Longing To Be Free
Commentary
We’re not far from the 4th of July. And while for so many Americans, it seems that the holiday has become more about long weekends, cookouts, and fireworks shows, the theme of freedom is still there at least in the background. We might take advantage of that, therefore, and give some thought to the theme of freedom as it is revealed in our assigned texts for this week.
Freedom is a theme that pulses through scripture, through world history, and through the individual human experience. If it were a distinctive musical motif — like, for example, the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony — I think we would hear it continually. It is always playing, in either the foreground or the background, of any human being’s daily living.
Human beings long to be free, and we demonstrate that longing at so many different levels. I think of the toddler who mischievously climbs out of the crib. I think of the elementary school girl who begins arguing with her mother about wanting to pick out her own clothes. I think of the adolescent boy who increasingly chafes at parental rules, curfews, and questions. The frustrated employee. The disgruntled professional athlete. The unhappy patient who is put on restrictions by their doctor. All of these people are yearning for freedom.
And those cases, of course, are entirely benign when set beside some of the tragic circumstances around the globe or across the pages of history. Victims of abduction and human trafficking. Slaves. Addicts. People living under cruel and oppressive governmental systems. People with severely limiting diseases or physical conditions. So many types of people who long — and perhaps even strive — for some sort of freedom.
In light of all this, it should be greatly encouraging for us to know that the Lord God also wants us to be free. There is great comfort and boldness, you see, in knowing that you are on the same side as God: that you are wanting the same thing or pursuing the same goal. This is what gave rise to the boldness of young David, no doubt, when he strode down into the valley to fight Goliath, or of Elijah when he trudged up Carmel to take on the representatives of Baal. So it is that, in our quest for freedom, we are desiring for ourselves what our Creator himself desires for us.
Indeed, the very story of that creation bears witness to God’s desire for us to be free. If he had not made us free, after all, then Adam and Eve would not have been able to make the fatal choice that they did. We presume that, in the omniscience and eternality of God, he knew full well what they would do, yet he made them free nevertheless. Furthermore, inasmuch Christ “was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8 NIV), we understand that God also knew what the human creatures’ freedom would cost him. See, then, how precious to him is our freedom!
On this Sunday not long before our nation turns at least some of its attention to the theme of freedom, let us consider that profound theme in our assigned texts.
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
James famously said, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” (James 5:17 ESV). When we read some of the Elijah stories — when we see his boldness and his divine power — we want to ask James, “Really?” I hesitate to put myself in Elijah’s company. He seems to be made of better stuff than I am.
But then we come to this week’s assigned Old Testament text, and we see that Elijah was, indeed, just as human as we are. For having just presided over one of the most spectacular miracles in scripture, now we see that the prophet is frightened, tired, and on the run. I may not recognize myself in the story of Elijah on Carmel. But this episode feels very close to home.
Elijah, you remember, had coordinated a sort of cosmic duel with a national audience. He proposed that the people of Israel should settle once and for all the matter of which God they would serve: the Lord or Baal. And, to help them decide, he arranged for the famous showdown between himself (as the lone representative of the Lord) and hundreds of priests and prophets of Baal. The Lord answered in power and in providence, and the representatives of Baal were put to the sword. But when the ineffectual, wicked king, Ahab, reported the matter to his viciously wicked wife, Jezebel, she resolved to have Elijah hunted and killed. And so Elijah ran for his life.
That a person would be frightened and run away under these circumstances is unsurprising. Who can blame him? But it does seem out of character for a man who, up until this point, has fearlessly gone toe-to-toe with the king, with famine, and with overwhelming opposition. Yet every circuit breaker has a point at which it trips. And every person has a point at which they just can’t take any more.
So Elijah flees into the wilderness and sinks down in despair. When the Lord comes to him, Elijah waves the white flag. He can take no more: he’s ready to die. Yet divinely provided rest and nourishment strengthened the weary prophet enough for him to make the journey all the way to Mt. Horeb, where he had a more dramatic encounter with his God.
