10

The woman points out their ethnic differences immediately, and how Jesus should be expressing his disdain for her. She should have several reason for not extending hospitality to him, but foremost in her mind is that she is a Samaritan, a mixed race, a cast off, and a woman, not a man. Yet Jesus asks her for hospitality. She must have recognized something in Him that made her realize He was good, not just good, but good to her. She talked to him and didn’t run away, or ignore him, which would have been her right. Instead she gives him an out. I think she gave him water.

            Then Jesus says that He could give her more than water, He could give her ‘living water’. She wondered at this statement. In such a place water was life. Sychar is hill country, in an arid land. Living water implied streams of running water that never dried up. This would have been very appealing to this woman, yet she didn’t instantly take Him up on His offer. She wanted to know what was in the fine print first. She tests him to see how he will answer.

 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?  Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” John 5:11-12

Her first point is what is his background and qualifications. She points out that she has the same bloodlines, at least by half, to be called a child of God. She’s stepping out here to point out to this Jew that she also is there by right. She’s immediately taking the Samaritan position of defense. It’s similar to what we do today in our defense of our ethnicity, no matter what it is, by claiming the wrongs suffered to our ancestors somehow justify our needing to be paid back now, but if we were to reverse the situation and have the demands placed on those our ancestors wrong exacted from us we’d be singing a different tune. The Samaritans were not ones to make this claim since they had mixed blood. They could not lay claim to the rights of the slave nor the master. They were both.

Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 5:13-14

Thirst is a powerful motivator to do anything. It’s not just the physical thirst that is difficult to handle, but emotional and spiritual thirst as well. This woman had more than a drink of water could satisfy. She had no choice but to draw water to quench the physical thirst, and as Jesus points out, she would and could come back to the well again and again to rid herself of that thirst. He also knew she didn’t want to because of how she’d come to the well. She’d come alone, when everyone else would be inside to escape the heat of the day, and drew water where no one else would know she was there. This was a woman who was ashamed of herself, who felt unworthy of the attention of others, because the attention she drew was negative. Jesus offers her the chance to never feel that way again. She hears that. What’s interesting is that he also promises the water will also fill others and give them life- life without end.

The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” John 5:15

Forgetting herself she asks him for a drink. She does more than ask, she demands. Yet when she demands her reason behind it is so her physical needs are met. How many times do we come to God demanding that our physical needs be met, and when they are met we leave Him there, at the well, without so much as a thank you to the one who met that need? We, in our arrogance, assume it is due us through our own efforts that our thirst has been quenched, forgetting and laying aside our prayer. Or, if we do admit that God has met our need, we move on as if we are somehow owed it because of how we prayed and fasted. It was the words we said, or the holiness of our hearts that forced God’s hand to act in the way we expected.

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”  The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” John 5:16-18

Jesus takes her to where she really thirsts. He demonstrates to her that he knows her pain. He knows the heartache she’s suffered at the hands of men. He knows she had been a new bride once, but those days were gone, and with it the loss of her innocence. She’d been used, abused, passed on, over, and around. In a town like the one she lived in there wasn’t a lot of Mr. Rights, but there was a lot of men who, like the one she was with, would take from a woman and give her some semblance of security in exchange for whatever she would provide for him, until he found something better. Jesus saw her deep thirst for real love and acceptance. 

The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” John 5:19-20

Her next test is a political question. It’s been an argument many people seem to think has something to do with faith. While your faith should have an effect on your politics, it doesn’t mean that Jesus has a political agenda. Morality should be dictated by faith, and thus we should all express our morality when we vote, talk, walk, and act in all that we do. However, we should also understand that man is fallen, so there is no perfect politician. That is probably not a divine revelation to any of us. So why this ruse? Because she’s once again checking to see if his offer is for real, or if He, like the men of her past, is just making the offer to pull it back when she begins to trust Him.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.  God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 5:21-24

The encounter with Jesus for this woman is at the decision moment. He calls to her, telling her to believe, because it doesn’t matter where she worships, only that she worships the Father. He explains to her she doesn’t know what it is that’s missing because she’s only got half the picture, partly because of her heritage, but also because she was reluctant to take the drink He was offering. Yet this encounter is interesting because in most of the encounters people had with Jesus they sought him out. For this woman he sought her out. He did the wooing of her heart. It was the seeking she had been looking for; this woman who had been so exiled was now being sought out by a God who wanted her to enter into a relationship with Him, a relationship that would be based on spiritual truth. She would be able to trust.

