From Tombs to Testimony: The Gerasene Miracle - Sermon 1st March 2020

G'day. Thanks for joining the Heights Church Podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Goldstone

Road, Cornsley Heights, Summey, Australia.

All right, let's look at this passage tonight. I thought I might start with

something that maybe none of you know, and it's not because it's an embarrassing

thing, it's just never come up in conversation. But when I was growing up,

I lived next door to a cemetery.

So in a small country town called Alstonville, we lived next door to a cemetery.

And my brother and I, in particular, we used to spend a lot of time in the cemetery.

We were fascinated by the graves and when people died and how old they were.

It's a bit morbid, right? Yeah. A bit weird. Yeah.

But you know what? It was also, it was a pretty cool place to play because the

grass was so well mown. It was so flat and so smooth. It was fantastic to play cricket.

And that's what we did. We're over there often. Now, for those who don't know

cricket, the leg side, which is if you're a right-handed batsman,

the left-hand side, it was pretty clear because that was the lawn cemetery.

So it was nice and you could hit the ball as far as you want that way. That was great.

But on the offside, that's that side. That was full of headstones.

And, you know, backyard cricket, you have special rules. Well,

our special rule was that if you hit the headstone on the full,

you're out court, right?

So the scorecard might read something like, Gavin Shum caught Wilbur Johnson,

who died in 1962, bowled Murray Shum for 16, so something like that.

It was also really good for golf. So we could hit balls from our front yard

over the paddock and land them in the lawn cemetery.

Then you'd walk across and hit them back. It was fantastic.

Wasn't always popular with people visiting the cemetery, though.

But, you know, that's what we did.

So why am I talking about this cemetery next door to my place outside a little

country town called Austinville?

Well, that's kind of the scene we have here. There's no cricket players and

golf players, but we're in a cemetery.

We're in a cemetery on the edge of a town. In this cemetery,

it's quite like that one next door to me, Although my grandfather was a dairy

farmer, so we had cows on the hills, not pigs, but pretty similar.

What I want to do tonight as we go through this passage, I want to do it in

four steps. I want to just tell the story briefly, just get your head into the story a little bit.

Then I want to go a bit deeper. So I want you to, like it's a real event in

the life of Jesus, so imagination is not quite right. But I want you to picture

what the scene was like in your mind and really, really, really feel it.

And then from that, we're going to look at what does that mean for us?

And then we'll have a few concluding comments. That's how we're going to do

it. So let's set the scene first.

The background, we read in verse 1, if you've got your Bibles open,

that'll be good, but if we read in verse 1 that Jesus and his disciples went

across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.

Flicking back in chapter 2, you don't need to do that, but in verse 1 of chapter

2, we see that Jesus and the disciples were in a town called Capernaum.

So both of these places are on the Sea of Galilee.

Capernaum is in the far northwest. The Gerasenes is in the far southeast.

So they've crossed the lake diagonally, and that's where they are.

So they've gone from Capernaum to this land of the Gerasenes,

northwest to southeast. One sec.

So this region, this region of the Gerasenes, is part of an area known as the Decapolis.

Decapolis Deck 10, it's 10 cities. It means 10 cities.

These are 10 Greek cities, widely spread out, from modern-day Syria all the

way to modern-day Jordan.

And they're under Roman rule and mostly on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee

where they are. And this area is a Gentile area, so it's a non-Jewish place.

So in this passage, they're reading about Jesus ministering to non-Jewish people,

to Gentiles for the first time. Just setting the scene.

The story has two main characters. There's a man with an impure spirit who lived

in the tombs, and then there is Jesus, the Son of God.

When I started this talk, I was talking about this living next door to the cemetery

and some of the fun, maybe, stories about things we did, but it was also a pretty

eerie place. It could be quite spooky, particularly at night,

sometimes quite frightening.

The cemetery we read about in Mark's Gospel today had a resident madman.

This is a man who, the Bible says, has superhuman strength, who broke every

chain they used to try and control him.

A man, according to verse 5, would cry out night and day and cut himself with

stones. So imagine that scene.