The dialogue between the Lord and his servant is fascinating. Elijah is candid in his weariness, his discouragement, and his fear. But much as he did with Moses on that same mountain so many generations earlier, the Lord answers Elijah’s objections and still sends him off on a divine assignment. There is no “retirement” for the man of God.
The most famous element of the episode, of course, is the series of awesome spectacles that surround Elijah, only to come up empty in the sense that “the Lord was not in” any of those spectacles. Instead, the Lord was heard in a “still, small voice.”
It is a testament to the tenderness of God that he did not overwhelm Elijah in that moment. Surely he could have. Certainly he could have spoken, as elsewhere in scripture, with a voice that was like thunder or a voice that was like a trumpet. He could have awed and overwhelmed Elijah, but instead he seems to have met the prophet in the fragility of his spirit at that moment. It was a still, small voice. And it spoke to Elijah where he was at.
You and I no doubt have our own testimonies along these lines. So do so many of the people in our pews. Testimonies about times when we have been bold as a lion (like Elijah at Carmel) and times when we have felt spent, scared, and despairing. And testimonies about how the Lord has met us, how he has spoken to us what we need, and how he has sent us on our way to keep serving him until the end.
Galatians 3:23-29
The fascinating question is the relationship of God’s law to God’s people. Paul says that it served a specific purpose until the coming of Christ. What purpose? The NIV, ESV, and HCSB, among others, render Pau’s words as “our guardian.” The King James Version translated the phrase as “our schoolmaster” while the New Kings James opts for “our tutor.” Meanwhile, the CEV chooses “our teacher.” The Amplified Bible, in its expansive way, includes “disciplinarian.” And the Good News Translation says that “the law was in charge of us.”
While the best way to translate Paul’s term is evidently open to debate, one thing is clear: his imagery is personal. Paul’s portrait of the law’s purpose suggests the role of one person in the life of another person. And, specifically, it is the role of an older, authorized person who will teach and train a younger person until he or she reaches adulthood.
I would think that many contemporary American church members would do well to read the Old Testament law through that lens. (Many of them would do well to read it, at all!) For to think of the law as the tutor or guardian that God himself assigned to help teach and train us might help us recognize the law as more accessible and more relevant than we customarily do.
The counterargument, of course, would be that we may leave the law behind now because we have, as it were, graduated from its class. At some level that’s true, and we will return to that truth as Paul articulates it. At another level, though, we might note that one only graduates from a course of study when one has successfully learned the material. Perhaps we would do well to ask ourselves whether we have learned from the law all that the Lord wanted it to teach us.
Set seemingly in contrast to the law is faith. He refers to “until faith came” and “now that faith has come.” Yet faith must not be thought of as over against the law, for a part of how Paul expresses the function of the law is “that in order that we might be justified by faith.” By way of a sports analogy, we mustn't think that the law was the quarterback that we cut in order to make room for the quarterback called faith. Better that we should understand the law as the relay team runner who handed the baton to faith.
So we began by asking about the relationship between the law of God and the people of God, and Paul does describe the law in relational terms. But now we see that faith brings us into two new relationships. By faith, we become both children of God and children of Abraham.
We get a sense for how important being descendants of Abraham was for the Jews based on John the Baptist’s targeting of that particular claim (Matthew 3:9). Evidently that was central to their self-understanding and their sense of the basis for their covenant relationship with God. Now, however, Paul (himself a Jew) was making the startling claim that anyone who by faith belongs to Christ is reckoned a child of Abraham, and thus an heir to the promises of God made to and through Abraham.
Meanwhile, the news that by faith we are made children of God is at once both central to the gospel and also a largely unrecognized part of the gospel. As to the former point, we think of passages like John 1:12-13, Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:4-7, and 1 John 3:1. But while the gospel message declares that we, who by nature only creatures of God and because of sin have become enemies of God, are adopted as children of God, a certain vague doctrine of niceness and inclusiveness prevails in our culture so that, among those who even believe in God, there is an assumption that “we’re all children of God.” In the process, we presumptuously elevate ourselves and we underestimate and understate the grace of God.