 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” John 5:25-26

The last point she makes is a direct profession of what she does believe. She believes that the Messiah, the one who will bring freedom and unite all the children of the lineage of Abraham together, without prejudice, is coming. She believes there will be a time when even she will be accepted, when she will qualify to stand before God as an equal heir with all the other children of Abraham. The Messiah will tell her how this is to happen. She’s reaching , hoping that she has just been told by this man before her that she is as he has said, able to worship God in spirit and in truth right where she is through faith. Jesus confirms He is the Messiah.

And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”  The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” Then they went out of the city and came to Him. John 5:27-30

The conversation isn’t interrupted because divine appointments are never interrupted. The woman had her need met. The disciples arrived and the Samaritan woman left, no longer thirsting! We know this because she left her water pot! She didn’t bother to take it back into the city. She rushed into the city a changed woman and went to the very people who had made her into the broken vessel who was not able to draw water at the city's cistern. She became an evangelist. Her testimony is recorded, “Come and see a Man who told me all that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” Her two pronged approach is very effective. First, she gives them that which cannot be argued, her own experience with Christ. No one can ever argue those things God has proven Himself through time and again in our lives. Secondly, she gives them the choice to decide for themselves, knowing that she cannot force anyone to believe. The result is revealed in verse 39 of this chapter. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.”

The discourse between the last verse of the encounter, and verse thirty-nine, between Jesus and the disciples talks about the harvest. Jesus says he has food they don’t know about, and that the fields are white and ripe for harvest. He has been fed by the joy of being acknowledged as Messiah by this woman, and she has become His harvester for her town. The woman who avoided people, now seeks them out to tell them about Jesus. He has taken the rejected and made her accepted.

We all carry the scars of rejection upon our souls, of painful memories of being marked unacceptable by someone at one time of our life. That creates a hole in our soul. It can only be filled by the One who knows what it is to be rejected by all of mankind, yet loves anyway. God loves us!  He gives us living water every day if we are willing to receive it.

Encounters with Jesus-Two Daughters- Three with Unflinching Faith Part Two

                        Listen, O daughter,
Consider and incline your ear;
Forget your own people also, and your father’s house;
So the King will greatly desire your beauty;
Because He is your Lord, worship Him.

 Ps.45:10-11

Last week we began our study of the three who had unflinching faith found in Mark 5. This week we continue to look at the story of the other two who believed. It is the story of two daughters, who had an encounter with the eternal Father through Jesus. The first of these was a woman who had suffered for years, the other had been alive as long as the first had suffered and was sick for such a short time, but fell ill so quickly it cause her daddy great distress.

Now when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to Him; and He was by the sea. And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet and begged Him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live.” So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him. Mark 5:21-25

This first encounter occurs between Jesus and Jairus, who’s daddy’s heart is being torn to pieces because his child has fallen ill and there isn’t anything he could do to make her better. How desperate he must have been to have left her bedside to go and seek out Jesus, a healer he’d heard about from Nazareth, to come and heal his daughter. Word had probably reached him of the miracle work. Maybe he’d heard of the demons being cast out and of the blind being made to see. Any hope of a cure was enough for a father with a child that ill. He says that she is at the point of death, which means she was probably in the final throws of dying. How incredibly difficult it had to be for him to watch his little girl suffer. Yet that was his child, and what else could he do? If there was any hope left to him he would do it. So he did it. He went, emptying himself of his position, of the community’s expectations, and whatever humiliation he would suffer, and fell at the feet of a carpenter from a little no place town, and begged for his daughter’s life. He believed that even still his daughter could live, if only Jesus would come to her and lay his healing hands upon her.

            Jesus saw Jairus’ pain, his intense love for his daughter, and went with him without hesitation. Why? Because Jesus saw the Father’s child, in intense pain, and in need. Who wouldn’t go when asked to help? The crowd around them began to swell with excitement. Word began to spread that miracle was going to happen in their town too because Jesus was on the move. Jairus had asked, and Jesus was on his way to heal. The crowd was anxious to watch. People wanted to see for themselves how this healing happened. Did fire come from heaven? Was there some kind of incantation he said? What was it that this healer did? They were pressing in to try to get close enough to see as they got closer and closer to Jairus’ house. It must have been very frustrating to Jairus that the people were getting in the way. He may have even been trying to keep people out of the way, and that might have even caused the disciples to do the same.

 Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse.  When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” Mark 5:25-28

            In the midst of this frantic action there she is, another who has a need, who is desperate, and needs a healing. We don’t know her name, but we know her story. This is a woman who has given everything he has for a healing. She had reached the end as well. She was also dying, slowly but dying all the same. Under the customs of the time she was to be in isolation for the time she was bleeding, and so she’d lived away from the community for so long with the exception of female family members, and her father who could speak to her as we see when Laban spoke to Rachel. She was alone, but her father was probably not visiting her. She was unclean, like a leper, only her leprosy was not on the outside where others could see it. She was a ghost of the woman she could have been.

 There she was and in the midst of that crowd she thought if she could just get in Jesus’ space and touch Him. She wasn’t interested in how He healed, but that Jesus healed. He represented life, in complete body. She has been living as invisible for so long that maybe she felt she still was, so who would notice if she just reached out and touched him. He’s a healer. Could the healer not heal himself of her uncleanliness? She believed he could, and that he could heal her as well, and no one would have to know. She could keep it a secret. She had lived so unnoticed so why would anyone notice if she were healed?  

 Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction.  And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?” Mark 5 29-30

She steps out in faith and reaches out, with a leader of the synagogue, Jairus, right beside Jesus, who could order her stoned for violating the law. Yet, she acted on her faith, and was healed. What must that have felt like for her to feel the strength she’d lacked for so long returning to her, to see the color returning to her arms and hands. She must have felt a rush of energy flow through her. She’d been healed! But she remained silent because she was still so used to being unseen, not speaking, and not heard. Her body was healed, but her spirit remained oppressed.

 But His disciples said to Him, “You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’” And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. Mark 5:31-33

Those with him, who miraculously failed at keeping the crowd at bay so Jesus could get where He was going (not exactly qualified for the presidential detail), question how Jesus wasn’t touched. It would be the equivalent of asking a rock star if he made it through a crowd of fans without a single hand touching him. He asks who touched him and they respond, “Who didn’t touch you? Everyone is touching everyone!” But Jesus eyes settle on the woman who had been so invisible, and he sees her. Their eyes meet. She steps out of the crowd, and like Jairus, in humility, she falls down in front of him and for the first time in a very long time she finds her voice. She tells him everything. She’s being heard. He’s listening!

 And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.” Mark 5:34

            She gets more than a physical healing. She gets a total healing. She gets her life back because she gets acknowledged. He takes her up and says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.”  I’ve heard a lot made from the male perspective as to why Jesus called her ‘daughter’, but all of those reasons have to do with the customs of the times and how the only women who could touch a man were his wife, mother, or daughter, so He was calling her daughter to say that it was okay that she touched Him, and that could be, but I don’t think that was the only reason if it was His reason at all. I think He saw the Father’s child and was speaking on behalf of the Father. “I and My Father are one.” John 10:30  He praised her faith, and sent her away to take back her life and in the words, “be healed of your affliction,” He set her free from her isolation and healed her spirit as well as her body. This child’s needs were met and she could go on and be the woman He intended her to be before the illness stole her away. She leaves restored and renewed both in her life and in her faith.

 While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” Mark 5:35

Isn’t it just like the enemy to immediately throw something like this at poor Jairus? There he was, trying to get the healing he needed for his daughter, he watches this miraculous event happen, and he had to be thinking, “now I know He can save my baby girl, I just saw it happen!’ and here comes the news he’d been dreading. His daughter is dead. His heart breaks. His legs go weak. He feels his entire life crumbling as the thought of “why didn’t I just stay with her?’ goes through his mind. The avalanche of fear and grief begins to sweep him away, but then Jesus…

 As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid; only believe.” Mark 5:36

Jesus reminds Jairus that it was faith that brought him this far, and faith would bring him further if he would just hold onto it. And Jairus did. We know this because we see the rest of the story, that he did go on with Jesus, and didn’t go home and bury his daughter. Jairus followed Jesus’ lead.

 And He permitted no one to follow Him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James.  Then He came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly.  When He came in, He said to them, “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying. Mark 5:37-40

            The nay-sayers remained, the doubts loomed, the child was dead and the truth was right in front of him. Jairus was facing the corpse of his little girl. She was lying there, lifeless. She was not breathing, not moving, not laughing or crying, or calling for him, not suffering, but not warm and soft either. She was shell of what she’d been. She was gone, and Jairus could not bring her back. His faith had to be beyond the physical. It had to go to what he’d read in the scriptures. He knew from the scriptures that God had raised the dead to life. He’d read it. He knew it could happen. He had to hope it would happen to him and his family. He might have even thought, “Why not me?” And God thought the same thing. “Why not Jairus?”

