Bleeding and Dying No More [part one] ...

In a spiritual grand-slam, Jesus was about to complete 2 more miracles that combined with His first 2 would produce 4 sequential “proofs” of His identity as the literal Son of God.  In just the space of a few days, Jesus opens with commanding nature and it obeys.  In this He proved He is our Creator, and the Creator of this world, no matter what evolutionists would like to say about the rules of science.  For wind, wave, and storm though inanimate, hear the voice of He who made them and do His will in an instant.  The distance across the lake is transcended in the blink of an eye, thus bending time and space, all within the first hit of this spiritual grand-slam … nature, time and space bend to the will of God alone.  Next He commands nearly two thousand demons to leave the body of a man beyond human ability to help.  Satan and his many hosts cannot stand in front of the light of love that emanates from Jesus Christ.  Nearly 2 legions of the supernatural are dismissed in a single command.  Satan and his followers do not cede to the commands of men, but in front of Christ are powerless to resist.  In his second hit, Jesus demonstrates no enemy can stand before Him, truly Love conquers all.

As Peter continues recounting the story in the gospel of John Mark in chapter 5, Jesus will end a lifelong disease and fatal in His time of (hemophilia); which was again beyond human capacity to heal.  No illness was beyond His ability to heal, no affliction including that of our deep-rooted addiction to sin, was or is beyond His reach to heal even now.  Then finally as the fourth act in this sequence, Jesus would bring back to life she who was dead.  Not even death was beyond the scope of He who was and is the author of all life.  Four times in a row, Jesus would demonstrate time and time again, that He was and IS our Creator.  He can bring back to life that which was dead and dying.  He can restore what we cannot.  He can heal what is beyond our reach.  Perhaps it is our reach itself, that interferes with His ability to do just that for us here and now.  Perhaps if we were to be satisfied with the role of stunned observer, relying solely on Him to do what He has demonstrated He can do, our lives would be entirely different here and now.  The lessons of these stories were not meant to be those of history alone, but object lessons of what is possible in His name today.  Perhaps we should ponder this perspective as we examine the opening of His third and fourth acts in this sequence.

Peter picks up the recollection in verse 21 as John Mark transcribes saying … “And when Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side, much people gathered unto him: and he was nigh unto the sea.”  Jesus had accomplished His mission to free the demoniac and now returned back to the other side of the sea where He had recently been preaching.  There was no point to attempting another storm to kill Him, as His command over nature had been firmly established.  The disciples did not need a repeat encounter to remember what would forever be etched into their memory.  A lesson perhaps for us; we sometimes encounter the miracles of Christ in our lives.  They are great, mysterious, and have a profound impact on us.  But as time passes we tend to forget how great His love to us truly was.  It fades, and we begin to ask, where God is, as if He had never interacted with us at all.  Yet what happened, happened.  It does not have to be repeated to be as real.  No matter how often, or seldom (due to our convenient memories), our God interacts with us, He does in fact, interact with us.

Peter then recalls a surprising encounter as John Mark writes in verse 22 saying … “And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet,”  A closer examination of this truth is warranted here.  In our day there is movement entitled Black lives matter.  It is a slogan based on the point of view of oppression.  Our black brothers and sisters attempt to call out the injustice they experience from our policing organizations sometimes based solely in the difference in skin color.  Our black family calls for an end to injustice and oppression from those who have no basis for this treatment - though not all police are guilty of it.  The broader prevailing view is to extend the sentiment to encompass not only our black family members, but ALL our family members.  To say ALL lives matter is to say that injustice and oppression are experienced more by the poor than by those of means.  Poverty is often more the recipient of injustice and extends not just to those of black skin color, but of Hispanic, Asian, Native Americans, and White.  The idea of ALL lives matter extends even to our policing organizations as their service is critical to our social order and well-being, and not all policemen are corrupt or inflict injustice to those who are poor, or of darker skin tone.

But what Peter describes here is a level beyond that.  The Pharisees and Sadducees, the “rulers of the synagogue” were committed to killing Jesus Christ.  This was not just injustice and oppression by the powers of the day, by the policing force of the day, it was an intention to kill innocence with the full knowledge of innocence.  This ruling group was unlike our police force.  Our police force has a small minority of participants who wreak injustice, and reveal corruption, but the majority of it are well intentioned and trying to do their best for our society.  The facts bear this out, as crime is not out of control and it would be, if the majority of police officers were corrupt themselves and also engaging in it.  But the rulers of the temple can barely count three or four of the hundreds in charge who were not actively trying to kill Christ.  Nicodemus, Lazarus, Joseph of Arimathea, and here Jairus are some of the only names not directly tied to killing Christ.  Talk about corruption.  If this were our condition, it would be like having 98% of our police force, who by the way were well armed, organized, and trained … intent on killing us … who are poor, untrained, and undefended.  Not one of us based on these conditions would start a movement to declare that the lives of our ENEMIES matter.  Justice would demand we condemn this group.  Anyone with ties to it would be universally guilty of its sins.  People would have to resign from this group in order to be treated better by us, or fairly by us, as a group this completely corrupt would have “no redeeming value”.

Jesus is aware of the intentions of this ruling class.  He already knows what He will suffer because of this group and it will be injustice in the highest form.  “None” of these enemies “should” be given the time of day.  But this is far from what happens next as Mark continues recording Peter’s account in verse 23 saying … “And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.”  One of these enemies has done the unthinkable.  He has come to Christ and fallen at His feet.  He begins to beg Jesus Christ to come to his home and heal his daughter who is gravely ill.  In front of a great crowd who has assembled to hear Jesus preach and watch Him do His miracles … comes a sworn enemy of Christ.  This enemy who by reputation alone is supposed to have nothing to do with “this carpenter from Nazareth” where nothing good comes from; has come anyway, and has prostrated himself in humility before the feet of Jesus Christ.  He begs for the life of his daughter.  This is the motivation for the actions of Jairus, but in these actions are revealed a few facts.

