Healing and hope for all (Luke 8: 26-39)

 Luke 8: 26-33  & then Luke 8: 34-39

Reflection 1

At first hearing this story of Jesus healing this man doesn’t feel like anything we would experience.
But I still think it’s worth listening carefully to what the story means for us.

Jesus is in the land “opposite Galilee” - a land of Gentiles, non-Jews, outsiders. That’s why there’s a herd of pigs, which Jewish farmers wouldn’t touch, because pigs were considered unclean.
In this land which is not quite home to Jesus, he comes across an outcast, a man not in his right mind, someone we might describe as having a mental illness. The poor man hears voices,  can’t be restrained, rips his clothes off, and chooses to live among the tombs.
Jesus heals him, because that is what Jesus can do for those who need his help.

There was a time in my life when I needed mental healing.

 

Just after Ellie was born I became very detached from reality due to a condition called postpartum psychosis. It affects about 1 in 1000 women after childbirth.

I was healed ; partly by a wonderful GP who quickly diagnosed the problem; by a stay in a psychiatric hospital for a few weeks; by the love and prayers of family & friends; and by the right drugs which supported me until I was back in my right mind.

I believe it was God’s will that I was healed , and I believe the healing power of Jesus came to me through many wise and wonderful people.
When we read Jesus’ way of healing someone who was described as being possessed by demons, I don’t think we are meant to feel that current psychological treatments are any less the will of God for those of us who need it.

But even if you are lucky enough not to know that kind of mental disturbance, this story of healing is for you.

We may not believe in Demons, but we know there are times when we might say “ I don’t know what came over me” or “ he wasn’t himself “ or “she can’t shake this illness off” or “we don’t know where to turn “.
Jesus wants us to know that at all those times, the will of God is for us to be calm, to be whole, to be restored to health, to know we are loved.

When it is all too much, when our problems are legion, the risen Jesus is there to show us the power of God’s love to heal.

And this healing is not just about personal experiences of physical or mental illness. God’s will is for our whole world to receive the grace of God and know true wholeness and peace.

It is not by chance that the man Jesus encounters says that the name of his affliction is “legion”. This does not just mean “many”, in the way I used it just then.

In the land where Jesus walked and where this man suffered they were under Roman occupation and they knew that a legion was a force of 5,000 soldiers, there to keep the peace, to raise taxes for Rome and to crush rebellion.

Jesus heals this man but also, symbolically, shows that God’s will is for this man and all others to be released from the power of the Roman Legion.

Jesus shows that God wants his children to be freed from all the powers that produce sickness and death. It is not God’s will that people should be bombed in Iran or Israel; that people should be shot in Gaza; or live in fear of drones in Ukraine or Russia. God’s will is for there to be release from oppression and peace with justice.

Jesus heals one man - but shows us all God’s will for peace, wholeness and freedom for all.

 

 

Reflection 2

Perhaps you felt that the first reflection went a bit too far in taking one example of Jesus healing one man and concluding that this was a story that was relevant for all of us.

 

And yet, look at what happens in the next half of the story.

When the people of the area see the healed man, now in his right mind, they are afraid. Not celebrating his return to health; they are afraid. Others in the gospel react like this when Jesus shows his power. Luke tells the story, just before this one, of Jesus stilling the storm – when event the disciples are afraid and amazed and “who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”.

 

The people who are told of the healing of the man once full of demons and distress come and see him in his right mind, healed by Jesus. And they are afraid. In fact Luke says not once but twice that they are afraid – “seized with great fear”.

 

 And so they ask Jesus to leave their area & go home. They are baffled by what has just happened and they want Jesus to go away & let their lives return to normal. 

 

But the man who has been healed understands just who Jesus is -  the son of God, the one who shows God’s mercy and love in action.. and so he begs Jesus to allow him to go with him in the boat back to Galilee. He wants to be a disciple, and stay close to Jesus, his saviour.

 

But Jesus send him back to his own people, to his neighbours. 

 

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." 

Jesus wants people to replace their fear of the unknown with knowledge of the testimony of this man who has been healed by the power of God.

 

And Luke tells us “So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.”. 

Among all the sermons that might be preached on what the Trinity means.. this man, who was once out of his mind, has got it.

When he is sent to tell people what God has done for him, he has no difficulty in seeing that what God has done, God has done in Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God and whatever he does reveals God’s will and God’s power.

 

I said in the first reflection that this was a story for all of us - and that is true for this second part of the story, too. Jesus sends us into the week ahead to declare how much God has done for us.

 

When our hearts know the love, peace & wholeness of God we need to pray for the grace to reveal it to others.

In the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.