Simply Jesus | "A Life Restored" - Fr. Samuel Mbabaali

The holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Mark.

Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of

the garrisons. And when Jesus had stepped out

of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man

with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs, and no

one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had

often been bound with shackles and chains.

But he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in

pieces. No one had the strength to

subdue him. Night and day among the tombs

and on the mountains. He was always crying out and

cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar,

he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice

he said, What have you to do with me?

Jesus, son of the Most High God, I adjure you by God, do not

torment me. For he was saying to him, Come

out of the man, you unclean spirit.

And Jesus asked him, What is your name?

He replied, My name is legion, for we are many.

And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on a hillside, and

they begged him, saying, Send us to the pigs, let us enter them.

So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and

entered the pigs. And the herd, numbering about

2000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned

in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in

the city and in the country. And the people came to see what

it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw

the demon possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting

there clothed and in his right mind.

And they were afraid, and those who had seen it describe to them

what had happened to the demon possessed man and to the pigs,

and they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed

with demons begged him that he might be with him.

And he did not permit him, but said to him, Go home to your

friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and

how he has had mercy on you. And he went away, and began to

proclaim in the Decapolis all how much Jesus had done for him.

And everyone marvelled the gospel of the Lord.

Please pray with me Lord, send your spirit dispel darkness,

even the darkness in our hearts so that we will receive your

word, Jesus name. Pray Amen.

I often describe my conversion, my reawakening to the Christian

faith using a simple mathematical illustration

referred to as the number line. The number line has two opposite

sides. There is the negative and the

opposite side, and in my case the negative side represents

life before I came to Christ and the positive side represents

life when I encountered Christ and following on.

And this is what my negative like life looked like.

First it was nominal Christianity.

My mother raised me in the Anglican way, but I did take

this faith personal, and a faith that is not personal cannot

endure. And this is what happened,

especially when I began living away from home, studying and

later working away from home. So secondly, apart from nominal

Christianity, the second aspect of my negative life happened and

it was wildliness. I wandered away from the faith.

I had had this desire for the hip hop culture that comes from

here in the United States. I wanted to be like those hip

hop happists. So I began to venture out in

life to be like them. Into wild parties and clubbing

in the night, substance abuse, fornication, many other forms of

wildness. But it took the grace of God to

call me back from that life that I was living.

One night in year 2007, I was in my apartment.

I was staying alone far away from home.

I had a voice telling me get up, move and I woke up.

It was around 10:30 PMI packed some books in my bag that I had

poetry books. Most of them had been stolen

from a school library somewhere. Packed them in the bag and I

packed then a water bottle. The very last thing I packed was

the Bible because I had another voice telling me you have a

Bible, pack it as well. I packed the Bible and left my

apartment and proceeded into the busy town.

When I was approaching A ravy line, I had a voice telling me

if you find the train, throw yourself into the train.

Good enough. The train was not there by then.

I proceeded to the main highway. It's an international highway

from Kampala, the capital city, to Kenya.

So it's a very busy highway. And I heard voices telling me

throw yourself into cars. But again, another voice was

withholding me from committing that harm in that state.

I wandered into the town for over an hour.

Then later I saw a police station, and I went over there

and told the police officers to watch over me because I had this

fear that I was going to harm myself.

I wanted someone to watch over me.

They allowed me to sit there, of course, reluctantly, because I

couldn't explain what was happening.

And when I was there, after a while, I had a voice telling me

you have a Bible, put it out. I pulled out the Bible and my

mother used to give me a Bible reading plan, annual.

It was an annual Bible reading plan and I never read that Bible

reading plan, even my Bible, So pulled out my Bible.

The Bible reading plan was in there and I read a text.

It was around Isaiah but this is the most important thing that

happened after I had read, I had a voice, small still voice tell

me 3 words in my mother tongue, native language Uganda.

The words are motarok OK ogen akfa.

They mean if you don't get born again, you will die.

And of course that is the end of any person who is living a

negative life. It is eternal death.

When I heard those words, I reached out to my into my bag

for a journal and I scribbled these words in my journal.

From today, I choose to be born again.

When I had written that confession, instantly the voices

that we are telling me to commit harm, the state of restlessness

that I had stopped there and then, then I left the police

station as a man of peace and a new life had begun.

When I read the passage we have read in Mark chapter 5, The

Mark 5 · chapter mention

Healing of the demon possessed man, I look at it as another

number line story. It is a story of a man from the

negative to the positive. And this story unfolds in three

scenes. The first scene we see life

outside Christ and then the second scene we see encountering

Christ and in the third and last scene we see life in Christ.

Let's look at life outside Christ, which is revealed in

verses 1 to 5. So Jesus lands on the eastern

side of the Sea of Galilee. This is a new, really a new

region. He has never been here.