Jairus “knows” Jesus Christ “can” heal his daughter.  He is not there on a maybe.  If Jesus were just another physician, Jairus would not have ruined his own reputation to seek Him out.  The miracles of healing of Jesus Christ are so widely publicized by this time, and so widely witnessed, they have been established as “facts” by the people who live in this day.  The ruling class can deny these miracles all they want, but like the atheists of our day, it is a choice NOT to believe, where for others who have personally witnessed the transforming power of God, there is “proof” of His existence and power and love.  Despite all the denials of the ruling class, when push comes to shove, Jairus knows the miracles are in fact true.  Jesus can heal his daughter when no other doctor will be able to.  But then why should He?  Jesus has no logical incentive to help one of the members of His enemies.  Jairus was not breaking ties with the ruling class, in order to heal his daughter.  He remained one of the rulers of the temple.  In point of fact, even as he throws himself at the feet of Jesus, he remains tied to the group who is bent on killing Christ.

Jairus, like us, is not yet ready to give up everything for the sake of his daughter.  He could have abandoned the temple and committed there to become a disciple of Christ.  He could have given away his wealth and become the thirteenth disciple, but he was not ready to go that far yet.  So why should Christ help this man, if spiritually this man was not ready to be a disciple?  Why should Christ help us, if like Jairus, we are not even ready to give our all to Him in exchange for His help?  For Jairus to come to Jesus reveals yet another “fact” he was counting on … namely the love of Jesus Christ.  Jairus knew of Jesus’ love for His enemies.  This was not just a slogan, or a myth.  He had heard enough about it, and seen it perhaps for himself, in how Jesus responds to those who mean Him harm, to have faith and confidence to come to Jesus and beg for help.  Jairus trusts that Jesus will love him, even though he is a sworn enemy as tied to this group.  Jairus is banking on the love of Jesus, if not for himself, then for his daughter.

But the response of Jesus was consistent with who Jesus is.  Our God loves us.  Not just some of us.  Not because of our skin color, or level of wealth, or job we cling to in our society … instead He loves ALL of us, because to Him even the lives of His enemies matter.  In fact, our God would rather die for His enemy, than see an enemy suffer that fate.  So perhaps predictably Peter recounts the response in verse 24 saying … “And Jesus went with him; and much people followed him, and thronged him.”  Jesus does not argue with Jairus, He does not delay him to debate the merits of going with him.  He does not demand that Jairus publicly denounce the evil intentions of the ruling class, before he is worthy of assistance.  Jesus just goes with him, without a single precondition.  He asks Jairus for nothing.  He does not ask for money, or future fairness and consideration.  He does not ask him to think about the group of folks he is working with, or to reconsider killing Him later on.  He does not ask Jairus to be part of a reform movement that might work to correct the corruption of the ruling class.  In short, he does not ask Jairus to change in any way, shape, or form, before he goes to help him and his daughter.  He meets Jairus just where he is, hears his request, and is answering it, without a single precondition.

It would be like the cop who pulls the trigger completely unwarranted and without cause, coming to the mother of the deceased, and asking for help … without being willing to apologize, change his profession, or even stop doing what he did that caused her so much pain.  And the mom going without a word, to help the cop out.  This is the level of love Jesus has for the life of His enemies.  He does not try to change His enemies by demand, or as precondition.  Instead He lets His love speak for itself.  Instead He shows His enemy how He loves them, and how much He loves them, and the power of love melts the heart steeped in evil.  There is no heart of stone that cannot be reached by the depth of the love of Jesus Christ.  Love does not need to command obedience.  When Love is truly witnessed, when Love is truly experienced, obedience is the natural response.  It is automatic.  Jairus will be changed by these events, but not because he was commanded to be changed, but because he witnesses the power of love in his life and the life of his family.

But the second half of this spiritual grand-slam had only begun, on the way to the final act to demonstrate the identity of Christ, was the third miraculous story which will continue in our next installment …

 

Ending Satanic Infestation ...

There was a reason why Jesus had chosen to cross the Sea of Galilee with his disciples and the small band of follower’s intent on watching what happened next.  It was not a random act.  It was by intent.  For on the other side of the Sea of Galilee in the country of the Gadarenes was a man who desperately needed help only Jesus could provide.  This poor man was burdened with a Satanic infestation.  As we sit in our homes today, in the comfort of modern conveniences and advanced technologies, we do not dream of living in a condition where our decisions and actions are possessed by powers beyond our control.  There are very few actual demonstrations of supernatural power reflected through mankind today, and this too is by intent.  Atheists are constantly demanding “proof” of God, if Satan were to be too open in the demonstration of his own power, offering “proof” of God’s enemy might inadvertently prove the existence of God Himself.  So modern Christians believe they live beyond the reach of the supernatural, and cannot identify with someone whose decisions and actions are governed by a power beyond their own control.  The idea, that “the devil made me do it”, is now only a joke we recite about criminal defendants we believe have no real reason for their crimes and should suffer the maximum penalties allowed by law.  But are we yet again self-deceived?

To understand how real an infestation can be, one need only look at the nature of addiction itself.  An observer who is not burdened by addiction, looks at the actions and behavior of a drug addict, and simply cannot make logical sense of them.  It is clear that drugs have a horrible effect on our lives.  They destroy our health, evaporate our money, demean our relationships, and will ultimately kill us.  Apart from a momentary chemically induced “high”, they have no redeeming value.  And in point of fact, the “high” itself is based on the destruction of brain cells which do not regenerate.  Nothing about doing drugs offers the addict anything more than a rapid progression to the grave.  Yet the addict will pursue his next fix, with a dedication of singular intent.  Why?  This is not a logical course of action.  This is NOT in the self-interest of the addict.  This is the most self-destructive action the addict could possibly take, and yet he does it anyway in full knowledge of these facts.  An addict is not actually trying to commit suicide, but for all practical purposes, seems to be “unable” to refuse this course.  In point of fact, brain chemistry is altered over time, making doing this action easier than not doing it.

Once a person becomes an addict, they are going to need external help, to find a way out.  For the non-addicted person, this is hard to understand.  But before we look away from the plight of a drug addict, I would ask the non-addicted audience “why” do they still commit the sins they find pleasure in?  Sin, in every form, has the nature of addiction, in that while we know it is harmful to us, and destroys everything it touches, we still consciously choose to embrace it.  Sin is also degenerative in nature, meaning the more we embrace what looks at first like little sins, the more we find ourselves rationalizing bigger and bigger sins, until at some point we refuse to see sin as sin at all.  Could it be that we suffer from our own modern versions of Satanic infestations more than we would like to admit?  Could it be that our ability to “control” our desires and our actions was never in our control; that we are in fact out of control, as we have quietly ceded it to our enemy of souls?  Is it possible that ALL human behavior is enslaved to a supernatural influence, whether to Jesus in a journey of redemption and restoration, or to Satan in an illusion that tells us we remain in control when we do not?

