Be Not Afraid?

NRS Luke 8:37 "Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned."

Many of you may recognize this passage as being the conclusion of Jesus' encounter with the Gerasene demonic where he drowns a thousand demons in a bunch of pigs. The story on its own merits is a little bizarre. I mean really, a demon possessed guy who can't be shackled and spends most of his time naked amongst the tombs, a legion of demons who has a spokesdemon that is bold enough to ask Jesus for a favor, and a herd of pigs in the thousands whose poor sense of direction leads them off a cliff to their death. All of these characters are more than bizarre, but the thing that has always struck me the strangest about this story is the verse quoted above. The crowds come to see if in fact the report they received about the power of Jesus was true and when they discover that the report is not just factual in their minds, it actually is true, they are seized with fear and they ask Jesus to LEAVE!

In their fear they ask the Savior of the World to leave from their land. In their fear, they ask the one person who can redeem them from that very fear to get in his boat and go. Whenever I read this I am reminded of one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now. Through out the book the narrator is irritated with Marvin who just will not leave and constantly expresses himself, "The time has come, the time is now, Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now! Marvin K. Mooney, I don't care how, Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!" The poor guy just wants Marvin to leave and so do the people of the Gerasenes, "Jesus of Nazareth, I don't care how; Jesus of Nazareth will you please go now!" The difference in Jesus and Marvin is that Jesus leaves at the first request. "So he got in the boat and returned," is the rest of the verse. At their request he leaves without protest, but he leaves the former demoniac behind to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.

I never cease to be amazed at their actions in this chapter. I cannot quite grasp the thought of witnessing something so incredible, so God empowered and then asking Jesus to leave. It is amazing what we do in our fear; but truth be told we are probably not all that different than the people of the Gerasenes. How often do we ask Jesus to leave a particular area of our lives? How often do we let fear control our actions and the direction we move in our lives? Amidst reading this piece of scripture this morning, I have also been reading a book by Dr. Robert Mulholland Jr. called The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self. In chapter two he describes what he identifies as our "false self," that identity we all create for ourselves that is not centered in a relationship with God. He describes many characteristics of our false selves like being protective, possessive, manipulative, destructive, self-promoting, and self indulgent but he begins his description with the observation that one of the primary characteristics of our false self is being fearful.

He notes how the story of the fall begins with fear. Once Adam and Eve eat of the fruit that they believe will put them on an even playing field with God, when He comes looking for them walking through the garden in the cool of the evening, they hide. When He confronts their behavior and asks them, "why?" They simply respond, "We were afraid." Adam and Eve have altered their identity from being rooted and centered in God to being rooted and centered in self, and it is so early in this process for them that they have not begun the unhealthy process of creating their self identity in work, or play, or the expectations of others. In the absence of an self identity rooted in either God or the unhealthy world their response is fear. God has given them no reason to fear Him. They know nothing of punishment, or consequence, or even death but for whatever reason they are afraid of God. Mulholland further observes that so often in the Bible when people are greeted by the presence of God the first instruction to them is "Do not be afraid." Our lives seperated from God are rooted first and foremost in fear.

I think this help explains the behavior of the people in the Gerasenes to an extent. These are Gentiles, they are not the people of Israel. They are used to worshipping gods, that is statues and sculptures, idols and images, ideas and stories rather than worshipping the one true God who does the miraculous all of the time. They have lived their lives seperated from their creator and while they have gotten right the need to worship something beyond themselves, they have gotten the object of that worship wrong. Pagan worship practices were really rooted in self. Sure they came to a temple to offer a sacrifice to their "god," but then they would indulge themselves in overeatting or temple prostitutes and their presence would be about trying to manipulate their "god" into doing something for them. I would argue that part of the indulgence was rooted in the lack of a real expectation that their "god" would do anything. That is the part they got right, idols, self created gods are not living, are not real and therefore cannot do anything! Sometimes life is easier with no expectations for the amazing or miraculous; with no expectations of a God who actually cares about us and wants to be involved in our lives; with no expectations that we have value and worth to the creator of the universe.

