Mark 5:1-20
Yeah, that's Mark for you. We call him "short-story Mark." It fits because the guy is so short. And also, he's always so anxious to get to the end of the story, he leaves a bunch of the good stuff out.
I'm Peter. I picked up Mark on one of my travels having to deal with Paul and the messes he was getting himself into. He had some kind of falling out with Mark. Mark was just a teenager. You know how that goes. Made Barnabas mad, though, since he was Mark's uncle, or something like that. Anyways, when Paul and Mark split, I picked up Mark. Mark said it was a lot less intense being with me than with Paul. I can believe that.
Needless to say, if you're following me here, Mark got all his stories about Jesus from me.
But I'm getting off story.
So, anyway, we were coming across Galilee lake in one of James' father's fishing boats. It was the only one big enough to fit us all. We were half way across when one of those winds screeched like a banshee across the lake. Whipped up the water until it looked like Simon's hair.
We who had been fishermen knew what a storm like that could do. We lost a lot of friends to storms like this. The other guys...well they were hanging over the side of the boat feeding the fish their lunch, if you know what I mean.
It looked like we were all going into the water, and some would be lost. Where was Jesus in all this, you ask? Good question. The answer: he was asleep. Water spilling over the sides. He was getting drenched. Snoring away without a care in the world. It was like the devil himself was swirling up that storm with his big pointer finger, and Jesus slept on ignoring the whole thing with a dream.
Well we woke him up straightaway and told him to do something. We all got that look. You know, the Jesus eye roll and simultaneous head shaking. "How long..." he muttered. I think there was an end to that sentence, but none of us heard it.
He stood up straight and yelled, "Boom shock-a-locka Boom!" That's what he said--God's honest truth! Jesus had a sense of humor. He could have said anything he wanted. He did that twice, once at the sky and once at the water. All of a sudden there were blue skies and flat waters. It was a-maze-ing! Every one of us looked at each other with the same expression: "Who is this guy?"
We were glad the storm was over. But do you know what a flat surface of the lake and no wind means? It means you row. Be careful what you ask for, my friends. We rolled up the mast, what was left of it. We got out the oars and took turns putting our backs into it for the other side of the lake, while Jesus went back to sleep.
Once we landed on the other side, Judas and Matthew jumped out of the boat before we even got to shore and waded as fast as they could to the beach. They kneeled down and kissed the dirt, so thankful to be on land again.
The rest of us, backs already aching, pulled the boat to shore. "Landlubbers," the Sons of Thunder said to Judas and Matthew as they walked past them.
"I hate this place," Simon said. "Nothing but Gentiles. Smelling up the place, them and their pigs," he said, giving a nod to the distant hillside were a swineherd was tending his pigs. "The only place on God's good earth where the people smell just like their animals."
"And act like them, too," added Thaddeus, which got a snort out of Simon.
"Why'd you want to come over here?" Simon asked Jesus.
And that's when we heard it. Someone was running at us, shouting out the most God-awful filth I ever heard coming out of someone's mouth. Words that would have made our mothers gasp. And then not just get our mouths washed out with soap, but made to eat the whole bar.
This guy was clearly a piece of work. A lunatic of lunatics. But what do you expect of Gentiles?
He was running at Jesus full tilt. All of us backed away from Jesus a couple of steps and he was standing all by himself. The guy was buck naked. He was skin and bones with long wild hair. He looked like a running palm tree. He did a knee slide for four feet in front of Jesus. All of us closed our eyes, wincing, and jerked back another step, imagining how his knees must now look like ground and bloody meat.
But once we all opened our eyes, we saw that whatever happened to his knees was going to fit into the rest of his body. He was covered with bruises and cuts. He had sharp rocks in both hands. Staring at Jesus, with a big smile on his face he was cutting his leg with the rock in his left hand, and cutting his left arm with the rock in his right hand. It was eerily sick. It was like he was trying to impress Jesus by how much pain he could take.
"Out!" Jesus said sternly to the guy.
But the guy just kept smiling and cutting. Blood was dripping from his wounds.
"Out of him!" Jesus said again, this time with more of an edge in his voice.
The wild man dropped his sharp, blood-stained rocks, and hopped to his feet in one fluid motion, revealing his bloody knees. Inches from Jesus' face he screeched, "I know who you are! These idiots don't know, but I know who you are Jesus." Simon took an irritated step at the guy, but Jesus put a hand up to get Simon to back off. All the time Jesus was looking the guy straight in his eyes, like he could look straight down into the wild man's soul.