Torn apart chains, a wild, crazy guy. The cemetery I lived next door to was pretty tame, right?

But this man, this man runs at Jesus. He confronts him.

Crazy thing for me is that he knows who Jesus is. Jesus just got off the boat, right?

But he calls him, in verse 7, the Son of the Most High God. And he also knows the power of Jesus.

It's an amazing contrast here. The demonic host in this man knows Jesus,

but Jesus doesn't know them.

Jesus asked them, what's your name? They knew his name.

What it's telling us is that only Jesus is important here. He's the one with

all the power. He is the one whose name is glorious.

So under questioning, the spirits in the man reveal that they are legion,

which means that we are many.

Now, in the Roman army, a legion was 10 cohorts of about 500 men in each cohort.

Cohorts are grouped, so 10 groups of 500 men, so around 5,000 men.

But we also know the spirits were banished into 2,000 pigs. We don't know how

many, but we know it's a lot.

But again, there's lots of them, but the one Jesus is sufficient.

Not just in this cemetery, though. Jesus is sufficient for saving all of mankind.

We know that from the rest of the Bible.

So there's real comfort in the idea, or the fact, that Jesus,

who is sufficient over thousands of spirits, is the same Jesus who is sufficient

to save you and I. We should be comforted by that.

The spirits, as we read, ascended to the pigs, which is another indication we're

in Gentile territory. I had an old boss.

He used to say that some of the things we did were as successful as pig farming in Israel.

Now, what that means, see, pigs are an unclean animal. They didn't eat them in Israel.

So if you were pig farming in Israel, you weren't very profitable.

You didn't sell many pigs. So we're definitely not in Israel anymore.

So part of the message here is that Jesus is the saviour to both the Jews and

the non-Jews, the Jews and the Gentiles.

But again, that's not really the lesson we're going to look at today.

That's just introduction to what we're doing.

So seeing what has happened to the man and their pigs, the pig herders run off,

and they get the people from the town and the countryside.

When the people from the town arrive to see for themselves, what's their reaction?

Anyone? They're scared. They're afraid. They're so afraid that they ask Jesus

to leave the region. Go away. Get out of here.

The man who Jesus has healed, the man who Jesus has saved, reacts very differently.

Jesus goes to leave. He does what the townspeople ask. And this man,

he wants to follow Jesus. It's actually more than that. He wants to stay with Jesus.

But Jesus has other plans, and he sends him on a mission, a mission to the man's own people.

And that's what I want to focus on today. That's the message I want us to get

out of this today. This man is sent to his own people.

A bit more about that later. Okay, so that's the bare bones.

Now I want you to stay with me and really get your head into this story.

Really picture it. Picture what it was like.

First of all, this is not a busy city environment, right? Cemetery,

they don't build cemeteries in the main street.

They build cemeteries on the edge of towns, on the edge of settlements,

just like where I grew up.

The only people here, there's only a few people in this scene.

It's not like a busy crowd.

There's Jesus, his disciples, there's the man, and there are some pig farmers.

And the pig farmers, they're probably a distance away on a hillside.

When you read the story, it seems like they're a bit away. So really,

Jesus is disciples and this guy.

It's not the middle of nowhere, but it's not the center of the universe either.

So it would be quiet, and I imagine a little bit eerie cemeteries are, right?

So into that scene, into that eerie cemetery scene with very few people,

place an absolutely crazy, super strong nutcase.

And he's running at you and your friends as you walk towards the cemetery.

How would you feel? How would you respond?

For me, it would be the last thing I'd want to be doing and one of the last

places on earth I'd want to be.

I don't deal with people in situations out of control like that very well. It scares me.

That's not particularly good. I'm not particularly proud of that. It's just how I am.

While I was doing this, I remembered a story from back in my past.

Claire, I don't even know if this might be a story you've never heard.

Could be a surprise. I'm not sure. You tell me later.

Basically, we lived, before we lived in Alston, or before we lived near this

cemetery, we lived in town, and we lived with neighbours, and we had a neighbour

behind our back fence who was quite mentally disturbed. He had some serious mental health issues.