Our relationship to the law, then, helped to train and prepare us for faith in Christ. And by faith in Christ, we enjoy a new status in relation to Abraham, and we are adopted into an entirely new relationship with God!
Luke 8:26-39
It’s possible that a typical American congregation will be uneasy with our assigned Gospel lection for this week: partly because they are finicky about the notion of demons and partly because they don’t like what happens to the pigs. Fair enough. But let us steer clear of the temptation to change, to ignore, or to explain away the parts of scripture with which we are uneasy. Instead, let us embrace them as God’s word and as therefore edifying and revelatory.
In the particular passage at hand, we encounter a story which I believe is marvelous because it so artfully pulls back the curtain on three characters. That is to say, by seeing how three different characters behave in this episode, we come to understand how they behave all the time. The three characters I have in mind are the Lord, the devil, and faithless bystanders.
The demoniac, of course, is arguably the central character in the story. Yet I am not listing him among the three because, for our purposes, he is the backdrop against which the other characters show themselves. When we meet him, he is a tortured soul, whose troubles are literally out of control. Yet at the end of the scene, he is a sane and whole man with a testimony. But let us see how the other three characters reveal themselves in his story.
First, there is the devil, in this case represented by the infestation of demons. What do we discover about this enemy of God and humanity from this episode in Luke 8? We observe that his presence and his influence are fundamentally destructive. We see the pre-Jesus condition of the man and then, shortly after, the condition of the pigs, and we are reminded of Jesus’ indictment: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10 ESV). How true. Meanwhile, at the risk of belittling important things, the demons’ response to Jesus makes the devil look like a classic bully — heartless when picking on those smaller and weaker than he is, but cowering when confronted with someone bigger and stronger. The demons have preyed on this poor man from the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus steps on shore, however, they are not so tough anymore. Instead, they are begging for mercy, for they know that he can dispose of them with a word.
Second, we fast forward to near the end of the episode and see the “character” that I am identifying generically as the faithless bystanders. These are the townspeople who come out to discover that two things have happened: a human being has been delivered and a herd of pigs has been lost. The sort of thing that causes rejoicing in heaven causes fear and anxiety among the faithless bystanders. And so, in a move that will go down as among the most foolish and most tragic possible, they ask Jesus to go away.
Finally, most importantly, there is Jesus. The scene is a microcosm of his first coming, of his second coming, and of every individual’s testimony. Before he arrives, there is chaos, darkness, and bondage. Upon his arrival, he shows himself to be fearless, compassionate, and the one with authority. And after he has done his work, there is salvation, peace, and liberty. Just as he had said what the thief comes to do, he proves in this episode what he comes to do: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
I am suggesting three characters in our Gospel lection. We see what they are and what they do in this episode, and we recognize that that is always what they are and what they do.
Application
As we illustrated briefly above, the human desire — and need — to be free takes many forms. There is more than one kind of freedom, for there is more than one kind of bondage. One of the ironies of the human condition, however, is that we are not always clear about the nature of our bondage.
By way of analogy, we might think of an adolescent addict who is admitted by his parents to a facility for recovery. On the one hand, he may find the facility and its program to be confining — he may want to be free of it. On the other hand, his parents and the staff at the facility know that his real bondage is something else.
Across the broad and varied spectrum of this week’s texts, how many people need to be free? And how many of them know it?
In the scene just prior to the one recorded in the Old Testament lection, the Israelites were in a kind of bondage to wicked Jezebel’s influence and their Baal worship. We discover in the following scene, meanwhile, that Elijah needed to be set free, too. His worship was not misguided nor his behavior wicked, but he needed to be set free from other familiar oppressors: fear, weariness, and discouragement; perhaps even despair.
In the gospel pericope, the demoniac is a fascinating study in bondage. On the one hand, he is unable to be restrained by the sorts of chains that would keep ordinary men confined. On the other hand, it was clear to all that he was a man who was not free. His bondage was not external but internal, not physical but spiritual. And whatever one makes of demon-possession today, there are still multitudes of people who fit that same descriptive profile.