And you know, when someone goes into a new place, especially if

someone is a honored man, there are ceremonies of honor, people

of respect come out and receive him.

But this is not the case in Jesus's case.

Here at the person who meets him is described in three ways that

a key for us to observe in verse 3.

He's described first as he lived among the tombs.

You well know that an address tells a story, a street, a

neighborhood where you stay. It says something about your

life. Now imagine if you told someone

my address is Rose Hill Cemetery.

That alone speaks something, because this man who Jesus meets

was living among the dead. And for Jewish, for the Jewish

people, that was the place of uncleanness, because getting

into contact with a dead person could render you unclean.

It could cut you off from your family, from your society, but

even from worship you are not required.

You are not allowed to go into the worshipping community.

So this person was totally heart off from humanity, from his

society. His address speaks about how far

he had fallen. He was totally separated from

ordinary life. And this is the situation that

speaks about life outside Christ.

Outside Christ someone can continue to breathe, even to

walk around, but that person is spiritually dead.

This is what the Bible tells us. That is a status described as

dead in sin. That person is dead in sin.

He's cut off from God. He's cut off from the source of

life. Even though he's alive and

living, he's separated from God and from holiness, and in that

case he doesn't have any relationship with God.

Sometimes that life can look successful colored in very well

many ways, but beneath that life there is distance from God, and

that distance leads to eternal death.

So the second description of this man is again in verse 3,

continuing on to verse 4, it says, and no one could bind him

anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with

shackles and chains, but he wretched the chains apart and he

broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to

subdue him. So the man is described as being

uncontrollable. People had to try to restrain

him again and again, but not even change those shackles could

hold this man. In other words, he was beyond

human health. No man could manage him.

Society had tried and it had failed, and it had left the

money to wander and to be on his own, isolated and ungoverned.

It looks as if the man has power.

It looks as if the man has freedom.

But this is bondage. What seems like power is in fact

control. The man is not in control of

himself, though he seems as if he's powerful.

Life outside Christ oftentimes appears as if it's freedom.

People speak about things like I live according to my choices.

I am enjoying life. Sometimes all these habits that

people are under, they're under control.

Even when they are saying I am enjoying them, they are under

control and in bondage. Sin is not just action.

Sin is power. It restrains us, and human

effort cannot restrain us from sin.

Even when there are rules and systems and disciplines that we

are told to obey, nothing can reach to the heart.

So sometimes we can live outside, outside as if we are

strong, but when inside we are indeed ruled.

We are under the deep control of sin, and this is the third and

last way how this man is described in verse five.

Night and day, among the tombs and on the mountains, He was

always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

So this life is marked with persistent unrest.

He's ever roaming around and waiting.

There is nothing like peace. The man is never quiet at any

moment. He is ever in a constant state

of agitation. He's waiting.

And this communicates the deep comment that is in this man.

He is a man who is living a life which is disordered in many

ways, but also he's self-destructive.

He's wounding himself with stones.

He's violent not just against society but also against his own

body. He's ever inflicting harm upon

his body. Friends, outside the Prince of

Peace there is nothing like life.

Life may still be busy, it may look as if it's settled, but it

is self destruction. It is self harm.

Sometimes it can appear in form of addictions, harmful

relationships. We may as if enjoy them, but it

is all self harm. So taken all together, the three

descriptions that we have observed about this man, they

depict total dehumanization. Society had isolated this man.

He didn't have any community and he was physically injured and

exposed to all forms of danger and he was in a state of mental

torment. Mark gives us the reason as to

why this man was in this state and he describes this as a

spiritual condition. He tells us this is a man with

an unclean spirit. In other words, he tells us this

is the case of demon possession. Speaking about demon possession,

I don't know which side you fall on, which approach of demon

possession you have. Some people have an affirmation

that demons are real and active, and because they are real and

active, they can inflict danger on individuals, even societies

and communities. They have authority, however,

Christ has authority over them. Other people think about demon

possession as being a primitive way of describing excessive

mental distress. For them, they think it's just

an ancient way of describing excessive mental distress.

I don't know what widely view you have, what understanding you

have, but personally I believe in the reality of demons.

I believe that demons are real and active.

They torment individuals and persons and societies.

I believe that they are real. In fact, I attribute my

situation that night to demons. I was under the control of evil

spirits. The voices that we are telling

me, run, throw yourself into the train, throw yourself into cars,

those were evil spirits. Those were demons.

But Christ has authority over demons.

That authority, that voice that told me straight from my

apartment, you have a Bible, carry it.

You have a Bible, pull it out, read it.

That voice that told me come to Christ was the voice of Christ

through the Holy Spirit. So demons are active, however

Christ is controlling them. They are under the authority of

Christ. This is what we should observe.