One morning, and I think it was around four o'clock in the morning,

he became convinced that I was his son, and that my mother and father had kidnapped me.

So he spent, it felt like hours, it's probably not, it felt like hours to me,

but he was yelling across the back fence for my parents to give me back.

So I was pretty shaken. So much so that I actually dreamt about that.

I keep dreaming about that until I was in my 30s.

Just didn't go away. I haven't dreamt about it for a long, long time.

So I don't know this and maybe I'm projecting, but I imagine the disciples had

some of that fear as this crazy guy ran at them.

Now imagine how they would feel when the crazy guy stops and says,

you're Jesus, the son of the most high God. He knew him.

I don't know about you, but if I was one of the disciples there, I'd be shaking my head.

Also, I think the relief would be starting to come, right? I'd be like,

oh, wait, wait, Jesus has got this. It's okay. It's all good,

right? We're not going to die.

Now, look at Jesus in the scene. Think about that. He's totally in control.

It's comforting, right? Things we find frightening are not frightening for Jesus.

Just in the chapter before this, in Mark chapter 4, the disciples and Jesus

Mark 4 · chapter mention

cross the Sea of Galilee and he calmed the storm.

And now he calmly addresses the spirits in this man.

Remember, crazy, super strong man who just ran at them, but Jesus is in control.

Look at his tone in this passage. It's almost conversational.

He's just chatting to the guy, right?

He's chatting to the spirits. He sends the spirits into the pigs.

He says, no massive drama, no hocus pocus, no nothing.

Jesus is entirely calm and he deals with that problem in such a way.

What about the pigs? Think about the pigs. I always feel sorry for the pigs.

But I think that's probably a distraction from the main story.

I also think there's probably something there that the disciples understood more than we can.

Because as I said before, for the Jews, pigs were an unclean animal.

And so I think there's something in that that we don't really get,

that I certainly don't get. But let's feel sad for the pigs. That's okay.

But let's not get distracted by the pigs either. Let's look at Jesus and what he's doing in the story.

So let's call that scene one. So that's that scene. Put that away.

Let's go to the second scene. It's the same place, but a lot has changed.

We have Jesus and his disciples, and they're now talking to this man who's in

his right mind and dressed.

We don't know how long, but if the herdsmen had to go to town and the people

had to come back, they would have spent some time with Jesus.

The man and Jesus would have spent some time.

Also picture there's 2,000 pigs who've just run off a cliff into a water washing up on the beach.

All right? Okay, that's the scene.

From that scene, the pig herders run. They run to town. Again,

it's a strange reaction. Like, I would have thought they might have been angry

about what happened to their pigs. They're responsible for the pigs.

Maybe they were, but their reaction was to run and tell people in the town.

Maybe they felt they needed backup.

You know, this guy just beat the guy they couldn't beat, maybe.

But judging from the rest of the story, my guess, more than anything,

is they were just simply afraid.

So they ran to town. They spread the news of what had happened.

Now, this is also a little bit different to how we understand the spreading of news, right?

So these days, if this sort of thing happened, someone would post it on Instagram,

be on Facebook, there'd be videos posted online, text messages flying around.

You wouldn't have to run into town to tell people, right? You'd say,

get out of here, look at what's going on. We need you.

Maybe even further back, there might have been the local newspaper or TV reporter,

coming out to tell the story of what happened to the crazy man and the pigs.

Maybe there'd be hashtags, you know, 2,000 pigs, crazy guy in the cemetery,

that sort of stuff. This was a different time.

News traveled by word of mouth. News traveled much more slowly,

but it was still effective.

Now, I remember a time, now when I grew up, we did have TV and newspaper,

just to be clear, I'm not that old.

But we didn't have the internet, we didn't have social media.

So I remember a story when I grew up that spread by word of mouth, amazingly.

This unusual thing happened so often there was a little town outside a big town

called Lismore and in Lismore again in one of the cemeteries in town believe

it or not, there was a grave with a cross shaped headstone.

At the right time of night, and at just the right angle of the moon, the cross would glow.

So it became the talk of the town, the area. Everyone was talking about the

glowing cross. Have you seen the glowing cross?

