21.3.13

SERMON ON MIRACLES OF JESUS



Power over Demons
 Luke 4:31-37
Jesus and his disciples make it to a Gentile region on the other side of the lake, where a demon-possessed man comes to meet him.
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But this is not any demon-possessed man: this man has many, many demons. A Roman legion had 6000 soldiers: that may be an exaggeration, but Luke says that many demons had gone into him
As a result, this man was powerfully deranged. He was out of control: naked, living in the tombs, fleeing to solitary places having broken his chains and overpowered his guard. We're faced with a different sort of chaos.
This wild-man comes out to meet Jesus, and it's immediately clear who is in control. The demons had complete power over the man, but at Jesus' word they are helpless. Three times, we're told, they beg him: they know where the power resides.
Just as Jesus brought calm to the storm in the lake, so he now brings calm and order into the life of this man. We find him afterwards sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind.

http://belovedschurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Pigs.jpg 
Why did Jesus allow the demons to destroy the pigs? Well, it is the pigs that show us that this episode was a genuine encounter with the forces of evil. If it weren't for the pigs we might be able to say that this was only a miracle of psychology: that Jesus somehow simply changed the mental state of the man, restoring a deranged man to sanity. But the destruction of the pigs shows us that the demons were real. Jesus had confronted the powers of evil and won.
What a scene it must have been as the maddened herd of pigs raced down the bank into the lake! No wonder the people were overcome with fear and asked him to leave.

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