For those who believe themselves to be fully in control of their own desires, decisions, and actions, I would pose the question … why have you not embraced perfection yet, when you clearly know what benefits it offers.  The lack of perfection in your life, is a reflection that how you are trying to achieve it is fundamentally flawed.  While you may be able to abstain and refrain from acting on your darker impulses, the desires for those darker ideas remains in place.  Only external help can break the chains of slavery that exist within our minds and hearts.  Only Jesus Christ can make us free from the bondage of souls we have ceded to the enemy of God over time.  Our apathy, and our greed, lead us into submission to Satanic influences, and only God can even offer us the clarity to make a different choice.  It is not our strength to combat these evil influences that is required of us, it is instead only our willingness to submit to a different power, to the power of the love of Jesus Christ that will make us whole.

Our societal advancements have lulled us into spiritual lethargy.  We no longer concern ourselves about behavior that might be governed by powers beyond our control.  We no longer believe it is possible to suffer from a Satanic infestation, particularly without our knowledge and consent.  Yet we remain dumbfounded as to why we do what we do.  And there are fleeting moments when we seem to be watching ourselves commit actions and deeds we know to be wrong, don’t even want to do, yet do anyway, as if watching a movie of ourselves committing these heinous destructive deeds.  There are no logical explanations for these events.  There are no psychological reasons that are anything other than self-destructive for the courses we pursue, yet we blaze down these paths of destruction attempting to accelerate our speed within them.  Perhaps, our false sense of security, and disbelief about the power of our enemy, has led us to this point.  Perhaps we, like the man Jesus was en-route to assist, need to be made free from the influences beyond our control.

Peter resumes the story of this man’s redemption in the beginning of John Marks gospel in chapter five and verse 1 saying … “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. [verse 2] And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,”  It is perhaps no small amount of symbolism that a man burdened with a Satanic infestation chooses to live among the tombs of the dead.  For as we are slave to our sins, and our desire to sin, we too have found ourselves in a life more filled with the dead than with the living.  Our ability to love is stunted, our ability to do good for others dissipates until it no longer exists.  We become consumed with a level of selfishness that has no ability to be satiated.  Our hunger to please self grows like the mindless zombies of movie lore, until we stumble from one act of self-pleasure to the next one, not knowing or caring what will happen next.

The condition of this poor man, was known not only to God, but to those who lived in the area.  He had become a dangerous threat.  Peter continues to recount his condition before meeting Christ beginning in verse 3 saying … “Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: [verse 4] Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. [verse 5] And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.”  This is the level of depravity to which all sins leads, a level of self-destructive behavior that no sane person can understand.  The local residents were intent on squelching this threat.  Anyone willing to hurt themselves by cutting their own flesh with stones, obviously would have no problem hurting a passerby.  Anyone who ventured near the mountains or the tombs was sure to encounter this man, and could possibly be killed in the process.

So from time to time, the local residents would band together and attack this man in great numbers intent on putting him in iron chains and bracelets to bind him hand and foot.  This would easily subdue a normal person, it was how the Romans did it.  But not so for this guy.  Because of what resided within him, a supernatural power allowed him to break chains as if they were made of straw.  The iron bracelets seemed to shatter like glass on the stones around him.  What was fully capable of binding a normal person, was for him only a minor aggravation.  This man did not sleep like the rest of us.  What he ate and drank were unimportant to him.  He existed in the mountains and near the tombs of the dead perpetually looking for an opportunity to terrorize others.  Human abilities to contend with this situation had been exhausted.  No person could bind him, or tame him.  The best that could be done was to avoid him.  You can imagine that both Jewish Rabbi’s and Roman Authorities, had been employed at one point or another to fix this man, but neither were up to the level of this challenge, and both sought to simply avoid further confrontation.

But what man finds impossible, Jesus does not.  Satan tried to kill Christ before He could free this man in the storm that had come upon the lake during the journey.  Satan did not want to lose the value of this man in this region spreading fear.  The demons however, also knew what was coming, they too had fears as hard as that is to imagine for us as John Mark chronicles beginning in verse 6 writing … “But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, [verse 7] And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.”  What was left of the man inside this hollow shell sought out Christ to worship Him and fall at His feet.  Even in this act, the man could not control his own speech.  And instead of the words to cry for help that he longed to utter, came only the voice of demons entrenched in the body of this man. 

These demons spoke in front the disciples and of the crowd of followers who were there as well from the little boats that followed Jesus across the Sea.  They once again immediately identified Jesus as the “Son of the Most High God”.  This public declaration was not meant to flatter or uplift Jesus, it was designed to cause controversy and a crisis of faith in His followers who were not ready to accept this reality of truth as to the identity of Christ.  Each time before Christ had commanded the demons to keep silent, but this time perhaps the crowd was small enough, and perhaps dedicated enough, to accept that He may indeed be the Son of God.  So this time silence was not commanded of them.

The second part of what the demons spoke revealed their own versions of fear.  They ask that in the name of God, for Jesus not to torment them.  The torment they refer to here is not what you and I would immediately think of … some sort of interdimensional version of hell where a lake of fire tortures but does not consume its victims.  By that kind of traditional logic and thinking, the devil is supposed to be “in charge” of that place, and demons are merely his helpers tormenting the souls of evil men.  Hardly a place demons would wish to avoid.  If it were real, they would love to be there watching and helping men to suffer.  But that was not what the demons feared or did not want to be exposed to.  Instead it was something completely opposite.  The memory of the perfect harmony and fulfillment of love and life in heaven was what they did not want to have to endure again, in the degenerated state in which they found themselves.  To be exposed to the pure and intense and infinite love of God, and know by contrast how horrible it is to be separated from that love is what the demons wished to avoid.  It was too great a punishment for them to endure to be forced to remember how good was the life and existence they left, when they sided with Lucifer, and made war in heaven itself.