The citizens of that region where the demoniac lived, meanwhile, also needed to be set free in their own way. Anytime you see an individual or group asking Jesus to go away, you know something isn’t quite right. What was it that had them trapped? Was it fear of the unknown? Things beyond their understanding and control? Fear of strangers and the changes they might bring to one’s community? Fear of economic disruption or loss? They were eager to send Jesus away, and so they were a people who needed to be set free.
Finally, there is the message from Paul to the Galatians. He, too, speaks of a kind of bondage, but it is a strange one. “We were held captive under the law,” he says, “imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.” And so even God’s good gift of the law proved, as a consequence of sin, to be a source of bondage for human beings.
So across the span of our three passages, we see a wide variety of types of bondage. We might also observe varying levels of perception about these bondages, and the desire to be free is not uniform. What is consistent in every case, however, is the posture of the Lord. We may rely on him always to want us to be free. Indeed, this is the grand refrain that rings through all of the texts. The Lord wanted Israel to be free from the bondages of Jezebel and Baal. The Lord wanted Elijah to be free from his fear and despair. Jesus set free the demoniac. And Paul declares that faith in Christ is what sets us free from the captivity to the law that we experience in our sin. All of which combines to bring to mind another statement from Paul to those Galatians: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1 NIV).
Alternative Application(s)
Luke 8:26-39 — “A Week to Preach Down?”
When I was just a young man with a calling to the ministry, I came across a quote, which made an impression on me at the time and which stayed with me ever since. I confess that I don’t remember any more where I read it, and I have since seen it attributed to different people, but the wisdom it expressed was this: Preach nothing up but Christ and nothing down but the devil. I am glad that advice caught me early so that I tried always to keep my preaching within those guardrails.
Personally, I didn’t spend much time preaching the devil down, for I didn’t want to spend much time preaching about him, at all. I think there is a risk that he gets too high a billing in some Christian circles. We should bear in mind the percentage of material in scripture that is devoted to him vis-a-vis the percentage that is devoted to the Lord. He is arguably an unimportant being, for his importance is only derivative — that is, he is important only because of what he destroys. The madmen who, at different times, have tried to break or deface Michelangelo’s Pieta or DaVinci’s Mona Lisa are not, by themselves, important. They only garner headlines by messing with things that are important.
What is of value to a congregation, however, is to strip away from the enemy whatever his disguises may be so that we can see him for what he is. And, as we have noted above, this episode from Luke 8 helps us to see the truth about the devil. We touched briefly on two aspects: his destructiveness and his cowardice. Now let us expand our observations to include two more principles that will help us to recognize the devil at work.
First, we circle back around to the principle that the devil’s presence and influence are fundamentally destructive. What the demons were doing to the man was torturous. And, of course, what they did to the pigs was ultimately fatal.
I think it is fair to extrapolate, then, and conclude that that is characteristic of the devil’s work and emblematic of the devil’s will. When we see some behavior or habit or phenomenon that is destroying lives, I think we may be assured that the devil is applauding. When souls are being damaged and homes are ruined, we may recognize the enemy’s fingerprints.
The second principle we observe, meanwhile, is what we might call the “ganging up” effect. I am struck by the fact that, when Jesus asked for a name, the terrible response he received was “Legion,” for it was not a single demon involved but many demons. It is interesting to note that the demons congregated together.
I think that here, too, there is a larger principle involved that can help us to recognize the devil’s work in our world (and perhaps in our lives). Specifically, consider the company that evil keeps. I suspect that it is rare for any vice to stand alone. Each vice typically has sidekicks and companions. Bad habits, bad influences, bad behaviors tend to pal around together. They may masquerade as fun or harmless. Of course they do. But look more closely, and see that they are “Legion.”