Where is it? It's out there. So anyway, every night, people would gather on

the nearby hills around the cemetery to see the glowing cross.

Went on for almost a month until someone decided to knock the cross down.

Then there's another word of mouth story then. It was the scandal of some people

knocking down the glowing cross. It was outrage.

So the council went back and they put the cross back in position.

But for some reason, it didn't glow anymore.

The angle wasn't right. Whatever it was, it just didn't glow anymore. It's a weird story.

My point is, word of mouth news can travel and can travel quite quickly and

can be very effective. That's what we have here, this word of mouth story traveling.

These herdsmen have gone into town, into the countryside saying,

get out to the cemetery. This has happened.

So they spread the news and the people of the town gather at the scene.

Now, what do they see? They see a man who they were totally unable to control,

to the point they used to chain him up in the cemetery.

And here he was, now dressed in his right mind and talking with Jesus.

Any conversation Jesus had in that time is not recorded. We don't know.

As I said, he could have spent quite a bit of time with Jesus there.

We don't know what it is. But I'm sure the guy had plenty of questions, right?

Anyway, the townspeople come,

and the townspeople react. Does their reaction seem strange to you too?

Their reaction of fear? Let's look, what could it have been?

My first thought was their reaction would have been amazement. This is amazing.

Here's a guy who was uncontrollable, totally crazy, so much so that people avoided

him in the cemetery, speaking with Jesus in a totally normal way.

How could that happen? That's what I think would be the reaction, right?

Maybe alternatively, maybe another possible reaction was they could have been

angry. Like, it's 2,000 pigs. Okay, that's a lot of bacon.

Pork or ham, I like bacon. But pork or ham, if you like. But it's a lot of their livelihood.

So I could understand if their reaction was something like, yeah,

that's amazing, but what about our pigs? Who's going to pay for that?

But their reaction is neither of those things. Their reaction was fear.

They pleaded with Jesus to leave their region. Is that weird?

Maybe not. Maybe not. Think about this. Is that any different to how people react to Jesus today?

I think people would rather Jesus stay somewhere over there,

anywhere else, please, than have to deal with him, I have to deal with the reality of him,

Think of the reaction of people That you tell you're a Christian Think how they

react Many people say that's nice But just keep it to yourself That's nice,

do that on a Sunday at church But please don't bring it to work School, wherever else So,

that's the second scene The third and final scene is Jesus and disciples doing

as they're asked Getting in the boat to leave The man who's been healed approaches

And begs to come with them.

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? This man wants to stay with Jesus.

Who has made him return to his right mind.

But Jesus has other plans. Jesus sends the man on mission.

His desire is to be with Jesus, but Jesus says, basically, there's a more important job.

He wants the man to share what God has done in his life, to tell people the

change God has wrought in his life and the great mercy he has received. It's there in verse 19.

Even more than that, he wants him to go home to the people who know him and

will be amazed by the change so that he can tell them why and how he's changed.

And that's what he does. The end of the passage tells us he journeys throughout

the Decapolis, throughout those 10 cities, the region of the 10 cities,

telling people of what Jesus has done for him and people are amazed.

Okay, so if this was just a talk, if this was, you know, a friendly talk,

a little bit of, you know, playing cricket in the cemetery, humor kind of talk,

then we could all pack up and go home. But this is a Bible talk, right? So...

To be a Bible talk, we need to ask, so what? We need to say,

well, what about us? What can we learn from this event?

How does it affect us here and now? What do we do in response to what we have

learned about Jesus from this event?

So let's do that. I want to go through six things, I think, that we can pull

out of this. So if you've been zoning in and out, if you've been distracted

by pigs or my stories or whatever, be with me now.

I think the first thing we can learn is we learn who Jesus is.

Remember the spirits and the man, they knew Jesus. They called him the son of

the most high God and they were afraid.

Okay, so we follow a saviour who's not just some extraordinarily wise human.

We follow a saviour who is the embodiment of God, the God who created everything.

He's in control of all things and is all powerful. Nothing can stand in his

way. Nothing can stop him.