Now, in the degenerated state they were in, they were living inside a man, dwelling among the tombs of the dead.  Their entire demonic existed consisted in torturing and causing fear in men.  There was no love among them, or for them.  All love had gone away.  They had driven it out of themselves because of the degenerative nature of sin and self-love.  They were now only shadows of their former angelic state.  They were creatures far diminished from what once was.  They still had power, but had lost all love.  Then came Jesus Christ into their presence, and they were forced to confront the perfect love they had abandoned.  It was too much for them.  They did not wish to be reminded that redemption was possible.  They did not wish to see and feel the lure of love on their decrepit existence.  Better to be left alone, better to be sent away, they must hide themselves from the source of infinite love.  They must flee from the light in front of them.  Better to seek the abyss of darkness than stand in the light of love that emanates from the Son of the Living God.  So they beg for mercy to leave them to their suffering without the memory of how good, good can really be.

Peter continues to tell the story to John Mark in this gospel in verse 8 saying … “For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. [verse 9] And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. [verse 10] And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.”  The conversation between Christ and the demons continues as Christ does what He came specifically to do.  They are first commanded to leave the man.  There is no argument here about whether they will be able to stay in him or not, the commands of God cannot be argued with.  They will leave.  Jesus asks them their name.  The name is revealing as well.  For it is not just a single demon living in this man, but “many”.  A legion in the Roman vernacular referred to a thousand men.  Lest we think this Satanic infestation is limited to only one, it is not.  Lest we think we may only contend with a single demon in our struggle, we may face considerably more than that.  But it is in Jesus we find, that a single command has the desired effect to make us free from our slavery to self and to the enemy of souls.

The demons could not stand to be in the presence of Christ and His love, but they did not want to leave the country yet either.  They wanted to remain to torture men who refused the freedom Christ offered when He left this region.  So they begged to stay nearby.  A solution seemed to present itself to them as John Mark continues in verse 11 saying … “Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. [verse 12] And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. [verse 13] And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.”  Pigs do not have the same capacity for self-preservation as men do.  When Christ granted the demons request, the demons entered the pigs.  This proves that Satanic infestations are not just limited to mankind, but can impact creatures and animals in nature as well.  But the pigs fear and rage resulted in a quick stampede off a cliff into the sea.  The number of the pigs is also mentioned here as it turned out there were about two-thousand pigs (a great deal bigger than just one legion, but instead nearly two).

It is easy to focus on the demons in this story … how many there were, the conversation they had with Christ, the fears they revealed, and the end of their reign in the herd of dead pigs drowned in the sea.  But this is not a story about demons and their fate or pain.  It is a story about the redemption of a man beyond all human hope.  It is the story of a man who was infested by Satan with 2,000 demons and yet with a simple command of Christ was made free from this lifelong bondage.  While demons are entering pigs and stampeding to their doom, the man is completely restored to his own right mind.  He is offered clothing, perhaps borrowing from the disciples and other followers there with Christ.  He is calm.  He is aware of what has happened.  His gratitude is beyond measure.  He has a life for the first time in his memory.  And there will be witnesses to these events.

John Mark continues the story in verse 14 saying … “And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. [verse 15] And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. [verse 16] And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine.”  The pig herders were watching all these events, and when they occurred they ran into town to spread the news.  Local residents could scarcely believe their ears, and went to investigate for themselves.  But upon arriving at the scene, they find the man perfectly restored, not a demon left in him.  The pile of dead pigs 2000 strong reveal the extent of the damage that had been in him.  Everything the pig herders had reported was true.  And the fear of these events continued to plague them.  Rather than embrace Christ now, they were not ready to do so.  So John Mark records their response in verse 17 saying … “And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.” 

The locals no more understood how the demons left this man, than they did who commanded them to do so.  They feared that Jesus having this much power, might be something worse than what they had already seen.  The residents did not hear who Jesus was as declared by the demons.  All they had heard about Jesus was from the religious establishment and none of that was very good.  Of course, none of this impacted the newly freed man in any way.  He was ready to be a disciple of Christ and was determined to follow the orders of Jesus to the end of the earth.  There was no doubt in his mind.  He jumped into the boat to leave when Christ left.  But Jesus had a greater mission for this new disciple.  John Mark continues in verse 18 saying … “And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. [verse 19] Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. [verse 20] And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.”

The personal testimony of this man worked.  ALL men did marvel throughout the entire region from the edge of the sea to the city of Decapolis.  This newly minted missionary was not subject to having demons re-enter him and take over once more.  The command of Christ to free him would last the entire length of his life.  It is thus with us.  When we submit to the power and authority of Jesus Christ to remake us, He can remove our sins, and our desire to sin, so that they do not return to us again.  This is the power the Lord has to alone break the cycle of addiction.  For it is not just our actions Jesus can alter, He can alter the underlying desires that fuel them.  It is the desire to sin that must be ended within us, if we are to know peace.  We are as powerless as this poor man, to change our desires.  But our Lord is completely capable.  The only caveat, is that Jesus will not force His will upon us.  We must ask for it.  We must allow it.  We must “let” Him give us the change and re-creation we so desperately need.

However, when once you have tasted the freedom the Lord offers from a sin or slavery you were once bound to, your personal testimony will begin to have great effect.  We will not become instantly perfect in this process.  We will not be instantly without “any” sin in this life.  In point of fact, starting this journey tends to reveal to us that the count of our demons was way beyond the one or two we were aware of.  And during the journey we should never look at each other as standards of the faith, but only to Jesus.  There will be those of us who fail, who slide back, and re-commit sins we thought ourselves rid of.  While these painful events may cause delays in our journey, the source of our freedom remains ever capable to restore us once again.  It is not our past that will dictate our future, it is our willingness to allow Christ to re-create our future, and thus alter our present that will dictate it. 

Our modern technology is no protection against the powers of darkness.  The same legion of demons that were once cast out along the Sea of Galilee have only degenerated further over the last 2 thousand years.  The same Satan who tried to kill Christ before He could free this man, is still actively looking to kill the followers of Jesus wherever he can.  The powers arrayed against us are still as intent and potent as they ever were.  And should we find ourselves deluded into the idea that they are no longer a threat, we are all the more likely to be suffering under their influence.  But the power of the love of Christ is no less today than it was then either.  His ability to utter a single command and drive the demons from our lives is no less potent today than it was on that beach so long ago.  We need only look to Jesus, and like the demoniac, fall and try to worship Him.  Jesus can and will save us.  Even if our speech is not our own, the intent of our hearts is known by our God.  He can, and He will restore us.  It is His greatest desire, and our sure-fire way to see a Satanic infestation finally come to an end within us …

 

The Art of Self-Preservation ...