There is great blessing to be had by helping people to see, to understand, and to recognize God's work in the world or in their lives. It is not so lovely, meanwhile, to focus on the flipside. Nevertheless, it is an important tool for God’s people to learn how to spot the enemy’s work, as well.
Freedom is a theme that pulses through scripture, through world history, and through the individual human experience. If it were a distinctive musical motif — like, for example, the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony — I think we would hear it continually. It is always playing, in either the foreground or the background, of any human being’s daily living.
Human beings long to be free, and we demonstrate that longing at so many different levels. I think of the toddler who mischievously climbs out of the crib. I think of the elementary school girl who begins arguing with her mother about wanting to pick out her own clothes. I think of the adolescent boy who increasingly chafes at parental rules, curfews, and questions. The frustrated employee. The disgruntled professional athlete. The unhappy patient who is put on restrictions by their doctor. All of these people are yearning for freedom.
And those cases, of course, are entirely benign when set beside some of the tragic circumstances around the globe or across the pages of history. Victims of abduction and human trafficking. Slaves. Addicts. People living under cruel and oppressive governmental systems. People with severely limiting diseases or physical conditions. So many types of people who long — and perhaps even strive — for some sort of freedom.
In light of all this, it should be greatly encouraging for us to know that the Lord God also wants us to be free. There is great comfort and boldness, you see, in knowing that you are on the same side as God: that you are wanting the same thing or pursuing the same goal. This is what gave rise to the boldness of young David, no doubt, when he strode down into the valley to fight Goliath, or of Elijah when he trudged up Carmel to take on the representatives of Baal. So it is that, in our quest for freedom, we are desiring for ourselves what our Creator himself desires for us.
Indeed, the very story of that creation bears witness to God’s desire for us to be free. If he had not made us free, after all, then Adam and Eve would not have been able to make the fatal choice that they did. We presume that, in the omniscience and eternality of God, he knew full well what they would do, yet he made them free nevertheless. Furthermore, inasmuch Christ “was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8 NIV), we understand that God also knew what the human creatures’ freedom would cost him. See, then, how precious to him is our freedom!
On this Sunday not long before our nation turns at least some of its attention to the theme of freedom, let us consider that profound theme in our assigned texts.
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
James famously said, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” (James 5:17 ESV). When we read some of the Elijah stories — when we see his boldness and his divine power — we want to ask James, “Really?” I hesitate to put myself in Elijah’s company. He seems to be made of better stuff than I am.
But then we come to this week’s assigned Old Testament text, and we see that Elijah was, indeed, just as human as we are. For having just presided over one of the most spectacular miracles in scripture, now we see that the prophet is frightened, tired, and on the run. I may not recognize myself in the story of Elijah on Carmel. But this episode feels very close to home.
Elijah, you remember, had coordinated a sort of cosmic duel with a national audience. He proposed that the people of Israel should settle once and for all the matter of which God they would serve: the Lord or Baal. And, to help them decide, he arranged for the famous showdown between himself (as the lone representative of the Lord) and hundreds of priests and prophets of Baal. The Lord answered in power and in providence, and the representatives of Baal were put to the sword. But when the ineffectual, wicked king, Ahab, reported the matter to his viciously wicked wife, Jezebel, she resolved to have Elijah hunted and killed. And so Elijah ran for his life.
That a person would be frightened and run away under these circumstances is unsurprising. Who can blame him? But it does seem out of character for a man who, up until this point, has fearlessly gone toe-to-toe with the king, with famine, and with overwhelming opposition. Yet every circuit breaker has a point at which it trips. And every person has a point at which they just can’t take any more.
So Elijah flees into the wilderness and sinks down in despair. When the Lord comes to him, Elijah waves the white flag. He can take no more: he’s ready to die. Yet divinely provided rest and nourishment strengthened the weary prophet enough for him to make the journey all the way to Mt. Horeb, where he had a more dramatic encounter with his God.
The dialogue between the Lord and his servant is fascinating. Elijah is candid in his weariness, his discouragement, and his fear. But much as he did with Moses on that same mountain so many generations earlier, the Lord answers Elijah’s objections and still sends him off on a divine assignment. There is no “retirement” for the man of God.