Like he was a childish brat, the wild man started singing, "Son of God, Son of God, Son of God." He danced around Jesus while he sang. And then he started laughing in Jesus' face--a high pitched cackling kind of laugh. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."
As calm as if he were sleeping in the back of the boat during the storm, Jesus asked, "What's your name?"
"Legion," the wild man roared like a lion. With his finger poking at Jesus' forehead, but never touching it, the wild man said, "You should know how many that is smart boy. Thousands and thousands. Too many for you. Too much for you to handle, Godling. You might as well get back in your boat, you and your children here. I'm the sheriff in these parts," he said mockingly and smiling that sick smile.
Then, then, it was like Jesus had had enough of this guy, Legion. "Enough!" Jesus said. "Free this man!" Just as quickly as the guy had jumped up, he was now down, flat as pita bread, face in the dirt that Judas and Matthew had just been kissing.
"OK, OK, we give," the wild man whimpered. "We'll leave."
"All of you, at once!" Jesus demanded.
"Yes, Master. All of us. Gone, just like that. How about over there?" From his face smashed position, the wild man pointed at the pigs.
"Go!" Jesus simply demanded.
Suddenly the man screamed like someone was cutting him open with rocks. When he was done screaming, all the pigs started acting crazy, turning in circles, ramming into each other, rolling over and over. The swineherd got out of the way of the commotion just in time before being trampled to death.
Then, as one, the thousands of pigs started running for the cliff. All of us were standing there with our our mouths open watching the chariot wreck we all knew was going to happen. Every pig went flying off the edge of the cliff in full gallop, leaping with all their might into Galilee Lake. None of us used the expression, "If pigs could fly," after that day.
Every single one. Flying over the cliff. Into the lake. Sinking like rocks. Drowned and dead on a glassy, stormless lake. Every single one.
We all turned and stared at Jesus. We all had that look on our faces again. Who is this guy? Jesus just stood there nodding yes, like it was just another day.
Then he reached down to the naked guy and helped him up. "Any of you guys bring an extra tunic?" Jesus asked.
"I've got a couple in my bag," Matthew said. All of us turned and looked at him quizzicly. "Well, I wasn't sure what kind of clothes I'd need over here," he said trying to sound like it was a rational thing to do.
"Go get him one, and put it on him," Jesus said smiling. After that was done, Jesus embraced the man and asked his name.
"Silas," the man said, sounding amazed at hearing his own voice after such a very long time. Silas started sobbing, and we all teared up, pretending we just got some dirt in our eyes.
"You are free, Silas," Jesus told him with compassion. We all nodded our heads in affirmation. And one-by-one we gave Silas a big hug, welcoming him back to life.
"I must come with you," Silas said to Jesus. "I have to tell this marvelous story about what God has done to me." His look was pleading.
"I'm sorry," said Jesus, "but you can't. Do you know why?"
"Yes," Silas said, looking around at us all. "I'm not a Jew. I'm a Gentile. It won't go well for me on the other side."
"The sad truth," Jesus said. "That's why I'm making you the first Gentile disciple to your own people. Your story needs to be, will be, heard here. They all know who you were but aren't any longer. What an amazing disciple you will be!" Jesus said with a big smile.
"I will! I will!" Silas said with an equally wide smile. "Just you wait and see."
You know what I was thinking? I told Mark this, but in his haste, he evidently decided not to include it in his short-story gospel. What I was thinking was, we should of drowned out there in that storm. Us disciples. That was no ordinary storm. That's what we fishermen call a "devil storm" because it's like the devil himself made it happen. People die in those storms. Somebody drowns.
But you know who drowned that day? The pigs. And the demons with them. Not us. Them. It was like, if someone was going to die that day, it wasn't going to be Jesus or those with him. In Jesus' confrontation with the devil storm, with the wild man, the devil was going to be the loser both times. Not Jesus.
I thought about that a lot, later. Later meaning after the Cross and the Resurrection. Later meaning once we started getting organized with all the believers. There were times we were taking it in the chin. Me and Paul and a bunch of other believers.
Then I'd think about this day of the storm, the wild man, the pigs. And I'd smile. The devil isn't going to win this one. All his pigs are going down. No matter how crazy life gets, no matter how crazy people get, Jesus is going to win. And, so, I keep going.
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