The argument American Christian’s cite to fiercely defend their second amendment privileges to keep and bear arms (apart from hunting) is for “protection”.  The basic premise is that guns offer “good” people protection from “criminals”.  In its most idyllic form the premise simplifies down to the idea that if one just “owns” a gun, they will be prepared for bad things that could happen, and will be able to prevent them.  The original thinking behind incorporating this right into our Constitution was to effectively “protect” the citizenry from the power of the state.  It is this concept of “protection” that give us a sense of comfort.  Our ability to react to bad events in a strong and decisive manner, allows us to feel more secure in a generally insecure world.  And perhaps if our enemy were only human, there could be a small degree of merit in this thinking.  But alas, there are greater powers who threaten our security.  It is in fact through their guile that we take comfort at all in owning a weapon whose sole purpose is to kill.

Our premise of defending the right to own guns is flawed on many levels.  First, it relies upon the notion of control in situations where surprise is most often the first response.  For example, assume you are happily sitting in your living room with your family watching TV.  All of the sudden, armed criminals break down your door, and begin to threaten your family.  Most of us do not watch television with a gun in our lap, aimed at the door, just anticipating it being kicked in … so that we could fire first and kill our potential assailants.  Instead our guns are properly stored (and secured), and likely completely unavailable in this situation.  Thus just owning a gun responsibly in our home, does nothing to “protect” us from a surprise we could not anticipate.  Yet it is exactly this scenario that most inspires gun purchases.

The reality is, that it takes time for the human mind to process an event, particularly one where lives are put at risk.  Keep in mind the criminal is aware of his intentions ahead of time, the scenario is not a surprise to him, he has anticipated what will occur, and is already prepared for it mentally.  It further takes training and discipline to respond appropriately, so that collateral damage is minimized or avoided altogether, and the appropriate response is delivered.  Shooting a family member in an attempt to hit a criminal is hardly the outcome we are looking for.  Our military, and our policing agencies, are given this training … our citizenry is not. 

Most policemen carry guns off hours; my father carried his even to church each week.  While a surprise could still have taken his life, or mine, he had the training to react quickly and appropriately as that was his primary job function.  But even then, at its core, his “gun” offered neither me nor him, any real “protection”.  At best, it offered a counter-measure to someone else’s violent inclinations.  He could have, and would have, killed another person in order to prevent them from killing.  But make no mistake, a gun does not provide a shield from other people’s bullets.  Your bullets do not fire like little patriot missiles, finding and intercepting other peoples bullets before they can do damage.  Instead it is a race of accuracy for who will kill who first.  If the policeman kills the criminal first, we are relieved.  If the criminal kills the policeman first, we are doomed.  In either case, this contest must end in death when bullets start to fly.

Responses however, and deterrence, are not actually the same thing as protection.  And there are many life threatening situations where having a gun does nothing to make them better.  For instance, car accident fatalities are generally something that a gun could do nothing to prevent.  Health issues, pollution issues, improper dietary habits, and slow killers like obesity, and chemical abuse are not at all impacted by whether one owns a gun or not.  Guns have the power to kill quickly, but not much else.  Then there is the more real danger Christians face every day though they are likely less aware of it.  The real danger exists beyond the world which we can see and experience, and lies in the power of a former angel and his compatriots that are bent on causing us nothing but pain, suffering, hopelessness, and death.  Guns have no impact at all on demons, or their leader.  And it is these forces who work to lull us into a false sense of security that relies upon self (and our weapons) to keep us “safe”.

This is actually not a new phenomenon.  Satan has long sought to kill Christ.  He started his efforts in the first war in heaven.  Then again when Christ came to earth, attempting to get Herod to kill Christ at birth.  And Satan never gave up on his quest.  So how did Christ live past being a baby?  How did He make it to the relative age of 30 before He began His ministry?  Why didn’t Satan take Him out as a teenager, or cause an accident to happen in Jesus’ early twenties?  There had to be a reason why Jesus was able to live in a world where Satan was singularly obsessed with killing Him.  How did Jesus, and then His disciples remain truly “protected” without ever owning a single gun?  It is perhaps worth examining one of the incidents where Satan acted to kill Christ (again), long before His appointed time.  It begins as Peter recounts to John Mark in his gospel in chapter four and verse 35 saying … “And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. [verse 36] And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships.”

The incident begins after a day of teaching the people and disciples in the form of parables or storytelling.  The sun was going down, most of the people were returning home, and Jesus had decided there was a man in desperate need of His attention.  So He planned to go to free Him.  They would take a boat across the Sea of Galilee here in the quiet of the evening.  In fact, the popularity of Jesus was so high, that other listeners elected to go with Him, just to see what would happen next, or hear what He might say next.  So the disciples, several of whom were experienced fishermen, prepared the boat and began the cool, refreshing journey across the Sea.  I can imagine the other little boats doing their best to keep up with the Master, and all of them begin this journey in good spirits and happy to enjoy the beauty of nature in the evening on the quiet waters.

But this condition would not last long.  John Mark continues in verse 37 saying … “And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.”  Out of nowhere (unless you count the fact that Satan stood behind it), a storm arose on the quiet Sea.  The fishermen immediately began doing everything they knew how to do, to greet this threat with the appropriate response.  These men were trained, they had seen storms before.  This was not their first rodeo, nor were they novices at these kinds of events.  But this storm was something different.  The hate that stood behind it, bore the mark of the supernatural.  It was a situation beyond their ability to control.  The best of their skills, training, and experience was no match for the hate with which Satan hates the children of God.  The boat began to fill with water.  It was coming in, faster than they could get it out.  It would not be long, before the boat sank to the bottom of the Sea, killing everyone on board, as swimming to shore in this gale force storm was not an option either.  Despite the best efforts of humanity to protect itself, Satan was far more prepared, and strong, than we.

Spiritually, this is the condition we face every day.  Our enemy bears us the same hatred he had for our Lord.  He is better prepared, has far more experience, and what he plans is no surprise to him, only to us.  Our best efforts to protect ourselves, are going to wind up being useless.  Our best training is no match for his hatred and resources.  We will find ourselves in a boat filling up with water, with no viable alternative options.  We will have moved from the beauty of a sunset on the water, to a hurricane force of hate in our face, occupying the whole of our attention, and bent on our immediate destruction coming out of nowhere.  Just like our disciple forefathers.