The most famous element of the episode, of course, is the series of awesome spectacles that surround Elijah, only to come up empty in the sense that “the Lord was not in” any of those spectacles. Instead, the Lord was heard in a “still, small voice.”
It is a testament to the tenderness of God that he did not overwhelm Elijah in that moment. Surely he could have. Certainly he could have spoken, as elsewhere in scripture, with a voice that was like thunder or a voice that was like a trumpet. He could have awed and overwhelmed Elijah, but instead he seems to have met the prophet in the fragility of his spirit at that moment. It was a still, small voice. And it spoke to Elijah where he was at.
You and I no doubt have our own testimonies along these lines. So do so many of the people in our pews. Testimonies about times when we have been bold as a lion (like Elijah at Carmel) and times when we have felt spent, scared, and despairing. And testimonies about how the Lord has met us, how he has spoken to us what we need, and how he has sent us on our way to keep serving him until the end.
Galatians 3:23-29
The fascinating question is the relationship of God’s law to God’s people. Paul says that it served a specific purpose until the coming of Christ. What purpose? The NIV, ESV, and HCSB, among others, render Pau’s words as “our guardian.” The King James Version translated the phrase as “our schoolmaster” while the New Kings James opts for “our tutor.” Meanwhile, the CEV chooses “our teacher.” The Amplified Bible, in its expansive way, includes “disciplinarian.” And the Good News Translation says that “the law was in charge of us.”
While the best way to translate Paul’s term is evidently open to debate, one thing is clear: his imagery is personal. Paul’s portrait of the law’s purpose suggests the role of one person in the life of another person. And, specifically, it is the role of an older, authorized person who will teach and train a younger person until he or she reaches adulthood.
I would think that many contemporary American church members would do well to read the Old Testament law through that lens. (Many of them would do well to read it, at all!) For to think of the law as the tutor or guardian that God himself assigned to help teach and train us might help us recognize the law as more accessible and more relevant than we customarily do.
The counterargument, of course, would be that we may leave the law behind now because we have, as it were, graduated from its class. At some level that’s true, and we will return to that truth as Paul articulates it. At another level, though, we might note that one only graduates from a course of study when one has successfully learned the material. Perhaps we would do well to ask ourselves whether we have learned from the law all that the Lord wanted it to teach us.
Set seemingly in contrast to the law is faith. He refers to “until faith came” and “now that faith has come.” Yet faith must not be thought of as over against the law, for a part of how Paul expresses the function of the law is “that in order that we might be justified by faith.” By way of a sports analogy, we mustn't think that the law was the quarterback that we cut in order to make room for the quarterback called faith. Better that we should understand the law as the relay team runner who handed the baton to faith.
So we began by asking about the relationship between the law of God and the people of God, and Paul does describe the law in relational terms. But now we see that faith brings us into two new relationships. By faith, we become both children of God and children of Abraham.
We get a sense for how important being descendants of Abraham was for the Jews based on John the Baptist’s targeting of that particular claim (Matthew 3:9). Evidently that was central to their self-understanding and their sense of the basis for their covenant relationship with God. Now, however, Paul (himself a Jew) was making the startling claim that anyone who by faith belongs to Christ is reckoned a child of Abraham, and thus an heir to the promises of God made to and through Abraham.
Meanwhile, the news that by faith we are made children of God is at once both central to the gospel and also a largely unrecognized part of the gospel. As to the former point, we think of passages like John 1:12-13, Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:4-7, and 1 John 3:1. But while the gospel message declares that we, who by nature only creatures of God and because of sin have become enemies of God, are adopted as children of God, a certain vague doctrine of niceness and inclusiveness prevails in our culture so that, among those who even believe in God, there is an assumption that “we’re all children of God.” In the process, we presumptuously elevate ourselves and we underestimate and understate the grace of God.
