He was a source of terror, an object of pity, and an epitome of uselessness. No chain could bind him. No person could tame him. Night or day made no difference to his will to violence; the tombs were his resting place, the demons his companions, the night his solace. He cut himself and did not know. He cut others and did not care.
But one day Jesus met the man of the Gerasenes. Out of that encounter came forth healing. Violence gave way to quietness. The itch to destruction was re placed by an eagerness to be useful. The frenzy of a divisive and tormented soul found itself transformed into an integrated human being at peace with him self. Insanity met its judgment. The man became a new man (see Mark 5:1-20).
But newness brought its own terror. The people were terrified at what Jesus had done, and they begged Him to leave town. They had their reasons; we have ours. Not so openly perhaps, not always so directly, but ever so subtly we find ourselves begging the Lord to leave us alone. For when He conies and where He is, He demands change unpalatable, disturbing, radical, and costly change.
The change is unpalatable. When Jesus comes, He brings a new scale of values. Like the citizens of Gerasa, we too have our honorable occupations. We have our town uppermost in our collective mind. We plan well, we work hard, we build together brick by brick Gerasa's chamber of commerce. We work at a system to assure the material wealth and the consumer comforts of the community. But when Jesus comes to town, He finds that the collective has crowded out the individual. On one side of our balance of values is the community, satisfied with prosperous pursuits; on the other side, a lonesome man, forgotten by the community's preoccupation with the present. The man is hungry, tired, naked, and not of himself. The community is content, comfortable, and booming. Jesus casts His lot on the side of redeeming the man. The pigs rush to their death. We join the people of Gerasa, weep for the pigs, ignore the man, and beg Jesus to leave us alone.
The change is disturbing. When Jesus comes, He upsets the status quo. Like the citizens of Gerasa, we find security and safety in things as they are. In our fathers' trades. In our mothers' recipes. In our settled convictions. In our committees' wisdom. In the arrogant strength of our policies. In the structure of our system.
But Jesus has other things on His mind. While we want to talk about how to make a living, He wants to talk about how to live. We want to press on with our programs and strategies, but He wants to wait for people. We want to nurture the healthiest stock market of the region, and He wants to usher in the kingdom of God. We are in search for power, but He wants to redefine power as surrender. Against our self-imposed mandate for greatness, He prescribes a mission of servanthood. As opposed to the arrogance of our self-importance, He insists on the mystery of brotherhood. While we like to stay by the easy and the comfortable, He bids us rise to the holy and the lofty. We seek life, He offers death. His formula for fulfillment is a mystery locked up in a paradox: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone" (John 12:24).*
The change is radical. When Jesus comes, He brings about a total and revolutionary change. The citizens of Gerasa witnessed such a transformation; they "saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind" (Mark 5:15). In one moment he was a raging volcano, a rushing tide of violence, an uncontrollable fury; in the very next moment he was a picture of calm, a certitude of quietness, an arrival of peace. In one moment he was naked, erratic, directionless, lacking in identity, groping without destiny; in the very next, he knew who he was and what he should be doing.
The difference between wasted life and the discovery of assurance is Jesus. When He comes, He comes to mediate God's grace and bring about a radical change. When He speaks, He commands the uncomfortable. When He sits at the table, He talks of the hungry and the poor. When He knocks, He insists on unconditional entrance. When He enters, He permits no competitor.
The change is costly—but transforming. When Jesus transforms a per son and offers a new life, the new life is free but not cheap. It is free because one cannot and does not buy it or barter for it. It is free because the new life is never a humanly achieved reality, but always a gift of God's grace: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works ,lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8, 9).
But the new life in Jesus is never cheap nor incidental. As Bonhoeffer force fully comments, it's everything. "It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking through every programme, every ideal, every set of laws. No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Be side Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters. When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to this person."1
The new man of the Gerasa discovered the joy of that exclusive attachment. He sat at the feet of the One who healed him and became the bearer of the good news. But his fellow citizens of Gerasa found the price too heavy to bear. They were "so fearful of endangering their earthly interests that He who had vanquished the prince of darkness before their eyes was treated as an intruder, and the Gift of heaven was turned from their doors." 2
They had their reason; we have ours. But the Gift of heaven still remains unchanged: ours by faith in His grace.
*All Scripture passages in this editorial are from the Revised Standard Version.
1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan Co., 1963), p. 63.
2. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1940), p. 339.