We shouldn't have this attitude of denial that demons are not

real. Sometimes if we deny first, we

might deny demons number one, but if it progresses, we deny

the entire spiritual world. And we said there is nothing

like the spiritual world. And that's not denying the

spiritual world. What comes next is denying God

himself, because God is also in that realm of Sephia.

So whatever view you take, Scripture tells us plainly that

life outside Christ is under the rule of darkness.

It is under the spiritual power of darkness.

This is what Paul writes through the Ephesians.

You are dead through trespasses and sins in which you once

lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler

of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among

those who are disobedient. On the negative side, it is the

rhythm of darkness. You can't think about demons,

you can't deny them, but there is nothing like being neutral.

Those on that side are under the rhythm of darkness, even demons

themselves. But the Gospel speaks directly

into this situation. Christ comes into the place of

death to give life. So let us look at the second

scene. Having observed life outside

Christ, let us observe how we encounter Christ in verse 6 and

13. So the encounter of Christ with

this man begins by the man running to Jesus.

And if Jesus immediately takes control of the situation, he

speaks with the authority, He comforts the unclean spirits and

he says, come out of the man, you unclean spirits, friends.

The demons knew when Christ said that word.

They knew. They knew when they were

commanded, they understood the authority of Christ and the man

falls and prostrates before Jesus, which is the sign of the

demons recognizing Jesus's authority.

He's greater and he's a master. The demons speak, they confess

who Jesus is. They say he is the Son of the

Most High God. Their words sound as if they are

reverent before God. However, they are posture with

visits. They plead with Jesus, saying,

what have you to do with me? In other words, they are saying

leave us alone. They oppose him, though they

have declared they understand who he is.

Friends, understanding itself is not submission.

James tells us about demons. He says this.

You believe that there is one God.

You do well. Even the demons believe and the

tremble. Demons have knowledge, but they

lack obedience. They need to be forced to submit

to Christ. The interaction that we observe

here, Jesus interacting with a man and with demons, shows us

how encountering Christ looks like.

It shows us what Christ intends to accomplish whenever he meets

us first. An encounter with Christ exposes

reality. He reveals what is hidden, He

names what rules us, whether excuses or fears or pride or any

form of lusts. Christ, when we encounter him,

he names that he brings to light, not to a shame us, but to

set us free. When he thus asks, asks the

demons what is your name? He's not seeking information he

already knows. However, he wants to bring

something to exposure and the demons reply saying they are

named Lijon. This reveals the scale of

oppression this man has. He has thousands of demons that

are inflicting him. It is possible for someone who

have thousands of demons, more than one.

So the man has thousands. Christ reveals this and this is

an opening to the healing and restoration that comes.

Clarity paves way for deliverance.

So when Christ encounters us, he brings clarity into our

situation. In other words, he wants to

define the situation so that it can pave way for our healing.

And secondly, an encounter with Christ demands a response.

We either fall before him and prostate in reality, or we

resist him. We cannot be neutral when we

encounter Christ because it's a very decisive moment.

He calls our lives to order, to create room for Him, to be

master. And then the third, the third

thing we observe about this encounter is that encountering

the Christ goes beyond knowledge.

It is not enough to know about Him.

Even the demons know. We have observed that.

However, the question is, will we submit to Him?

Will we trust Him? Faith requires our obedience.

It requires our coming to a point of surrender.

Intellectual knowledge is good, but alone it's not enough.

It is not the goal of knowing Christ.

Studying theology is good, but alone it's not enough.

It needs to come to a point of surrender.

Having encountered the man in such a way, we progress.

In verses 11 through 13. Christ completes the deliverance

of this man. This is what we observe now.

A great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside.

The presence and the mission of pigs confirms that Jesus is in a

Gentile territory. Jews were forbidden from raising

pigs, even to eat them. So the mentioning of pigs

recalls the idea of uncleanliness we already had.

Pigs are a suggestion of Gentile impurity.

The man is not only staying in a place that is unclean in a

cemetery, but he's also staying in an impure region, in an

impure territory. And having had the commands that

demons must now come out, Jesus has told them they should come

out. But they make a request.

They tell Jesus, send us us to the pig, let us enter them.

In other words, they seek a new dwelling.

Demons desire to live inside dwelling places, some of the

dwelling places that human beings, sometimes not just in

human beings, even in other objects.

They are beings that want to reside in something.

Just as the Holy Spirit of God dwells in US.

Sometimes demons dwell in human beings.

They can even build in other objects so that demons seek a

new dwelling. They make a permission, so they

enter into this herd of 2000 pigs, but they don't see the end

because that dwelling is a temporary dwelling.

They have been given a temporary dwelling because the pigs later

they rush off the slope and they go into the sea and there they

drown. The demons drown together with

the pigs into the place of judgment.