Did the spirits put up a fight? No. They knew they were done.

There's no fight. Fighting will be pointless. They're in the presence and the

hands of the all-powerful.

So that's encouraging, right? Jesus, who lives in us through his spirit, is beyond all things.

And we share in his relationship with God because he paid the price so that

we can do that. It's amazing.

So I think one lesson here is know who Jesus is, and because of that,

be strong, be courageous.

Because the God we follow is beyond all things, but still cares for us as his own children.

It's so encouraging. We need to constantly dwell on who Jesus is.

It's where we get our confidence.

We also need to think about the man's reaction. Do we want to be with Jesus as much as that man did?

Understanding who Jesus is and what he has done for us do we really want to

be with him would you beg to go wherever he goes is that the desire of your

heart we live in a fallen world,

so many desires that compete for our attention. That's just how it is, right?

Following Jesus wholeheartedly, it's not easy, and we fall often.

But is following him the center of you? Is it the center of your being?

Is that the thing that drives you every single day?

I ask the question of myself, it should be, needs to be.

We constantly need to examine ourselves. Are we driven to spend time with him

in the Bible, time with him in prayer? Are we driven to spend time with his people?

Are we driven to tell others about him?

Just questions we should ask, I think, from this story.

We also learn that following Jesus is not just a head experience. It's not just up here.

Following Jesus is a relationship experience. We're not meant to lock ourselves

away to learn more about Jesus in order to follow him.

It's not like you have to build your knowledge, build your knowledge,

build your knowledge, and now you're in a place where you can follow. It's not like that.

This man didn't do that. He didn't complete a course of evangelism so that he

could effectively share with Jesus. At most, he had a couple of hours with Jesus, right?

But Jesus had an immediate redeeming relationship with this man,

an immediate redeeming relationship with this man. And so do we.

We're no different. From the moment we decide that we'll follow Jesus and live

his way and not our own, we are in relationship with Jesus.

We have the ability and we need to take the opportunity to share with others

what Jesus has done for us, what it means to follow him.

In fact, that's our fourth lesson. Following Jesus means we are sent.

Often think that it's for others to share about Jesus.

Maybe it's for missionaries or pastors, maybe they're especially gifted to share about Jesus.

But following Jesus means that we are sent to tell others about him.

There's no doubt some people have been especially sent to share Jesus in other

countries and cultures, that's missionaries, that's no doubt about that.

And some people have been particularly sent to encourage the church and their

communities to understand who Jesus is. That's a pastor, right?

Among many things, that's what a pastor does. But we are all sent.

We are all to share him with those we know best, with our neighbours, family, friends.

I think as we listen to this story today, as we picture this story,

we need to ask ourselves the question, are we looking to share Jesus with our own people?

Do we seek to tell them how much Jesus has done for us?

Even maybe, are we thinking about what Jesus has done for us in order that we could share it?

I see here that we are sent, but again, even more than that.

We're sent not just to speak, but to show.

So it's clear we're not just meant to tell people about what Jesus has done,

but we're also meant to show it.

The people that we know should be able to see the difference Jesus has made

and continues to make in us.

The man was sent back to his own people. Imagine that. Imagine what they would

have thought about him. They knew him as this crazy dude, all right?

And he goes back to them, and he's not irrational, he's rational.

He's not crazy, he's in control.

He's not frightful, he's serene.

You know, we've also been radically changed.

I don't know about you, but I was never strong enough to break iron chains,

nor I don't think I was particularly crazy, maybe. But anyway,

I've definitely been radically changed.

From a life that was self-seeking to a life that seeks to serve God. from a life that had.

Limited hope for the future to a life that has limitless hope.

And from a life that belonged to no one or maybe to myself to a life that belongs

to God as his own child. It's radical.

But it also means that, and this is the sixth thing we can learn here,

that our life needs to match our words and his grace.

That last bit's important and life does match our words in his grace,

We need not to be people who say one thing and do another. In the Bible,

Jesus himself, he reserves his strongest criticism and condemnation for people

who are hypocritical, for people who don't match up to what they say.

