Luke 8:26-39

This story is SO beautiful.  You can read it here if you haven’t yet: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%208%3A26-39&version=NLT

First, let me say, I love what Luke is doing by placing this story right after Jesus calms the storm.  For one thing, they probably happened in sequence.  Jesus has been teaching huge crowds for days and suddenly tells his disciples, “I need to get to the other side of the lake”.  

He calms a storm that threatens to kill them on the way, arrives, rescues a demon possessed man, and turns around and heads back to the Jewish side of the lake. But it’s also kind of cool how the two stories told back to back demonstrate that Jesus has power over both the natural and the supernatural.  

Another thing that captivates my imagination is this.  If they happened chronologically as Luke tells it, Jesus walked away from a huge crowd of people and braved a brutal storm for the sole purpose of healing this man.  No one else in the village even wanted to talk to Jesus.  They were terrified after the whole pig thing.  Not gonna lie, I have always felt bad for the pigs and the farmers, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the point of the story.  

Anyways, I’m just kind of captured by the idea that Jesus went to all this trouble for one guy.  And ya, he was one guy with big problems, but he was just one guy.  

You see, I was born and raised in church, almost literally.  I gave my heart to Jesus when I was four.  My testimony is not one of radical change.  It is one of God’s endless grace in continuing to work on a girl who is generally way more comfortable in my spiritual state than I should be.  My story is a long, slow trail with the odd rough bit that made me so uncomfortable that I was willing to let God take me to the next level of terrain.  My story is the story of a faithful God who refused to give up working to make me something valuable even though I am usually embarrassingly contented with my own mediocrity.  

But there are people in my life, including my husband and my best friend, whose testimonies are entirely different.  My husband Richard is the youngest of sixteen siblings! (Yeah, we’re all thinking the same thing).  It was a blended family, but that’s a lot of kids.  They may have gotten dropped at Sunday School once or twice.  I think a couple of them sang in a church choir through some community initiative.  But Jesus was not a part of my hubby’s childhood.  And then, in his late teens, through a series of circumstances, some quite unremarkable and others tragic, he began working weekends at a senior’s building that was attached to a church.  Many teens from the church also worked there, and before long he was invited to a sports outreach

at the church next door.   The  youth pastor  of that church eventually led him to Jesus, baptised him and, a decade or so later, performed our wedding. 

Richard would be the first to tell you he has no idea why God decided to claim him, but he would also tell you that there is no doubt in his mind that God saw a boy who was ready to be rescued, and he moved mountains to do just that.  

My best friend Tina has a similar story.  She was just minding her own business, finding her way through life with no inclination that there was someone who could unconditionally love her.  And then she met Jesus, and he has been changing her life ever since. 

I see the same thing in their stories that I see in this passage in Luke.  There is this incredibly powerful, brilliant God working in all of creation, keeping it spinning, moving human history towards a beautiful, hope-filled future that he planned before time existed, guiding the cosmos in their celestial dance.  And this same God will paddle across a lake in a storm to reach one person who needs him.  

It sincerely can bring tears to my eyes thinking about it.  This demon possessed guy who lived two thousand years ago, my husband, and my best friend all received God’s grace with gratitude when it was abruptly dropped in their lap.  They chose to follow him and haven’t looked back.  But how many people watching respond like the people from town?  How many beg Jesus to leave them alone because there is something about his power, something about his authority that scares them?  

And seriously, what kind of God cares enough to notice that there are individuals in trouble, much less go out of his way to help us?  That kind of attention to one person in billions is so entirely impractical.  It seems irrational.  It just makes no sense. And  I hope I never get over how extravagantly he loves us.