When we think we have no value to God the natural response is fear, because the Creator of the Universe clearly has the ability to eradicate our presence from the universe and if we have no value to Him, He is probably more than willing to do so! The people of the Gerasenes have been so used to their gods doing nothing that when the one true God shows up in the person of Jesus Christ and expresses his love for a single individual by freeing him from a lifelong torment by demons they don't know how to process this truth. First, their gods are their gods and the Jews' God is the Jews' God, so why would the Jews' God be interested in one of them. Second, why would a god be interested in the life of an individual when historically individuals have no value to gods? Third, if this God will allow a bunch of pigs to throw themselves to their death off a cliff in the process of freeing the demoniac, what will this God do to them who have been less than hospitable to the same demoniac?

Sometimes when we are confronted with the truth that the Creator of the universe loves and cares about us we feel fear rise up from within our depths because we have lived under our own self identity and the belief that we do not matter to God for so long that we cannot understand. We see God as holy and seperate and ourselves as.....well, less than holy and we do not understand how those two things can exist together, so we are afraid that the holy will destroy the unholy. We are afraid at the thought of the self identity we have created and lived with for so long being destroyed and replaced by something we don't recognize or understand. We get comfortable in our seperateness from God and the thought of anything else is more than a little scary. God rushing into the lives of those in the Gerasenes brings such an unknown that they would rather live in their current situations, even if that means being possessed by demons, than to confront the possible freedom that would come through Jesus.

In realizing this, I have to ask myself, where has fear controlled my relationship with God through Jesus? Where have I allowed the comfort of my self created identity to cause me to push away whatever it is God is trying to do in my life? Where have I chosen to stay in misery and pain because the unknown future in Christ was just too scary for me? Am I really different than those in the Gerasenes? No, I don't have access to a bunch of pigs and I don't know any naked guys hanging out in cemeteries, but am I not just as afraid at times when I am confronted with the power of God and with the truth that I really do matter to Him? Haven't I asked God to leave my presence at times with thoughts like, "I want to live for you God, but let me do this or that first." Kind of like the young man who wants to bury his father before he follows Jesus, "yeah Jesus I want to follow you but just not yet, so do you mind going on your way until I am ready?"

The good news is that we don't have to be afraid. While life in Christ brings many unknowns and at times things that make us uncomfortable, life in Christ is defined by the love God has for each of us. We are loved by the Father and the Father's desire for each of our lives is good. He wants joy, peace, hope, love and freedom for each of us. He wants each of us to know that we have value to Him. He wants each of us to define ourselves not by what we hear others say, or what we see in the mirror but by His love for each of us. He wants each of us to replace our fear with a hopeful faith in Him. A faith that is rooted in the hope of peace, joy and love in the Father. God knows that our fear is rooted in our sin and rather than deny either He tells us, "be not afraid." He acknowledges our fear and meets us in that fearful place to help us move from a fearful life rooted in sin to a place of faith and hope; but He will not force that on us and if we ask Him to depart He will respect that, but He will leave a constant testimony to His love for us and He will be right there by the shore waiting on us to invite Him back into our lives.

God's desire for each of us is good and while we may not know what that good looks like, we can trust in our Faithful Father that His will for our lives is always better than our own desires. While fear may be our instinctive response, we do not have to let that fear control us. We can overcome our fear and move into a deeper relationship with God so that we can find a new identity that is rooted in Him, that can be free of fear and marked by hope, joy, love and freedom. Let us each be challenged today to grab a hold of our brothers and sisters in Christ and together enter this relationship with God to its fullest rather than being like the people of the Gerasenes who as a group ask Jesus to depart. Let us support each other to overcome our fear and invite God to do the mighty and miraculous in our midst!

In Christ's Love,
Faron