 ^“Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”  Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age. And they were overcome with great amazement.  But He commanded them strictly that no one should know it, and said that something should be given her to eat. Mark 5:41-43

Jairus’ daughter was brought back from death. He believed and he saw the result of that belief. He saw her spirit return to her body and that first breath drawing into her lungs. He saw her eyes open, her sit up, her walk around, and he felt her arms around his neck again! Jairus got his life back, and that grief and fear was gone! He was living scripture. And what does Jesus command him to do? To feed her and make sure no one knows what went on in that room. How could Jairus keep his living daughter a secret? He was a leader in the synagogue. We know his name someone talked about it, or his community did, not out of disobedience, but because how do you keep such a thing a secret. When person comes back from the dead word gets around.   

            God passionately loves his children. Sons and daughters can ask things from their parents knowing that the love of a parent will cause that parent to provide for the child. God has that kind of love for us, yet we sometimes doubt that God does for us what is needed. We tend to think that if we ask and we don’t get what we ask for it’s because God is in the wrong. What we need to understand is that God gives us the answer of a parent for a child, and that sometimes that is a no, a firm no, and sometimes that is a lavishing yes and then even more than you asked. At all times we need to trust that our faith is never in vain. We shouldn’t say we believe when things are going great, and when they aren’t we question that belief. It’s sort of like believing a family member exists then when they leave the room saying they don’t, or when you ask someone to do something for you, and they don’t, then you stop believing they were ever alive. “Hey, honey, hand me the remote.”  He says no, it’s closer to you then him and he leaves the room. Is it because he never lived? Have faith, your husband still exists. God still exists. He knows you, and He loves you more than you could ever know. You are His child.

Matt.7:7-11

 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

The Study: Encounters withJesus: Such a Good Guy- The Rich Yo...

The Study: Encounters withJesus: Such a Good Guy- The Rich Yo...: So He said to them,   “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sa...

Encounters with Jesus-The power to believe- Unflinchingly. Part one- The Demoniac.

 In the fifth chapter of Mark we find the story of three who believed. All three of them were in desperate situations. All of us usually find faith in the foxholes of life. We usually need it most at those times. These three were no different. All three of them were left with no other hope but to turn to God when man had let them down. This week we start with the demoniac who’s name we do not know, but we know about the issue that plagued him, and what was done about it. His encounter with Jesus was more than life changing; it was life preserving for eternity.

Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.  And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him.  And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones. Mark 5:1-5

Jesus arrives on the side of the lake of Galilee with His disciples and encounters this poor wretched creature. The description of this man is worse than any homeless person I’ve ever encountered. He’s obviously insane, living in a graveyard, and has the remnants have been chained hanging off of him, but he’s been able to break away. He’s out of his mind, living in a constant nightmare in which he’s constantly abused by man and monster without reprieve. He tries to escape it by taking his own life repeatedly but cutting himself, but to no avail. All he feels is pain and agony. He’s living in hell, tortured by this possessed spirit and his sin that enslaved him to begin with. How did he arrive in such a state? He wasn’t born there. He wasn’t given over to the grave as a child. Something brought him to this state. Some rate of decline, or some tragic event, caused him to grow in bitterness and anger and open the door to allow this demon to take over, and he surrendered to it. At first it might have been in part, but eventually the demon took all until the man was the slave, unable to live with his own kind. He could not be saved no matter how many had attempted to save him, even chaining him. The demon owned him. As it says in Romans 6:16, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?”

Yet there is Jesus, the Light of the World, and what does this man do? “When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him.  And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.” Mark 5:6-7 So surrendered was this man, this human inside of the demon’s shell, that he could not cry out to Jesus to be saved from the torment. It was the demon speaking. Still, what a turn of events for this poor man who had been living for years in this torture. For once, his tormentor is crying out for mercy.

