The Inconvenient Christ
By Adah Hutchcraft (Daughter of Given O. Blakely)
The Inconvenient Christ (Mark 5:1-20)
Christ’s grace changes the believing, yet it does not necessarily produce outcomes valued by all who profess peace with him. When worldly allegiances are maintained in the heart, the perception of Christ is warped to accommodate them. Such contortions do not appear far from the truth when wrapped in terms of love and acceptance. Subtly emerges the portrayal of a merciful teacher of a non-judgmental gospel. Such a christ meets us where we are and does not impose fundamental change. This soft savior is a gentleman who makes few (if any) demands on our lives. He conveniently respects the restricted territories one designates as impassable. Indeed, all seems manageable to the flesh until the true Savior arrives, bringing the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus was often thronged by eager multitudes seeking respite and healing from serious ailments and spiritual oppression. On one such occasion, Jesus sends the multitudes away and departs by ship to the country of the Gadarenes, a town east of the Jordan. It was occupied predominantly by gentiles, and farming swine was a known trade among them. For these reasons, Gadara was an unlikely place for a Jewish Messiah to visit. No one was expecting him, so it would seem. Perhaps this is one reason Jesus is not met with crowds upon his arrival. He is, however, promptly met by a local man who could not ignore Jesus’ holy presence in his territory.
This man did not appear to be a tradesman, scholar, or a soldier, and his name is unmentioned. Yet, he is well known in Gadara for a most appalling and frightening condition. Day and night his anguished screams are heard resonating amidst the tombs where he tortures himself by cutting. He is a wild man, and although his countryman have attempted to bind him with chains, he breaks their bonds into bits. One can neither socialize with him nor reason with him. No band of men can restrain his violent behaviors. Incantations, medication, nor ligatures can begin relieve his pain or prevent his self-harm. He is a prisoner in his own body, oppressed by an unclean spirit. The host is mercilessly abused, unchallenged. Yet when Jesus steps foot on Gadara’s shore, the oppressor knows a greater authority has arrived.
God incarnate comes to an unprepared Gadara. With no place to hide, the unclean spirit sends its host running to Jesus, casting him at his feet. This is not a demonstration of willing adoration, but the mandatory response for hopeless rebelliousness. Jesus’ authority marks Satan’s condemnation, and a set time has been appointed for his confinement and judgment (Revelation 20:10). The unclean spirit pleads for more time, not to repent, but to express itself. Jesus does not receive the tainted worship, and commands the unclean spirit to come out of the man. This Jesus, the true Jesus, does not come to passively observe his creation, but to “heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and... to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18). This One who created the world demands the name of the pernicious perpetrator. “Legion,” it replies.
Legion must have had a leading spokesman, for at one point it speaks in the first person and at another time in the third person. The name, however, represents them all. One spirit had made room for another and another. The nature of Satan’s oppression belies the intent of his temptations. One sin makes room for another as it gains stronger hold. We do not know how this man came into such a state because that is not the Spirit’s focus. Standing before the vexed is one greater than his vexor or vexation. Jesus comes to bind up the strong man and plunder his house, far from a passive role (Mark 3:27). Preparing for eviction, Legion pleads for another holding place. It begs to be sent into into a herd of swine feeding near the mountains.
The same personalities which inhabited one man now enter two thousand swine and send them into madness. Unclean enters unclean, and the herd immediately leaves grazing in the field, violently stampeding down the steep ledge, and drowning in the waters below. The capacity of the human spirit is expansive, for it is created as a spiritual habitation. We were created to be filled with the fullness of God, and Jesus takes back what is rightfully his by liberating the demoniac (Ephesians 3:19). What had once torn this man from the inside out was now removed by the authority of holiness. The captive is delivered from his oppressor, his torment, and his stolen years of shame.
What an emancipation, not just for one man, but for a whole city. No more would his tortured cries echo from the graveyard where people wished to mourn their loved ones in peace. All would be freed from the sights and sounds of his nakedness and agony, his terrible strength no longer threatening. Yet it was not the cessation of screams which captured the attention of the town. In fact, the only people who seemed to notice were those who fed the swine which had since plummeted to their death. The herdsman announced to their fellow countrymen what they perceived to be a disturbing occurrence.