Peter writes somewhere and he says, Peter says, for if God did

not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell

and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness, to be kept

until judgment. So in other words, the drowning

of the pigs together with the demons, it's a judgment upon the

demons themselves. It's a judgment upon themselves.

And now the man is free. But it's not just the man who is

free, but also the region has been cleansed of the impurity.

There is deliverance that touches the land.

The Gentile region has been has encountered Jesus as well,

because we have observed that the pigs weigh a symbol of

Gentile impurity. And now this impurity has been

cleansed. The land is also delivered.

It's not just the man who is delivered.

So when Christ comes into our lives, there is a change that

doesn't stay private. Restoration spreads out.

It begins with us as individuals in our lives when our habits are

shifting and our desires are changing.

But also it goes into our relationships.

It comes into our homes. It comes into the relationships

that we are wounded. Christ heals them, but also

Christ heals our environments because it is like a ripple that

comes from us. Christ kills us, but it's a

ripple that spreads out even into our environment.

He restores us all. That is why for us who know

Christ, we are against over restoration into our

communities, into our environments, even the physical

environments where we stay. That is the ripple that goes on.

So this is complete restoration. Christ has restored the man, but

also the entire region has been cleansed, but the demons have

been destroyed. Let's observe now the life in

Christ that this man has and that we have, which we observe

in verses 14 to 20. We observe the status, the new

status of this man after encountering Christ.

Mark reports what the people who saw this, what they encountered.

They tell us that they came to Jesus and saw that demon

possessed man, the one who had had the region sitting there

clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid.

His restoration appears in three simple details.

Number 1, He is sitting. He's no longer in a state of

relentless agitation. He's now at rest.

Secondly, he's closed. This is the sign of dignity.

He's now given his place in the community.

It has returned. He's a dignified man and sadly

he is in his right mind. The inner comment has been

cleared and now everything has changed.

The man who was once dead is now alive again and the man has a

new identity. He's no longer the one who had

the region. He's now he's not.

He's not the demon possessed man.

He's the one who had. There is the past.

Something has happened to him. He's not the demon possessed man

anymore. He has a new identity of a

restored person and he needs to remember this truth that I was

once demon possessed, but now I am not demon possessed anymore.

Apart from this new identity, the man is given a new purpose.

He seeks to follow Jesus because he wants to be grateful for what

Jesus has done for him. This is devotion.

He's devoted to Jesus. He wants to go with him, though

the crowds are saying, Jesus, leave us, go away.

The man says, I want to be with you.

He feels at comfort with Jesus. But Jesus tells the man.

He redirects him in another way. He tells him, go home to your

family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and

how he has had mercy on you. This command changes something.

The man who was once isolated is called back and he's sent back

into his community. The man who was cut off from

community is now going back as a witness into the 10 cities to

declare the works of God. He's no longer an outcast.

He's now an ambassador of Christ sent out to declare about the

restoration of Christ. Let me tell you what happened on

that night after I had scribbled in that journal and said from

today I accept to be born again. I've told you that the voices

that we are telling me to commit serif harm seized there and

there and then I sat there for almost an hour and then I told

the police officers that I am fine, I want to go back home.

And one of them looked at me and told me, young man, if you still

feel the same tomorrow, come back and we take you to a

psychiatrist. I never went back.

I didn't return because I was already fine.

And that night I was a fine art teacher trying to study ICT to

become a graphics designer. Why was I doing that?

I was thinking about higher pay. I wanted to make better money,

but also I wanted the freedom of being a freelance worker where

no one is high, no one is imposing any schedules and

things upon me. I wanted to be freelance and

enjoy the freedom, even the freedom of the hip hop culture

that I couldn't enjoy in a teaching profession.

But after I completed my study program, I went back to my

hometown and there I became active in the church life.

I began volunteering in many ministries in my church, working

in youth ministry, working in evangelism, working in believers

fellowships and fellowship groups.

I began volunteering in that way, and after a year, the

leaders of my church and my mentors suggested to me that I

should go to a Bible college to be trained as a leader.

The churches in Uganda where I come from, training a priest is

very expensive, a clergy is very expensive.

Not all congregations have priests and the clergy, some,

most congregations rely on lay readers, catechists.

So I was invited to study and to begin pastoring a congregation

in that case. So I replied to that invitation

and I went to a Bible college for a year that I was

commissioned as a lay reader, and I served in that capacity

from 2011 up to 2019 when I was ordained as a Deacon and later

ordained as a priest in 2021. But I want to ask you a

question. Where do you lie on the number

line? Is it on the negative?

Are you encountering Christ? Or is it on the positive because

the man who wants was in the tomb is now at the feet of

Jesus. The man who was destroying

himself is now speaking life. The man who was on his own is

now sent out. Declare the message even to

Chicago today. May the Lord be glorified.

The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.