Our relationship to the law, then, helped to train and prepare us for faith in Christ. And by faith in Christ, we enjoy a new status in relation to Abraham, and we are adopted into an entirely new relationship with God!
Luke 8:26-39
It’s possible that a typical American congregation will be uneasy with our assigned Gospel lection for this week: partly because they are finicky about the notion of demons and partly because they don’t like what happens to the pigs. Fair enough. But let us steer clear of the temptation to change, to ignore, or to explain away the parts of scripture with which we are uneasy. Instead, let us embrace them as God’s word and as therefore edifying and revelatory.
In the particular passage at hand, we encounter a story which I believe is marvelous because it so artfully pulls back the curtain on three characters. That is to say, by seeing how three different characters behave in this episode, we come to understand how they behave all the time. The three characters I have in mind are the Lord, the devil, and faithless bystanders.
The demoniac, of course, is arguably the central character in the story. Yet I am not listing him among the three because, for our purposes, he is the backdrop against which the other characters show themselves. When we meet him, he is a tortured soul, whose troubles are literally out of control. Yet at the end of the scene, he is a sane and whole man with a testimony. But let us see how the other three characters reveal themselves in his story.
First, there is the devil, in this case represented by the infestation of demons. What do we discover about this enemy of God and humanity from this episode in Luke 8? We observe that his presence and his influence are fundamentally destructive. We see the pre-Jesus condition of the man and then, shortly after, the condition of the pigs, and we are reminded of Jesus’ indictment: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10 ESV). How true. Meanwhile, at the risk of belittling important things, the demons’ response to Jesus makes the devil look like a classic bully — heartless when picking on those smaller and weaker than he is, but cowering when confronted with someone bigger and stronger. The demons have preyed on this poor man from the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus steps on shore, however, they are not so tough anymore. Instead, they are begging for mercy, for they know that he can dispose of them with a word.
Second, we fast forward to near the end of the episode and see the “character” that I am identifying generically as the faithless bystanders. These are the townspeople who come out to discover that two things have happened: a human being has been delivered and a herd of pigs has been lost. The sort of thing that causes rejoicing in heaven causes fear and anxiety among the faithless bystanders. And so, in a move that will go down as among the most foolish and most tragic possible, they ask Jesus to go away.
Finally, most importantly, there is Jesus. The scene is a microcosm of his first coming, of his second coming, and of every individual’s testimony. Before he arrives, there is chaos, darkness, and bondage. Upon his arrival, he shows himself to be fearless, compassionate, and the one with authority. And after he has done his work, there is salvation, peace, and liberty. Just as he had said what the thief comes to do, he proves in this episode what he comes to do: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
I am suggesting three characters in our Gospel lection. We see what they are and what they do in this episode, and we recognize that that is always what they are and what they do.
Application
As we illustrated briefly above, the human desire — and need — to be free takes many forms. There is more than one kind of freedom, for there is more than one kind of bondage. One of the ironies of the human condition, however, is that we are not always clear about the nature of our bondage.
By way of analogy, we might think of an adolescent addict who is admitted by his parents to a facility for recovery. On the one hand, he may find the facility and its program to be confining — he may want to be free of it. On the other hand, his parents and the staff at the facility know that his real bondage is something else.
Across the broad and varied spectrum of this week’s texts, how many people need to be free? And how many of them know it?
In the scene just prior to the one recorded in the Old Testament lection, the Israelites were in a kind of bondage to wicked Jezebel’s influence and their Baal worship. We discover in the following scene, meanwhile, that Elijah needed to be set free, too. His worship was not misguided nor his behavior wicked, but he needed to be set free from other familiar oppressors: fear, weariness, and discouragement; perhaps even despair.
In the gospel pericope, the demoniac is a fascinating study in bondage. On the one hand, he is unable to be restrained by the sorts of chains that would keep ordinary men confined. On the other hand, it was clear to all that he was a man who was not free. His bondage was not external but internal, not physical but spiritual. And whatever one makes of demon-possession today, there are still multitudes of people who fit that same descriptive profile.