The response to this man’s freedom was fear. The Gadarenes made their living on animals that were ritually unclean according to Jewish Law, and it was a stable source of income until Jesus the Jew arrived. Inconveniences such as a man’s demon-possed state had become normalized in Gadara, for he had been possessed a long time (Luke 8:27). At least he did not pose any threat to their livelihoods, because his devils had driven him into the wilderness (Luke 8:29). Suddenly the herdsmen are thrown into disarray. The countrymen unite to investigate their tragic loss. Upon finding Jesus, the formerly possessed is observed sitting clothed and in his right mind. The witnesses are struck by such amazement that they are alarmed.
Not everyone is glad when they witness the effects of Christ’s authority. His power over what we cannot control conforms his authority over us, too. He brings change whether or not we like it or ask for it, and at times regardless of our preparedness. In this case, one man’s release was considered by others to be a personal loss. One man was delivered from his uncleanness while others were clinging to theirs. If our landscape was so drastically changed with the casting out of one man's demons, what if this Jesus performs more exorcisms among us? What could such superior power do? When Jesus delivers people from sin, it often poses threat to the cherished and convenient sins of those around them. As the Holy transforms souls, accommodated transgressions are brought to light and given no place to openly flourish. The flesh considers what it has to lose of higher value than what Jesus gives. The Gadarenes were of this mind and thus pleaded with Jesus to leave. Love and peace on human terms is acceptable, but impositions on livelihoods and lifestyles are unwelcomed by unrepentant hearts, even when it is the outcome of mercy. Jesus is not a convenient Christ, but therein lies his mercy. He is not willing that any should perish, which assuredly would be our end apart from his gracious imposition. Instead, at great cost to himself, he affords eternal life to all who believe on him.
Christ places limits on unrepentant influences, by gives freedom to hearts which fellowship in the advancement of God’s Kingdom. Jesus is not a gentleman, and He will unapologetically prove the foolishness of displaced worship and idolatrous reliance. He is not about making the world a better place for us, but making us a holy place for himself. The Gadarenes rejected Divinity’s presence because Jesus’ authority threatened them and their priorities. Meanwhile, the man who sat clothed and in his right mind requested to go with Jesus from Gadara. He wanted to be with this one who delivered him.
Since the Gadarenes desired the Savior to leave, it seemed reasonable for all of his followers to go with him, including his new convert. A fresh start in a new town would be preferable, and certainly more comfortable given his recent past. Proximity to Jesus could reassure the disciple that he would not become demonically possessed again, and wherever they went other Christ-followers would surely be nearby. Yet the Savior has a different calling for him. Jesus tells this delivered one to stay and “tell his friends the great things the Lord had done for him, how he had compassion on him.” He had friends-- acquaintances established prior to his possession. Now he will follow Jesus by going to those friends. The man’s life had taken a frightening turn in the direction of shame, isolation and destruction. His friends likely grieved his long season of torment. Now without having sought it, he knew the power and mercy of God like never before, and stood as a living testimony to who Jesus was: the Son of God. Jesus reached into this man’s life and retrieved him from Satan’s clutches, leaving neither bruise nor scar upon him. It was power manifested in anticipation of an even greater deliverance to come, “when he...disarmed the rulers and authorities, [making] a public spectacle of them, having triumphed over them through the cross” (Colossians 2:15). This delivered one’s testimony would prepare souls to receive the risen Lord after he laid down his life as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).
Welcomed or not, the Savior’s presence will not be convenient for the flesh. He will ultimately remove what unholy even if it is unwillingly relinquished, and he will send us where we do not anticipate going, though not without his power. The gift of salvation and came at a high price to himself, and we too must humble ourselves to receive our Lord. Once infamously renown for his madness, it was not convenient for the former demoniac to remain in Gadara, but it was his calling. Like all disciples of Christ, he had to forsake all to follow Jesus, a sacrifice rewarded with greater joy than sorrow (Luke 14:33). So while Jesus calls us to die to sin and self, it is a death which liberates us from the slavery of sin (Romans 6:6). The life we lose makes place for that eternal life which can never die, and the desires of which will be satisfied without exception (Matthew 16:25; John 11:25-26; Ps 37:4).