Often in these times of peril, we begin to question God.  We did not invent this phenomenon either.  The answer to the question however, allows us to discover what real “protection” is made up of.  Peter recounts where Jesus was during all this ruckus in verse 38 saying … “And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?”  Herein is the key to real protection.  It is not within us.  It is found ONLY in the security of knowing how much our God loves us.  Jesus was asleep.  The boat had to be rocking violently.  The waves had to be getting Him wet.  The disciples had to be yelling at each other just to be heard over the noise of the winds and waves.  Yet Jesus was comfortably asleep on a pillow in the rear of the boat.  It was not because this situation was not life threatening, in fact the storm was designed to specifically kill Him.  It was not because He did not care about His disciples or the little fleet of boats that were undoubtedly in the same peril.  He was able to sleep during Satan’s most violent attempt yet at killing Him, because He KNEW His Father loved Him, and was watching.

Christ so trusted in the will of His Father, if God had elected to let Him perish in this storm, He was willing to die, nestled in the Father’s love.  But He also likely knew, that this was not His appointed time, nor was it the appointed manner, in which He would sacrifice His life for how greatly He loves us.  So no matter what, this storm had no chance of killing Him.  The love of His Father God was no less for the disciples or for the little fleet who was following in tow.  But, the difference between the disciples and Christ in how they responded was something God the Father permitted in order to teach where real protection comes from.  We are not protected by our best efforts, but only by His love.  If we meet our end, and claim to be His servants, then we are simply following His path.  But if it is not our time, we will only survive not because of what we do, but because of what He does for us.

The hate of Satan is a constant, both for Christ and for us.  But the love of God is greater than the hate of Satan.  Satan may be able to squash our human life, but God will raise us back up, into the immortality of perfection He has so longed to give us.  In that situation, who really wins?  This is not the life we should treasure, it is in fact the next one that is the only one that matters.  Jesus knew this.  He was able to sleep in response to the hate of Satan, because no matter what, He was safe in the arms of His Father God.  And frankly so are we.  If criminals burst in to your home while your family is watching television and cut short the earthly life we all value so much … it is nothing next the eternal life you greet in the blink of an eye as time is immediately accelerated to His return and you and your family go home to meet Him in the sky.  Nobody wants to die on this earth, but for those who have surrendered their lives to Christ, what comes next whether in this world or the next one, is all that really counts.  Have you stopped to consider the massive number of nights you already spent with your family in front of the TV, where no such intrusion has taken place?  Have you stopped to consider that despite the hate of Satan, you remain largely untouched by this level of rage, because God has already been preserving your lives to give you time to learn what it means to be loved by Him, and to love others like He loves you?

The response of Christ to this threat is the part of this story we most remember.  But I submit, it is His ability to sleep in the face of Satan’s hate that reveals more about where our real protection comes from.  Peter then records Jesus effectively telling the storm to “shhh” as he continues the story in verse 39 saying … “And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. [verse 40] And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?”  Jesus looks at the raging wind and sea and simply says to quiet down, and nature hears and obeys the voice of its Creator.  The clouds part in an instant.  The night sky emerges from behind what was only moments ago a series of lightning’s and thundering’s that seemed to shake the earth.  The stars and moon are cool and quiet.  The noise is gone.  It is so peaceful the sound of the water gently lapping against the boat is so faint, it hardly draws the mind.  Somehow, the boats are emptied of water, no longer sinking, but as if this storm never even occurred.  The miracle is not one of partiality.  It is a miracle of completeness.  The Gospel of John records that immediately they were found at their destination on the other side of the lake.  What was done here in terms of miracle, was really only Christ restoring things to how they were supposed to be.

But then there was the probing question of Christ … “why” are we SO fearful?  If we cannot control a thing, why should we fear a thing?  Our lives are held in the loving hand of God, they are not our own to control and dictate, and assume will last forever.  His question tugs at the basis of our premise of gun-based protection … it is not our weaponry or training that will preserve our lives … it is the love of God that will see our lives run the course He intends them to run.  We are not intended to be burdened with the fears of those who have no hope in the eternal life our Lord has in store for us.  Death is nothing more than a momentary interruption in what will be an infinite number of days and evenings we spend in perfect love with our families, friends, and our God.  We are not supposed to be afraid of something others fear.  Instead we are to LIVE these lives, loving others to the highest extent possible for as long or as briefly as we have them.  Secure in the knowledge that our way of loving and living is actually going to be eternal, because the love of God has enabled it to be so.

We should have faith in the greater vision of our God.  We should ABANDON fear, and embrace the freedom of knowing our lives are a gift of God that began here, but are slated to never end, in the perfection He is preparing and offering us now and into the future.  That question undermines an entire gun culture when Jesus looks into your soul and asks … “Why” are you SO fearful?  Our ability to kill is not the ability we should cherish.  Our ability to really live is the gift He offers, a life without the burden of “normal” fears.  A life that is made free to love fully, without hesitation or regret.  This is the gift Christ offers.  This is what “faith” can do for us.  A certainty that our lives are in the loving protective hands of our Father God.  It is He who alone can make the hate of Satan simply quiet down.  It is He alone who can remove us from situation beyond our control, or greet us if our eternity all of the sudden begins before we thought it would.

The disciples however, were too overwhelmed with the extent of the miracle, to understand the question Jesus had asked.  Peter has John Mark transcribe their response in verse 41 as he writes … “And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”  Nature, and Satan remain completely subservient to the power of our God.  The love of Christ is no match for the hate of Satan, for Satan loses every single time to it.  But the certainty of Christ that allowed Him to sleep in this storm, and the magnitude of what happens when Jesus says “shhh” is something we should take comfort in ourselves.  Our world is filled with the hate and danger these followers of Christ faced that night on the sea.  It comes to us out of nowhere.  We cannot anticipate it.  We can only respond to it.  Our weapons, our training, and our experience are no match for it when it comes.  But in spite of this, we need have no fear of it. 