                        For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!”  Then He asked him, “What is your name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country. Mark 5:8-10 Jesus calls out one demon, and of course it obeys, but then another steps up to answer, there is no reprieve for this poor man. He is so beaten down that there is more than one holding him down; there is more than one monster. There is a myriad of maniacs waiting to get their claws into him.  I honestly believe that Jesus was still asking the man what his name was, but the man could not answer. He was still too captive to be able speak. He had not heard his own voice in so long he didn’t know what it sounded like. It had been taken over by his owner. Jesus wanted to know him, and saw him inside that crowd of fiends. The man stood in the darkness, a shadow of what he’d once been, and Jesus saw him. Yet the masters of the man are begging to be spared from destruction, because they know who holds the power of life and death. One thing we must remember is that every created thing has a beginning, so it stands to reason that it also can have an end if God wills it. Only man, created in the image of God, was created to be eternal, and God has made a way for that. This man sees that way, and so did these demons. They must ask of the Lord to be spared. “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!” James 2:19 These trembling demons ask to be spared.

            Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains. So all the demons begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.”  And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea.” Mark 5:11-13 It’s interesting that the unclean went into what was considered unclean by the Jews. The demons knew that. They knew that they would not be bothered by the people in the area and could reside within these beasts unencumbered until they could find another person to enslave. But Jesus also knew this, and brought about the destruction of the beasts. The demons were brought down by a bunch of pigs. God was still in control. He released the man from his tormentors, ordered them into the herd of swine, and then ordered the swine into destruction. The legion was still conquered.

            So much focus is paid to the demons, that too little is paid to the man who had been the victim of the unspeakable abuse at their hands. Can you imagine what that was like to suddenly be free from all of that? To hear the squealing of pigs as your deliverance is at hand. All the attention is on the dust of the thousands of pigs drowning in the sea, and all you see is Jesus, and all He is concerned with is you. What must that have been like? This incredibly violent event is happening drawing everyone’s attention from your moment of sweet release, except the one who made it happen. There He stands, with arms out, ready to receive you. The first person in years to hold you, to touch you with gentleness and compassion, to touch the wounds you’ve inflicted upon yourself, is the One who intimately formed you to begin with. He pulls you in and welcomes you back to life, and your heart fills with the knowledge it’s not just this life, but eternal life. That’s what this man felt while the pig fiasco was going on.

            When it was over he was standing there with everyone else, just like everyone else. “So those who fed the swine fled, and they told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that had happened. Then they came to Jesus, and saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.  And those who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon-possessed, and about the swine. Then they began to plead with Him to depart from their region.” Mark 5:14-17 The noise of two thousand pigs drowning had to be incredibly loud, loud enough to draw a crowd. Those who had been tending the herd explained to the crowd what had happened. Like many who hear about the amazing works of Jesus, they didn’t react by embracing this good news. The reacted in fear. People are fearful of things they can’t understand. People don’t understand Jesus. He doesn’t make sense to them. Love doesn’t always make sense, especially love given by grace. This man who had been possessed did nothing to deserve to be save from the torment. He had tormented them. He was scary. You would think he people would be grateful for Jesus to have rid them of this plague on their community, but they weren’t. They were terrified of his ability. He was powerful, and that scared them. They saw the man healed and submitting to his liberator, and that made them fear they would have to give up their captivators.  They weren’t ready to do that. They wanted to keep their sins in place because after all, they weren’t as bad as he had been. They asked Jesus to leave them. Jesus never stays where he’s not wanted.

             ^“And when He got into the boat, he who had been demon-possessed begged Him that he might be with Him.  However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.” And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled.” Mark 5:18-20

            Jesus is leaving, because He was asked to leave right after just having arrived and working a major miracle for this one man, so naturally the man is going with Him. I imagine he is dressed again, has just left his friends who are overjoyed to see their old friend is back from the graves, literally, standing on the bank, and is about to climb into the boat with the other disciples. He has been a slave for so long he doesn’t know how to be free. He doesn’t know anything but how to be shackled. Jesus tells him he is free. He tells him to go on home, with his friends, and tell people how he’s been delivered. This man is to become an evangelist, an apostle, to tell the good news. What a turnaround had happened in this anonymous man’s life. He went from the haunted soul to soul winner.  The area he was assigned was no less than ten cities. We know he was successful because Mark says that all marveled.  He had been delivered from the worst psychological torment imaginable, and he could not shut up about it. Would you if you were him?

            Sometimes, with all the trauma life throws at us, we forget that it’s not about the drowning pigs. Let them squeal. It’s about the One who sees us despite the outward appearance. Jesus delivers us from the one who wants to hold us captive until he has broken us and destroyed us. Jesus has freed us from our captivity. “But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:22-23