If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 8. You can find that on page 865 in the pew Bibles.
This morning we read one half of one verse. Tonight we turn to forty-one verses from Luke’s gospel, so we’re a little bit on the opposite end of the spectrum. So we’ll get right to Luke’s gospel. But just to notice a couple of things as we read the rest of chapter 8 and then the first part of chapter 9, it’s that chapter 8 shows us how Jesus engages a messy and a broken world with power and compassion. And then as we turn to chapter 9, we see that Jesus sends out His disciples into that same messy and broken world with His power behind them, His power and His authority. So we’ll see two things. Our outline for this passage – the power and compassion of Jesus, and then the power and commission of Jesus. So with that in mind, let’s pray and then ask God to bless the reading and study of His Word.
Our Father, we thank You for the good news, the good news about Jesus. We thank You for these clear displays of His power and His compassion. We give You thanks for the ways in which Jesus overwhelms us, is greater than anything we could imagine. So we pray that You would help us to see Him in all of His glory, that You would strengthen our faith in Him to follow Him, to serve Him, and to go out for His glory. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 8, starting in verse 22:
“One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?’
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.’ For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion,’ for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus’ feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.
As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, ‘Who was it that touched me?’ When all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!’ But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.’ And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.’
While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler’s house came and said, ‘Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more.’ But Jesus on hearing this answered him, ‘Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well.’ And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her, but he said, ‘Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But taking her by the hand he called, saying, ‘Child, arise.’ And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.
And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.’ And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
The Power and Compassion of Jesus
Well through no planning of my own, today is a day for talking about fear. This morning we read from 1 John chapter 4:18 – “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” God’s love, the love that comes from God, is the answer to our worrisome fears. Well in this passage tonight, Luke chapter 8, the recurring theme, again, is fear. Jesus calmed the storms, and how did His disciples react? They were afraid. They marveled. They said to one another, “Who is this that commands even winds and waters and they obey Him?” When Jesus cast out the demon from the man, He restored him to his right mind, the people were afraid. They even asked Jesus to depart because they were “seized with great fear,” it says in verse 37. Then there’s the woman who was healed from this discharge of blood. When she saw that she was not hidden, how did she come to Jesus? She came trembling, falling down before Him. And then to Jairus and to his wife, when they were told that their twelve-year-old daughter had died, what did Jesus say to them? He said in verse 50, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be made well.” It says that when Jesus healed the girl, her parents were amazed, they were astonished, they were beside themselves even.
This is the reaction people have when they are confronted with the amazing power and the healing work of Jesus Christ. His power and His authority to cast our demons, His power and His authority to cure and to heal diseases – when they come in contact with Jesus doing those things, they are unsettled by that. They are unsettled by Him. And in each story in this passage, these are dramatic, incredible displays of rescue and deliverance.
And the first one you’ve probably heard before about the volatility of the storms on the Sea of Galilee. We typically think, when we hear about the storm on the Sea of Galilee, we think of a thunderstorm that popped up out of nowhere and it came with thunder and lightning and rain and raging waves. But what it says in verse 23 is that it was a windstorm rather than a thunderstorm. Now a windstorm actually would have made it much more dangerous because a windstorm came out of nowhere. There was no warning. There were no dark clouds on the horizon. There was no thunder off in the distance. It just came out of nowhere and could wreak all sorts of havoc for those who were on the water. In fact, just a few days ago, maybe two weeks ago, there was one of these windstorms on the Sea of Galilee and I think the place where most of the damage was caused was in Tiberias. But in the news reports of this windstorm, it says that it was totally unexpected, that there were wind gusts up to 90mph, the waves reached 20 feet high, and it caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to the surrounding cities and farmlands. Now that’s not to say that the storm that Jesus and His disciples encountered here in Luke chapter 8 was the same intensity as that type of storm, but notice who Jesus was with when He was in the storm. He was with experienced fishermen, and they feared for their lives. They were terrified by what they were going through in this storm.
But what was Jesus doing? What was Jesus doing in all of this? He was asleep. He was asleep. It says that Jesus woke up from sleeping during the storm and with a word the wind stopped and the waves were calm. Never a moment of panic. Never a moment of being out of control or of being at the mercy of nature or anything like that. No, Jesus has all power over all creation. He has all power over the natural world.
And then we see that, not only that, He also has all power over the spiritual world because He moves from the storm on the Sea of Galilee that He calms with a word, He moves into the territory of the Gerasenes and there is this man who is oppressed by demons. He is in what you would expect to be the most desperate situation imaginable. He was naked. He was out of his mind. Honestly, we would say that he would have been disgusting in appearance and smell. Think of all he had been through living outside among the tombs. Think of what that would have done for him, how he would have looked. He was dangerous. They would bind him with shackles and he would break free from those. This was a dangerous man. And when Jesus asked him his name, he said his name was Legion because many demons had entered him. A legion was a division of the Roman military. It would have consisted of 4,000 to 6,000 soldiers in a legion. So when this man says he is Legion, that he is oppressed by many demons, this is an unimaginable number of demons. He was overrun with demons. We can’t even begin to comprehend what that would have meant. This would have been someone who would have seemed unreachable, without hope, a lost cause by all means.
