Hey, Cobblestone,
Hear the word of the Lord:
They came to the other
side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 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 the 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 two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the
sea.
The herdsmen fled and
told it in the city and in the country. And 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 described 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 how much Jesus had done for
him, and everyone marveled (Mark 5:1-20).
We have a serious image-of-God issue in our time. There is a
wholesale lack of honor – and even dishonor – for the image of God in people.
It’s killing us. The flippant attitude toward the imago Dei in every human is withering our souls and destroying
lives. And if we who have the mind of Christ will silence for a moment the
less-than-Christ voice that’s insisting on primacy, we will hear the Father
saying he is not pleased.
Didn’t see that one coming, did you? Neither did I. I thought
I could suppress it for another week or two, but no. You thought, from the
Bible passage above, I would be highlighting Jesus’ authority over demons, or
offering you hope for deliverance from whatever you’re suffering today –
deliverance like the Gerasene man experienced (only scaled for a first-world
context). Usually, you would be right. But today is not usual. From the first
half of Chapter 5 in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus wants us to see the image of God in
people – the way he does.
Jesus was willing to destroy two thousand pigs to deliver one
human being. I get the idea it could have been two million pigs, same result. Lying before Jesus, needing deliverance,
was one who bore the image of God. One was enough. The entire porcine
population of earth might have been drowned that day – whatever it took to
honor the image.
Two Sundays ago I preached from Matthew 25, the section in
which Jesus describes Judgment Day, and how he, the King seated on his glorious
throne, will separate people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (verse 32). The
separation is more than a slight distinction, a 51/49 relationship – this is
nothing less than heaven and hell. The sheep go on his right: the blessed (verse 34), who have fed the
hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked,
visited the sick, and gone to the prisoner. On his left go the goats: the cursed (verse 41), who found plenty of
excuses not to. If you’ll allow it, I’ll distill the criteria down to a single
line between the two groups: Those who honored the image of God, and those who
did not.
The people of God routinely forfeit moral authority by hustling
moral issues into the political arena. I’m talking about you and me, Church. I
used to blame the politicians, but no more – it’s our fault. You wouldn’t take
your mobile phone to a blacksmith’s shop for repairs. It makes even less sense
to load image-of-God issues onto a system that was never designed to handle
them. Some of these need to be dealt with in more detail, so I’ll be taking the
next few weeks to air them out. Unsubscribe if you must, but I’m hoping you’ll
stick with me.
To cut us a little bit of slack (but not for long), I get it:
the problems are colossal. Good luck getting a handle on human trafficking, the
sex trade, chattel slavery, and the denial of basic human rights in every
country on earth (no exceptions). Sounds daunting when I put it that way,
doesn’t it? No more daunting than it already was. Notice from the Gospel how
the Gerasenes had already given up on their neighbor: 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 (Mark 5:3-4).
And then Jesus showed up – the only one who knew what the
Gerasene man really needed. He didn’t need to be subdued. He needed to be
delivered. What brought Jesus and the man together? Jesus called to him: For he was saying to him, “Come out of
the man, you unclean spirit!” (5:8). Looking beyond the dozens closest to
him, the ones who already basked in the sight and scent and proximity of Jesus,
he found the one who needed him most in that moment.
Find one. Start there. Every Christian can honor the image of
God in any human being. There’s a lot of talk about cultural and racial
reckonings in our time, of revolutions waiting to be started, powder kegs
packed-up tight against the bands. Don’t be scared off. It’s the language of
frustration, and frustration is all it’ll produce until the people of God get
it into their minds and hearts that the image of God is the issue at hand. The
big work is all work that the King intends to have done. Between now and the
great and final reckoning, he is providing stages of reckoning, in perfect
order and scope. No believer will be left without an opportunity to honor the
image, one image-bearer at a time.
Next week we’re going to reset to Simple. The examples I’ll
be giving are so simple, you’ll think I’ve lost my mind. In fact, I’m counting
on it. I’m counting on you thinking I’ve lost my crooked and carnal mind – or put
it on a short leash, anyway – in favor of fully engaging the mind of Christ.
Pray for me… please?
Grace and Peace (from the one in whose image we are made),
John
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