Everyone else had given up on the Village Scary Guy. You know who I am talking about—the one who
sets your spiritual Geiger counters to the tune of the William Tell
Overture. The Bible clearly states that
folks re-routed their paths to avoid the lifeless zone where he wandered. Where everyone else took their u-turn, Jesus headed straight in his direction and
cast a whole crew of demons out of him and into a herd of pigs worth a
fortune. The townspeople react like a
mother who just found her toddler “decorating” her new Coach bag with permanent
marker. They weren’t happy.
To Jesus, the treasure of one soul was worth the porcine
fortune lost in one glorious episode of rescue.
The freedom of one soul was worth more than a treasure trove of bacon
and pork chops. Can you imagine how much
even one of those pigs cost? Can you
imagine how freaky it was to see the Village Scary suddenly sane and
harmless-looking at the same time you see a herd of dead pigs floating in the
river? It was disgusting, gross, scary, and
messy. So they asked Jesus to leave.
This one fact—that they asked Jesus to leave—won’t leave me lately. I can’t stop feeling broken over their desire
for him to leave.
At that moment of determining to follow Jesus, every truly-saved
sinner knows what was going on in his own heart. The sense that this Jesus is really going to
“mess up my life” is imminent. He starts reviewing all the things he
suspects this crazy savior—crazy enough to give his life for us willingly—is going
to ask of him. The first rays of light in ages breaks into his creepy attic,
and instinctively we know that a housecleaning is about to begin.
Even more so, there are moments when seeking Jesus looks
weird or even crazy…praying for someone with serious disabilities, cancer. I suspect that casting demons out looks more
orderly for those with a lot of practice, but so far my experiences have been
crazy looking. Following Jesus means
that you begin to walk in a reality that is not visible, and you become a
member of a Kingdom that has different rules than this earth.
I remember a moment when I was still new in the Lord and I
was in a coffee house with a friend. She
was such a sweet believer…the Lord had rescued her out of many things, and as
we talked, we felt the presence of the Holy Spirit growing stronger. There was an electric presence of the Holy Spirit
that day. We were talking about revival
and how much God wanted to touch the little college town where we lived. I remember thinking, “What are you up to,
Lord?” One of those famous local crazy
guys was also in the coffee house. If I
had been alone, I probably would not have engaged him, but my friend had such a
loving presence, and she began to talk to him.
She told him how much Jesus loved him and had such a sweet tone. I was already feeling the presence of the
Spirit, and I can’t tell you if it was the “mature” thing to do, but I started
rebuking the evil spirits in my prayer language, and the guy threw his cup of
coffee at me. The owners asked us to
leave, called the cops, and closed the coffee shop for the afternoon. True story.
I know that there are those who will say that I was
immature, that we shouldn’t have “gone there.”
To be honest, I am not sure it would play out like that in my life
today. I can tell you, though, that our
hearts at that moment were set on following Jesus and seeing his Kingdom come,
and that is how it ended!
I have a hate/love
relationship with these crazy moments when He wins me….I hate risk, and I am
anything but an adventurer at heart, but
when He gets a hold of me, there is no telling what He will talk me into.
I wish I could say that every time he has tried to break the
part of me that prefers control to holy insanity, that he has won. I don’t want to ask him to leave, ever…and
yet, I know that my actions betray me. There
are days when you just know that if you step just one baby step closer to the
Lord, you are going to be signing your name to some costly enterprise. Costly perfume is going to pour, or some pigs
are going over the cliff. We reach that
moment of decision and…we either take a step closer or step away. Some say the cost is just too high and they
ask Jesus to leave. Others step into the
crazy without regret.