The citizens of that region where the demoniac lived, meanwhile, also needed to be set free in their own way. Anytime you see an individual or group asking Jesus to go away, you know something isn’t quite right. What was it that had them trapped? Was it fear of the unknown? Things beyond their understanding and control? Fear of strangers and the changes they might bring to one’s community? Fear of economic disruption or loss? They were eager to send Jesus away, and so they were a people who needed to be set free.
Finally, there is the message from Paul to the Galatians. He, too, speaks of a kind of bondage, but it is a strange one. “We were held captive under the law,” he says, “imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.” And so even God’s good gift of the law proved, as a consequence of sin, to be a source of bondage for human beings.
So across the span of our three passages, we see a wide variety of types of bondage. We might also observe varying levels of perception about these bondages, and the desire to be free is not uniform. What is consistent in every case, however, is the posture of the Lord. We may rely on him always to want us to be free. Indeed, this is the grand refrain that rings through all of the texts. The Lord wanted Israel to be free from the bondages of Jezebel and Baal. The Lord wanted Elijah to be free from his fear and despair. Jesus set free the demoniac. And Paul declares that faith in Christ is what sets us free from the captivity to the law that we experience in our sin. All of which combines to bring to mind another statement from Paul to those Galatians: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1 NIV).
Alternative Application(s)
Luke 8:26-39 — “A Week to Preach Down?”
When I was just a young man with a calling to the ministry, I came across a quote, which made an impression on me at the time and which stayed with me ever since. I confess that I don’t remember any more where I read it, and I have since seen it attributed to different people, but the wisdom it expressed was this: Preach nothing up but Christ and nothing down but the devil. I am glad that advice caught me early so that I tried always to keep my preaching within those guardrails.
Personally, I didn’t spend much time preaching the devil down, for I didn’t want to spend much time preaching about him, at all. I think there is a risk that he gets too high a billing in some Christian circles. We should bear in mind the percentage of material in scripture that is devoted to him vis-a-vis the percentage that is devoted to the Lord. He is arguably an unimportant being, for his importance is only derivative — that is, he is important only because of what he destroys. The madmen who, at different times, have tried to break or deface Michelangelo’s Pieta or DaVinci’s Mona Lisa are not, by themselves, important. They only garner headlines by messing with things that are important.
What is of value to a congregation, however, is to strip away from the enemy whatever his disguises may be so that we can see him for what he is. And, as we have noted above, this episode from Luke 8 helps us to see the truth about the devil. We touched briefly on two aspects: his destructiveness and his cowardice. Now let us expand our observations to include two more principles that will help us to recognize the devil at work.
First, we circle back around to the principle that the devil’s presence and influence are fundamentally destructive. What the demons were doing to the man was torturous. And, of course, what they did to the pigs was ultimately fatal.
I think it is fair to extrapolate, then, and conclude that that is characteristic of the devil’s work and emblematic of the devil’s will. When we see some behavior or habit or phenomenon that is destroying lives, I think we may be assured that the devil is applauding. When souls are being damaged and homes are ruined, we may recognize the enemy’s fingerprints.
The second principle we observe, meanwhile, is what we might call the “ganging up” effect. I am struck by the fact that, when Jesus asked for a name, the terrible response he received was “Legion,” for it was not a single demon involved but many demons. It is interesting to note that the demons congregated together.
I think that here, too, there is a larger principle involved that can help us to recognize the devil’s work in our world (and perhaps in our lives). Specifically, consider the company that evil keeps. I suspect that it is rare for any vice to stand alone. Each vice typically has sidekicks and companions. Bad habits, bad influences, bad behaviors tend to pal around together. They may masquerade as fun or harmless. Of course they do. But look more closely, and see that they are “Legion.”
There is great blessing to be had by helping people to see, to understand, and to recognize God's work in the world or in their lives. It is not so lovely, meanwhile, to focus on the flipside. Nevertheless, it is an important tool for God’s people to learn how to spot the enemy’s work, as well.
