“Journey to the Cross: The Other Side” (Ash Wednesday)

Scripture: Mark 5:1-20

Tonight, we begin this journey called Lent. The word itself comes from a Germany word that means “Spring”. It may have originally been referring to the season that comes between Winter and Summer, but I like to think of it as what comes from these days of Spring. Spring follows a time of hibernation, of rest, of quiet. Spring follows a time of, if you will, death. Lent is, just as Spring is, a time of reawakening, of new birth, of new life, of a shout of “Hallelujah! I’m alive!”.
Lent is the time when we begin to reexamine and reveal the things that we harbor deep within – those things that are not of God. It’s a time of “spiritual house cleaning”.

A cleaning woman who had received Christ at a Salvation Army meeting was asked what difference Jesus made in her life. She said, “I don't sweep dirt under the carpets anymore.”
- From Homiletics OnLine

Lent is a time when we stop sweeping the dirt of this existence - our sinfulness - under a spiritual carpet, and begin dumping it where it belongs – at the foot of the Cross.

Read Mark 5:1-5

Jesus was a Jew, a man of Israel. As such, he was supposed to follow the law, and a couple of their commandments were that you never associated with either a Samaritan or a Gentile, and you went out of your way to avoid towns where Gentiles lived. Another law was that you never came close to a person who was either ill or demon possessed. These were all considered as “unclean”, and no self respecting Jew ever wanted to be considered unclean! But that never seemed to stop Jesus! In this story, he intentionally crosses the Sea of Galilee, from Judah into a foreign land, and immediately encounters, not only a Gentile, but one who is demon possessed.
Why would Jesus do that? Why would the Lord intentionally snub the laws of his own people? I think that it was never his intent to snub anyone – his whole purpose in coming into this existence was to show everyone – Jew and Gentile alike – the true way to live this life. And he would be unable to do that if he never crossed to the other side of the lake.

He went to meet a man who was not only wasn’t a Jew, but was demon possessed. He had been ostracized by the people of his town, forced to live far away from them in the caves where the town’s dead were buried. He was uncontrollable; he was self destructive, he was unclean to the max, and no one wanted anything to do with him – the people had decided to “sweep this dirt” of their town under the carpet. Everyone, that is, except Jesus.

Read Mark 5:6-13

It would seem that the demons knew exactly who Jesus is, and they plead for their very existence. “Please don’t torture us!”, they cry. Don’t torture them?! After all that they had caused this man to endure?! But the Lord isn’t there to minister to the Satan’s minions – they had already made their choice, and they would have to live, and die, by it. But this afflicted man was another story. He was suffering for no reason other than the Satan’s agenda and the lack of compassion on the part of the town’s people, and Jesus was not going to let it continue.

And in faith, Jesus will not let us suffer needlessly, either. Whether it is a temporary illness or the indwelling of thousands of demons, the prayers of the faithful can bring the power of glory to bear on our troubles. But “in faith” is the key. James 5:15 tells us that “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.” In the case of the possessed man, where do you suppose the faith was? The man was in great need, but did he know who Jesus was? The demons knew who Jesus was, but was this a sign of faith? I don’t think it was either one – I believe that it was mercy that defined Jesus and the healing that day. The man couldn’t ask for or express faith, and the demons didn’t trust Jesus as their Lord. And so, it was the grace of Jesus that won the day. Not for the demons, and certainly not for the pigs, but totally for the helpless man. And he is ready, willing and anxious to do the same for us – if we let him.

Read Mark 5:14-20

“Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” But the man doesn’t just tell his family, does he? He tells everyone he can reach in the 10 city area, and the story spreads far and wide about the mercy and power and glory that is Jesus Christ. Jesus took the “dirt” from the man’s life, and destroyed it. He didn’t sweep it under some proverbial “rug”, he didn’t simply move it out of sight, he didn’t just calm the demons to the point that they could no longer do any mischief – he destroyed it all!

And all of this came to be because Jesus crossed over the sea from Judea to the Gentile lands. No longer was salvation limited to Israel – it had been opened up for everyone who would believe.

The preacher and theologian Peter Gomes writes:
What "born again" in the gospel literally means is to begin all over again, to be given a second birth, a second chance. The one who is born again doesn't all of a sudden get turned into a super-Christian. To be born again is to enter afresh into the process of spiritual growth. It is to wipe the slate clean. It is to cancel your old mortgage and start again. In other words, you don't have to be always what you have now become. Such an offer is too good to be true for many, confusing for most, but for those who seek to be other than what they are now, who want to be more than the mere accumulation and sum total of their experiences, the invitation, “You must be born again”, is an offer you cannot afford to refuse.

—Peter J. Gomes, The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1996), 188.

Had Jesus gone out of his way to cross the Galilean Lake in order to minister to this man? No – it had always been God’s plan to extend the offer of salvation to all who would believe, not just some narrowly defined segment of society. But as Pastor Gomes says, it isn’t an instantaneous and singular event. It is a journey.

And for Jesus, it would also be a journey. Salvation wouldn’t just be conveyed to all, and then he could leave. Jesus was on a journey that would take him to Jew and Gentile alike, and would culminate in his great sacrifice at Calvary, in the giving of his all on the Cross. And for us, Lent is also a journey – one that requires that we stop sweeping our dirt under the carpet – to stop living our life in a shadow – to throw our sin out into the light of the Glory of heaven, and to then let him take it, never giving it back, and destroying it forever.

Are you prepared to take that Journey to Calvary with Jesus, to welcome the Holy Spring of new life in you, to surrender the dirt of the world that creates that great separation between you and God, to allow him to make the God-sacrifice on your behalf?
Will you show the Lord what his “crossing over” really means to you?