Sunday Service, 11 January 2015

January is a time when we traditionally have New Year resolutions, when we take stock of our lives and plan for the year ahead. The word January comes from the Roman god Janus, the god of transitions , he is a two headed God looking both forward and backwards. So at this time of year as we think about ourselves and our church, we need to decide are we going to spend this year of 2015 looking back, regretting the days that have gone when we were younger and fitter, when coming to church and being a Christian seemed easier, when we didn’t feel as if we had to defend our faith to those around us. Or is it a time when accepting all these things we resolve to look forward, a time to try and discern what God wants from his people at these challenging times. A time to move forward with faith knowing that we are in God’s hands and that all will be well.
Well I hope that as we meditate on the reading that we had today from Mark’s Gospel it will help to arm us for the year ahead as we step boldly into 2015.
As the boat nosed into the reeds at the water’s edge with a gentle swish Jesus and the others climbed out, their feet splashing in the water and the shingle crunching underfoot. At once the air was shattered with a tortured animal cry. The wild man stumbled out from among the tombs, broken chains swaying from side to side, their sharp edges slapping his raw, wounded sides. His eyes were bloodshot; his body caked with dirt, his smell was appalling.
What do you want with me Jesus? he slurred. His voice was distorted and ugly, a man shouting into a chamber of his own echoes. Jesus’ voice was calm, interested. Looking at the twisted broken man at his feet Jesus asked him his name. It was a long time since anyone had asked him that. So long, in fact, that the voices within him shouted him down, the voices of his demons came tumbling out of his mouth like a horde of banshees, ‘Legion’ they said and began to plead for themselves. Jesus; reply when it came was not in the kind voice he had used to speak to the man. He spoke with authority like an ageless God. Wrapping the words round the situation, like God framing the heavens and the earth. One word from him and it was as if all hell let loose.
It began with sounds of restlessness and agitation in the herd of pigs, up on the hill beyond the gravestones. They began to grunt and squeal, churning the ground and sending up clouds of dust and dirt. Then it came. Like things possessed, they thundered down the hill to the cliff top over the water. Then as if pursued by the hounds of hell they continued running, over the cliff edge down into the water far below. One, two, hundreds all driven by the same madness, the water boiled and foamed as they thrashed and kicked and then silence, stillness as the doomed animals sank out of sight.
And in the silence, as the waters settled so the wild man seemed to deflate. The anger, the agitations were gone. And suddenly there was a crowd and someone handed the man a robe and he slipped it on like a man who had never forgotten how to dress, like a man who had never raved and screamed like a man who was completely sane. This calm and cured man sat and gazed at Jesus, drinking in the sight of his face. Looking at him as a patient might look at the surgeon who has, against all the odds, saved his life. In the peace beside the lake he heard the birds singing and the water lapping. His life had been restored to him.
Soon however the peace was shattered by the crowd, the crowd now as uneasy with what they had seen as earlier the pigs had been. The village men who had chained the wild man up, the wives who had scared their children with tales of the bogey man, Farmers and fishermen, tradesmen, women, children, Muffled, furtive talking began, eyes darting, a sense of unease, waiting for the brave one, the spokesman to speak up. And he did, Go, he said at last, go away and take your power with you, we don’t want you here. For all his bluster the spokesman was afraid, and the whole town shared his fear. ‘Just go Jesus of Nazareth, he pleaded. Just go and leave us alone, we don’t want you here.
Harsh words for Jesus, the healer, to hear. But harsher words were to come. As Jesus climbed into the boat to leave the newly sane man went to follow him, went to climb into the boat after his saviour. But that was not to be. No Jesus told him firmly, no you must stay here. Go back to the people who know you, tell them your story, show them your sanity. You must not come with me, this is where you belong, you must stay here. Cruel words and so hard for the man to fulfil, as the boat slipped away from the shore and gradually faded into the horizon the man finally turned to shore, picked his way through the crowds as they stepped warily back to let him through.
Ahead lay all manner of explanations, all kinds of questions an uncertain welcome wherever he went, a new and better life certainly, but a difficult one all he same.
Why did Jesus tell him to stay? Why couldn’t he give him a break, hadn’t he suffered enough? Would it really have hurt to take him along? In fact Jesus says this kind of thing quite often. He says it to the weeping Mary at the tomb when having at first mistaken him for the gardener she then realises he is Jesus in John chapter 20 verse 17, ‘do not hold on to me, go’. He says it to his disciples as they watch him ascend into heaven, ‘go, reach the world for me’. He says it sometimes to us, ‘You must move on, you cannot hold onto the past, Go’.
Our job is the expansion of Gods kingdom, and to do that we must move on, just like Jesus himself moved on relentlessly pushing himself, aware of how little time he had and of how much he had to do moving on to crowd after crowd, situation after situation. When we think of that poor man looking helplessly watching the boat sail away until it becomes a tiny dot on the horizon we might think of ourselves, of our church, are we like that, looking back to the way things were, wanting things to be the way they were?
But at the beginning of a New Year we have to realise that that will not do. The Jews in Exodus could not live on yesterday’s manna; God’s good provision was for that day only, the next day it turned bad inside them. We cannot survive on a diet of yesterday’s blessings and expect to still complete the journey, as we get older it is tempting to look back, as we get older it can be harder to leave our comfort zones, to leave the places and the routines that make us feel secure but as Christians those hard words are for us too, you need to move on, there is work to be done. Go
Jesus has rescued us and saved us, he loves us as his beloved children, but he loves everyone else too, every person in the world is God’s beloved child to and he needs us and our gifts to reach them. The Old Testament is full of images of growing up and moving on, to stay where we are spiritually is to choose a stunted life, and if we choose to live a stunted life then we are depriving the world, we are not doing the work that Jesus has appointed us as his disciples to do. If the man had gone with Jesus, stayed with him in the comfy boat, how many people would have heard his story, how many people would have had the chance to be changed by it.
It must have been a hard walk home for the man, maybe he could hardly even remember where home was! There must have been many difficult days, hard conversations. But he did it he became a disciple for Jesus.
So for us at the beginning of 2015 the message is the same, don’t look back, don’t try and eat yesterday’s manna, with faith in Jesus our Lord and Saviour we must all move forward to build the kingdom of God.
Amen