It is our “fear” that drives us to actions we so often regret.  It is our “fear” the compromises our ability to live and to love, and makes our lives ones of mediocrity.  We allow our fear to put a muzzle on our spontaneity and our generosity and become creatures of no distinction, living lives of timidity.  Yet we need not fear at all.  For even death, is not our enemy, only our fear remains in that role.  Beyond the death that will surely come to us all in this life, whether by old age, disease, or the maleficence of another; waits a life of perfection, where pain no longer exists, and love reigns supreme.  What lies beyond our death is far better and greater than we can now imagine.  So, confident in this knowledge, why live lives limited by fear, which has no basis or meaning for us?  This is not a call to live recklessly, it is a call to live completely.  This is not a call to abandon reason, but a call to embrace the magnitude of what loving another can do in the life you have right here and now. 

This is a call to abandon the notion that inflicting death on another is the role you should play.  Leave that role to our police, our military, and the souls who choose to serve and sacrifice their own lives on our behalf.  Better to be left to those who serve us in this way, than to believe everyone should have to bear the burden of taking lives to preserve and protect this existence.  Our real protection comes from our God’s love, not from our weaponry.  Our ability to walk another day in this earth alone come from Jesus, not from Smith and Wesson.  We can, through our surrender to Him, and His gracious mercy to us, live a life in the absence of fear.  We can live a life where each day is a precious opportunity to love someone else and make their life just a little bit better.  We can love this way unburdened by fear, and certain in the knowledge of the love our Father God.  We can live with absolute certainty that our lives with Jesus have only just begun.  Where we place our feet tomorrow, whether on the concrete of this world, or the golden streets of the next one, can be in the love our Father God.  This is the beauty of the certainty of Christ that allowed Him to sleep in the midst of Satan’s most violent attack.  It is the beauty our faith can offer us, if we let it …

 

Mystery of Reclamation ...

Not many of us prefer to ponder the idea that our tap water may well have gone through our sewer system at one point or another.  It is a difficult concept to grasp that water that was once filthy and unfit to drink could somehow be chemically “cleaned” to the point where we would not hesitate to fill our ice trays and drinks with it.  Perhaps it is equally ironic, if not disturbing, that the quality of our soil can be richly enhanced by adding fertilizer to it.  The chief ingredient of fertilizer being excrement.  Yet after adding perhaps the most disgusting substance on planet earth, which itself is composed of nothing but “waste” materials fit for no other purpose, our farm lands or gardens produce much better crops than if we had simply left the soil without this “precious” resource.  When we look at a bright fresh bowl of fruit on our kitchen table, and enjoy digging in to a fresh cold sweet harvest of berries, or citrus, we really have no idea “how” an infant seed, exposed to disgusting ingredients, in a generally polluted world, through a process of growth we did not witness, nor cause … results in such a delicious treat our bodies long for and enjoy.  We have a notional idea of how crops grow, and how resources can be reclaimed, but the details remain mostly a mystery.

The composition of the human mind and heart are infinitely more complex than the simple seed which will one day become a sweet berry, or an ear of corn, or an herb we season our food with.  The mind, like our soil and untreated water, can become a place of great pollution, waste, and darkness.  It is the inevitable result of having embraced the addiction of self-love and sin we are covered with.  It is a degenerative process, which would have us slide deeper and deeper into a muck fit to grow nothing, add no value, and become something only bent on taking, and “offering” little & only when there is a chance at greater rewards for doing so.  Our minds of greed, and our hearts of stone, are hardly the right place for any seed to grow.  To plant a seed of Love here, could only be done by a Farmer we would call “insane”.  We, are not good ground in which to grow anything.  We, are a toxic un-reclaimed section of scorched earth, with a history of destroying everything we touched.  We, are known for causing pain, not for relieving it.  Yet somehow, our Father God, chooses to do the unthinkable.  He comes to plant seed here, in us, and on purpose.  Why?  What does He know that we do not?

The mystery of how a corrupted mind and heart can be reclaimed is unknown by us.  And this is not a new phenomenon.  Peter recalls to John Mark in his gospel in chapter 4 the continuation of this theme and analogy that Christ used to teach us about salvation.  He begins in verse 26 recalling the words of Christ saying … “And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; [verse 27] And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.”  We do not see the seed opening up underground.  We do not see it take root.  We only see it when it emerges from the earth and begins to grow.  “Why” a seed grows is not just a metaphysical question, particularly when considering why “this” seed grows, but that one does not.  The farmer in this analogy plants a seed and time passes, and it grows.  But the “why” it grows remains a mystery to the farmer.  The “process of growth” is NOT up to the farmer.  The human farmer in this analogy is a “witness” to the growth, not the cause of it.

Understood in the context of spreading the gospel … “we” do not “save” others.  We may have the joy of spreading the “seed” of the gospel.  We may introduce people to Christ.  But that is where our part of the story ends.  The “process of growth” is NOT up to us.  We do not get to rush it, and should not slow it down.  This is true in ourselves, and in others.  The “process of growth” is contained WITHIN the seed itself.  In this instance, the “Seed” can overcome the pollution it comes in contact with.  The “Seed” is capable to reclaiming the excrement and untreated water of our lives, and purify it, for the purposes of making something wonderful grow within us.  The Love that grows within us, is the love of Christ for others; as it grows it will become evident to the world around us.  We begin to treat other people differently.  This is the key evidence to us, and to those around us, that the seed is taking root and springing forth.  All of the sudden, the focus is no longer on the earth, it is on the plant.  All of the sudden, the pollution and muck of our lives, is no longer the focus, it is the plant of love that is springing forth from our muck, despite all the odds against it.

“How” this occurs is a mystery to us.  Peter continues recalling the words of Christ in verse 28 saying … “For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. [verse 29] But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.”  The growth that takes place is not immediate, or completed in an instant.  It takes time to transition from seed, to blade, to ear, to corn.  Trust takes time.  Full submission takes time to achieve.  We must come to realize that what we “give up” to Christ, are not things we wanted or needed in the first place.  What we “treasure” today about ourselves, are things we come to despise later when we see them for what they truly were.  The things about us that we take pride in, are the very things we would be better off without.  In short, when diseased soil looks at itself, it does not think badly about what it sees.  But when pure water sees what untreated water looks like, it cannot imagine ever “wanting” to be that dirty.  As we learn to trust God, we come to see He does actually save us in spite of ourselves.  As we see Him tenderly pick us back up after we have thrown away His victories, and continue to tend to us, despite our lack of response, we come to “know” that He is bent on saving us.