Our response to what Jesus has done is to live a life that reflects God,

that draws others to him, and that gives him all the glory.

The man could go back to his people and not just say, this is what Jesus has done.

But look, look at what Jesus has done.

Just be careful. I'm not saying we should go about beating our chests,

going, look at what Jesus has done for me. Far from it.

Knowing what Jesus has done means it's actually all about him and not about me.

So that's where the lives that reflect his grace bit comes in.

We are only who we are by his grace, not by anything we have done.

So our lives don't just match our words but they match his grace how do we go

about that? tricky right?

Ok they're all important things and I want you to take them away I want you

to think about them pray about them over the coming days and weeks,

who Jesus is and the confidence that gives you the desire to be with Jesus is

that something we beg for?

Keep that in mind following Jesus means we are sent to tell others about him,

It's even more than that. We need to show others what he has done and that our

lives should match both our words in his grace. I want you to dwell on that.

That's really important.

Just as an aside to that, when we talk about not beating our chests that I touched

on a minute ago, the reason we ascend has nothing to do with our glory or self-promotion.

And there's a way from this story we actually know this. Do you notice in this

story, we never learn the man's name? It's not there. It's not there.

Sent is all about Jesus and making Jesus known. And that's the same when we

show and tell others about Jesus.

It's pretty hard for us, right? We like to be noticed.

That's human. We like to be noticed. But the gospel, although the gospel is

a lot about us because it affects us, but it's not about what we have done.

It has an incredible effect on us, but the news is about what Jesus has done.

It's not about us. It's all about Jesus.

So I want that to challenge you. I want you to, as I said, dwell on that.

But also, I want to leave you encouraged tonight as well.

So not just all heavy, heavy, what am I going to do next stuff,

but that's important. Stay with that. But there's some encouragement here as well.

If you've got your Bibles open, have a look further in Mark.

Let's look at Mark chapter 7.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

And I'm going to read verses 31 to 37.

Mark chapter 7, 31 to 37. Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Sidon down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.

So Jesus left, he's come back.

There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk,

and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the

man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue.

He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him.

At this, which means be open. At this the man's ears were opened.

His tongue was loosened, and he began to speak plainly.

Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone, but the more he did so,

the more they kept talking about it.

People were overwhelmed with amazement. He has done everything well,

they said. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

So Jesus went back to the Decapolis for further ministry there.

And this time the people weren't afraid.

This time they were amazed. What we thought last time, right?

I thought maybe amazement would be the right thing. Now they've got it. They're amazed.

They're so amazed they brought their sick to him to be healed.

He healed people, and more and more people were telling others about him. They flocked to him.

They flocked to him in such a way that if you look at chapter 8,

we won't read it, but if you look at chapter 8, the first part of chapter 8

is the feeding of the 4,000.

That happened in that region, in the Decapolis.

The 5,000 happened in Israel and the 4,000 in the Decapolis.

We don't read this, and we don't fully know, but I'd like to think that some

of this change is down to the man we met in chapter 5.

That his mission to tell others about Jesus, and all that Jesus did for him,

prepared the ground, and led many to come and meet Jesus.

Many not to be afraid of him, but to go and see for themselves this extraordinary

saviour. I think that's really encouraging.

By doing what we are called to do, what we are sent to do, others will come to meet and know Jesus.

Nothing is more important in life than that, for people to know Jesus.

We may not be there to see it. We may not get a mention. We may never know about it.

But we can be assured and encouraged that by following his mission for us,

we're doing what he wants us to do, and it will bear fruit. It will have a result.

So hopefully you're challenged by what we looked at today,

but hopefully you're also encouraged, encouraged to take our opportunities to

show and tell others about Jesus whenever and wherever we are placed to our own people. Let me pray.

Lord, thank you tonight for the reminder that we are your people,

and that you are great, that you are a great, great saviour,

and that we are compelled, we are sent,

we need to share you. We need to share you in Word, we need to share you in action.

People need to see the difference in us that you have made.

We just pray, Lord, that you would help us to see this more and more,

to understand what you have done for us and for us to share that with others,

so that they may know you and for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.