Mercy Beyond Comprehension

One of my favorite New Testament stories involves Jesus, a demon possessed man and a herd of pigs.  The story is found in Luke 8 and Mark 5, and it goes something like this:

Jesus enters a town and, as he does so, he encounters a man possessed by a demon.  The usual "casting out" encounter occurs, with one exception.  Rather than simply cast the demons - since there were many - out, Jesus permits the demons to enter a herd of pigs, which then commit mass suicide by jumping off a cliff.  The formerly possessed man and the witnesses go running into town to tell everyone.

This is when the story gets interesting - the people don't react as you might expect.  You would expect that they would be overjoyed that this Jesus guy, a guy who could heal and cast out demons, had come to their town.  That's not what happens at all.  Instead, they get scared and they ask Jesus to leave.  That's right, before Jesus even has a chance to teach them or proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God to them, they ask him to leave their town.

Never willing to force himself on people, Jesus complies with their request and heads back to the boat.  The formerly possessed man begs, begs Jesus to come along, to be allowed to travel with Jesus.

And now we come to why I love this story - Jesus won't let him come along.  Instead, Jesus sends the man back into the town with the following instruction: "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."

This amazes me.  It leaves me in speechless awe at the mercy of God in Jesus.

This was a town that had deliberately chosen to not have Jesus come to them.  They stated as clearly as possible that they wanted nothing to do with Jesus when they asked him to get back in the boat and leave.

Yet...Jesus doesn't give up on this town.  He could have, and he would have been justified.  After all, they did say that they didn't want to hear what Jesus had to say.

But Jesus has other ideas - he leaves, but he leaves them with a messenger in the man who had been possessed.  Even through their resistance, they would have the visible witness of the Kingdom of God presented by this healed man.

The mercy of God is beyond compare and beyond comprehension.  Never will God give up on people.  Even those people who deliberately ask God to leave them alone are not beyond the reach of God's mercy.  God will always pursue and will use whatever messenger God can.

Amen.