Vision Comes When We Love as Christ Loves

The Unlovely

Text: Mark 5

Proposition: Jesus loves the unlovely, the ones whom Satan assails, the ones who have heard and walked away, the ones who have sinned,… He loves us.

Introduction: Lovely, it can describe a sunset, a woman, a day, a meal, a country. Unlovely… it’s not used to describe anything yet there are many things it refers to. I first saw the unlovely when I was about 16, living in a central African country where street beggars and people so crippled they could only move about on their hands would sit on the sidewalks of the city. I met it again in halfway houses for people with mental illness, people whom many would turn their eyes from. Then I met the unlovely in smart people that were con artists, consuming the people around them. This morning I’d like to talk with you about how Jesus moves past the fear, rejection and power that often accompany the unlovely. I’d like to talk with you about how Jesus loves the unlovely and how we are called to love what He loves. So let’s use an extraordinary example of this, have a look at Mark 5.                                                                                                                                                          

I. Sometimes When You Follow Jesus You’ll Meet the Unlovely… Faithless.                

In the account in Mark the disciples follow Jesus lead to get into a small boat and travel across the lake called the Sea of Galilee. Half way across a storm hits and the boat starts to take on water. They see Jesus asleep by the stern and above the shriek of the wind they call out to Him to save them, to see the crisis they are in. Jesus stands and rebukes the wind and stills the raging water and then looks quizzically at them and says, ‘Where is your faith?’ It’s like an athlete about to run in the Olympics and as he enters the stadium the crowd and the noise so overwhelm him he feels like he’s in the wrong place and he hasn’t even made it to the starting line. That’s the back story in the parallel account of Luke 8 but the point is clear. When Jesus invites you to love the unlovely your faith will take a hit before the race even begins. I suppose the main point is that if Jesus invites you to get into a boat and head out on a trip with Him why shouldn’t you trust Him to get you there? It would even have been easy to conclude that the whole purpose of the trip was to have the deity of Christ revealed as the One can control even the wind and waves. They might have thought the worst was over and yet what Jesus was showing them is Who He is and who they are. He’s calling out their faith. When you love the unlovely Jesus calls out your faith. You never know where Jesus is going to lead you only that wherever it is, He’s already preparing you for it.

II. When Jesus First Sees the Unlovely, He Sees Them.                                                

The boat crunches ashore on the south eastern edge of the lake and as they jump out suddenly this wild man comes shrieking towards them. Before Peter could draw his sword the man dives at their feet, his naked body gashing itself on the rocks of the shore. The whole encounter took place in seconds yet what becomes apparent is that he has been watching them come closer and closer. Though they didn’t see him he most certainly was watching them. The unlovely do not always have demonic presence, in fact rarely is that the case but Satan’s signature on a life that is being assaulted has some common marks. Satan seeks to isolate people, to bind with chains either literal or figurative. to use their bodies as weapons against others, themselves and God. To bring shame through nakedness, to express self-contempt as they gash themselves with either carelessness or precision, Satan draws them to places and images of death, to tombs and lonely places. Yet despite Satan’s attempts to destroy the image of God in man he cannot prevent them from seeing and seeking Jesus. Look at verse 6, “When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him.” That ‘he’ is the man in the man. Then comes the voice of the demon in the man, “And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.” The demonic knows Jesus, it knows Who the Most High is and it knows itself as creature not Creator, for it fears the judgment of God. But the point I’d like to make with you is that when Jesus sees the unlovely, He sees them. He sees the man in the gashed up naked body, He sees past the shrieking voice of the enemy. Look at verse 8, “For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” Don’t see the disfigurement, don’t focus on the smell, the profanity, the actions or the attitudes of the unlovely. Somewhere in the ruin of the unlovely is the person you need to see. Jesus separates the demonic from the image of God. He asks for his name. He separates who he is from what he has done. The man’s response is dramatic, he gives the only name he is known by, it’s not his real name just the nickname that describes the ruin that is in him. “My name is Legion; for we are many.”  

III. When Jesus Loves He Empties Out Ruin and Fills Us With His Purposes. Can you imagine being invited to someone’s house and as you go in you see rotting food, clutter, pools of human waste, empty liquor bottles and syringes, it stinks. You clean out the filth, you wash and restore the home and you bathe the person who is crippled that lives there. That’s half the job, then comes the other half of love, you refresh their purpose with the love of Christ. That’s what happens here, the demons are emptied out, released into a herd of pigs. Their presence is seen in their destruction, what they had been attempting to do in Legion for years they now do in minutes to 2000 pigs. This is when the story shifts, the camera pans from the exhausted Legion at the feet of Jesus to the faces of the herdsmen as they see this great ruin of self-destruction filling the bay. They tell everyone they meet and within hours people gather to see and believe. I suppose that in any encounter with Jesus it’s what you see that determines what you believe. Look at verse 15, “Then they came to Jesus, and saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.” First they saw that what was familiar had changed, though he looked the same he didn’t act the same. The clothing made Legion a man again, acceptance. But it’s their reaction that tells us what else they saw. They were afraid and they begin to pray, plead, beg, implore Jesus to go away from them. This darkness of sin, this unholy fear of the Lord, is also what the unlovely look like. We can only imagine what this reaction meant to Jesus. There was enough saving grace right there in front of them for each person yet they preferred ground water, slough water, sewage water to His living water. The camera pans back to Legion as he now stands in front of Jesus. A moment before the townspeople had begged Jesus now Legion begs Jesus that he could leave with Him. Two different prayers you could say, the first that should never have been uttered is answered, Jesus leaves. The second that should to our minds have been answered is refused. It is redirected according to the greater vision and purpose that Jesus hears the Father directing Him in. Verse 19, “However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.” When Jesus loves the unlovely He empties out ruin and fills us with His purposes.                                                                                                         

Verse 20 is an epilogue. Long after Jesus has sailed back to the Galilean shore this man called Legion went and continued to do what Jesus asked. As far as I can see Legion became a Christian who became a missionary. “And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled.” The Decapolis were ten cities on the eastern side of the Jordan. Perhaps the most famous of these was a place called Damascus, a place where the presence of Christianity grew to such an extent that within 5 or 6 years a man by the name of Saul of Tarsus would travel there. Once again the story would play out, the ruin of Satan would be cast out and the purposes of Christ, of the cross of Christ, the great redemption of His body and blood would again set one free and send out another missionary. Vision comes when we love what Jesus loves…the unlovely.  

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