It is unfortunate that we are such slow learners, but the level of our disease is great.  Despite the process of growth taking time however, it does continue to occur.  And at every point in time, there is an evidence of how mature His Love in us actually is.  We can measure our progress by how deeply we care about others, and how little we care about ourselves.  If those scales do not tilt the way we wish they would, perhaps we are not as mature as we would like to think ourselves as being in the Christian journey of transformation.  Again this is not a measurement of how complete our doctrinal understanding is, it is a measurement of how deep our passion for others is.  What is planted within us is a seed of Love, not a seed of mere wisdom.  We can already be “smart”, or “wise”, but lack all notion of what it means to love another.  A brilliant Christian can expound on the meaning of scripture, and the interpretation of prophecy, and still have NO concept of who Jesus is, and how He loves others.  It is Love that saves us.  His love for us, and His love for others reflected through us.

What is most evident to the Farmer … this time the heavenly Farmer … is when the growth process has been completed and when the harvest is ready.  It is the sickle that is used to gather the ripe ears of corn to feed those in need.  We are cut off from the lives we once knew.  We are taken away from our past, though the seed of the corn remains with the Harvest.  The self-perpetuating seeds of Christ, are still found in the berries, the corn, or the herbs.  Even when the fruit is cut off from the plants, the seed remains.  Without Christ we could never be saved.  If we were to be cut off from Christ, we would wither and die, and our love for others would die as well.  It is His undying love for others, which can remain ever green within us.  It is His strength to love the unlovable that can inspire us to do the same.  We do not need to rely upon our own strength to “be good people” and to love others.  Instead we can “reflect” His love for them, and His passion for them, through us.  We can simply get out of His way, and not limit Him, but provide Him unlimited access to strengthen our Love for others, and renew our physical being when we would otherwise be exhausted by human weakness.  Instead of attempting to be good, we can simply let go control to Christ, and watch Him actually make us into something we never thought possible.

The Harvest can feed the world.  It is not the process of growth that saves others.  It is the offering of fruit, the offering of Love for them, of meeting their needs, that awakens them to how much God loves them, which begins the process of saving them.  We do not offer the world in need a green leaf from the corn plant, something that is not ready yet to love, and cannot offer sustenance of love the hungry needs.  We offer them fully ripe, and ready harvest, the fruit that is laden with the Seeds of Christ and His love for others; offered in a tangible way.  It is not the idea of Love the world needs, it is the tangible meaningful example of Love it needs.  Speaking words is not enough, the fruit is driven to do something.  The fruit is so driven, because it is no longer just holding a single seed.  The seeds within the fruit have multiplied such that the fruit can hardly contain them all.  The Love of Christ for others reaches such a growth point within us, that we are literally driven to DO SOMETHING for others.  We do not sit still and remain steeped in our apathy, because our apathy has been driven from us.  We have so much passion, we MUST do, we have to do, we will not … just sit.

What was once a plot of muck and mire, a mix of untreated sewer water and excrement, has become a fruit of brilliant color and excellent taste.  The focus is no longer on the dirt from which we emerged, or the sins that once dominated our existence, but it is on the Love of Christ we are now so fully reflecting to those in the most desperate need of it.  We have become a delicious berry, or a wholesome ear of corn, or a seasoning herb that enriches the meals of others.  Our purpose is no longer to simply grow, it is to feed others.  This was the mission all along.  The growth was only the journey that would lead us to become something that would feed the world.  Our goal was not simply to produce a leaf, or get a little taller.  It was to reach maturity in the reflection of His Love to the world, as demonstrated within us. 

The magnitude of what we can become in this theme needed further clarification, and so Jesus continued to teach Peter and the others, as John Mark records in verse 30 saying … “And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? [verse 31] It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: [verse 32] But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.”  A grain of a mustard seed is indeed a very small herb in its seedling state.  When looking at how small a thing it is, one could hardly imagine how large it can grow.  Well beyond a bowl of berries, or even a dozen ears of corn, the mustard seed will grow until it is a large tree with great branches shooting out in space.  It will offer the world shade, and become a place where even birds can make their nests.  Not only can our love for others become nearly infinite, as we begin to reflect the infinite love of Christ, our love can reach out to our physical world and the animals He created in it.  A tree does more than just feed humans, it offers other benefits that nature enjoys.  While providing shade, and bird lodging are hardly its first priority, they are certainly not omitted from the list of benefits it provides.

Think of the literally millions of seeds a single mustard seed tree can provide.  Think of how the time of harvest comes year after year from the plants God sees fit to save and grow, and reclaim.  There is a reason why God prefers the math of multiplication where it comes to spreading the gospel.  While He is fully focused on the single seed planted in you, He fully intends to see a harvest grow that will multiply exponentially the love for you He has, into love for others that was there all along.  The point was to save more than just one seed, but in so doing, to multiply the harvest in others.  Your reclamation project was not about changing the soil composition, or purification of the water in the mud of your life.  It was and is, about changing the focus from the ground, to the plant, to the fruit.  It was about altering who you are, to a point where you can hardly recognize who you were.  The goal of your reclamation, was not to teach you “how” the transition takes place.  God knows the “how”.  The goal of your reclamation was to be re-claimed, and re-created.  Attempting to control the “how” only slows down the process.  Submitting and trusting in God, speeds it up.

Mark concludes in verse 33 writing … “And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. [verse 34] But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.”  Christ chose to speak to His followers, both then and now through scripture, in the form of parables of storytelling because it was effective.  It gives us a chance to learn truth, every time we reopen the word.  These themes and analogies have much to offer, as long as we continue to view them through the lens of Jesus Christ, and His ultimate mission to see mankind redeemed, reclaimed, and reconciled to God.  Like any story, not everything is literal, and not every analogy holds up in every single point of detail; but the themes of salvation and redemption can be easily seen, if one chooses to look.  While we may never understand “how” Christ saves us, what is clear from these stories, and the example of His life, is “why” He chose to save you and I … He loves us.  It was Love that motivated God to reach out and save us, even when we were not certain that is what we wanted.  It is Love that can awaken the heart of the unbeliever to the knowledge that there is something more out there, and something better, and they too can experience it.  It is Love that is the Seed of Christ, planted in a human heart. 

I would pray to become the fruit, driven to feed others; and not remain the dirt mired in a focus of only our pain and past.  I would see my apathy, replaced with passion that cannot sit still.  There is so much more than we have hardly imagined … and Peter’s gospel through Mark was still in its infancy.