And yet Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man and the demons came out of him. They entered into a herd of pigs that rushed down into the water and they drowned. And when the people came out of the city to see what had happened, here was that man. He was sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. We can almost say that this man was the human equivalent of the rough and turbulent storm. And in both cases, Jesus with a word, He brings about peace and calm – both to nature and both in the spiritual world to this man. Jesus has power. He has all power over nature; all power over the supernatural.
And then what does this passage say to us about death and dying? Well in the case of the woman, we are told that the extremity of her condition is the fact that she had dealt with this condition for over 12 years. Luke tells us that she had spent all of her money trying to find a treatment that would work, but nothing would work; no one could do anything for her. And we don’t have to get into all of the details of her physical condition. I have a friend who fainted when his wife went in for an ultrasound, so I know there may be some weak stomachs out there. We won’t go into all of the details of what she was experiencing, but don’t overlook what she was experiencing. This would have been a daily drain on her – physically and emotionally. Don’t downplay the sense of helplessness and shame and exhaustion that would have weighed down this woman dealing with this condition for 12 years.
And then there is the little girl, Jairus’ daughter. She is perhaps the lost cause of all lost causes because she had died. The weeping and the mourning had already started for her. The people, when Jesus said that she was not dead but sleeping, they laughed at Him because they knew she was dead. She was past the point of being able to be helped. And yet in both of these cases – with the woman and with the little girl – it’s with the touch of the fringe of Jesus’ garment for the woman and immediately she is healed. And for the little girl, Jesus says to her, He takes her by the hand and He says to her, “Child, arise.” And at once she gets up and she is even ready to eat. She is healed just like that.
And this gospel, what we are finding not only in chapter 8 but we’ve seen it several times already in Luke’s gospel, is that Luke is, in a sense, piling up one miracle after another, over and over and over again, back to back to back. He is showing to us the power and the miraculous work of Jesus Christ. It’s landing this powerful punch to us to display the power of Jesus. And in this section, there’s even a sense in which in each miracle, the people go from a fear of their situation, a fear of the trouble that they are facing, to a fear and an awe of Jesus. The focus in this passage, Luke is shifting our focus from the circumstances to the One who heals and brings peace and who has power over the circumstances. He is shifting our attention from the circumstances to Jesus.
And yet it’s not always reassuring, is it? Jesus can be unsettling. Jesus should be unsettling. That’s the point. His power is overwhelming. Nothing can stop it. Jesus defies our categories. He exceeds all of our expectations. Fear, yes fear, godly fear, reverence, awe, wonder – that is exactly how we should always view Jesus because He holds all power over all things. And yet notice how He does that. Notice how Jesus holds this power and wields this power. He does so with extraordinary compassion. And if I had told you at the very beginning before we read this passage, if I had told you that we were going to read a passage that dealt with the uncleanness of pigs and of bodily discharges and of dead bodies, what do you think we would have been reading from? Maybe Leviticus? Because Leviticus deals with those very things, doesn’t it? Leviticus has all sorts of laws and regulations dealing with ritual purity. Leviticus may be one of the most unfamiliar books in the Bible to you and yet you probably all know that there are a lot of things in Leviticus that you wouldn’t want to talk about at the dinner table.
There are places like Leviticus chapter 11. It’s about pigs and how pigs were unclean to them. “You shall not eat any of their flesh. You shall not touch their carcasses. They are unclean to you.” Leviticus 15:25, “If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days” – you think 12 years would be many days? “Of all the days of her discharge she shall continue in uncleanness.” Leviticus 21, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the priests and say to them, No one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people.’” You see, the Law of Moses, the Old Testament, declared all of these things to be ritually unclean. Let’s be honest, there aren’t many of us who would find it much fun to be around a pigsty, would there? And not many of us are thrilled about the sight of blood or about being around a dead body even. We all recoil at these sorts of things. They repel us in some ways, regardless of what the Old Testament says about them being ritually unclean or not.
But what does Jesus do? Jesus doesn’t withdraw Himself. He doesn’t separate Himself from those who are unclean and cut off. No, He goes to the place of the pigs, which means He goes to the Gentiles. He goes to the outsiders. Jesus touches the bleeding woman, or actually she touches Him. And Jesus takes the hand of the little girl who had died. And you see, when Jesus comes into contact with those that are unclean, He’s not made unclean. No, it’s quite the opposite – they are made clean, they are made well, they are restored and brought back into fellowship. Jesus, you see, goes where others will not and cannot go. He has a compassion on those who were devastated and worn out and desperate. “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us in our weaknesses.” No, Jesus was moved with compassion. He had a deep affection for the crowds because they were weary and scattered. They were like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus’ heart moves toward the downcast because He is gentle and lowly and He gives rest. He brings peace.
We’re not used to seeing those two things together, are we? We’re not used to seeing power and compassion go together. John Berry, in his book on the 1918 pandemic, he makes a number of insightful comments about the response of leadership to the crisis. He talks about those in power and the response of certain institutions. And he writes that, “Those in power often seek security by imposing order, by looking for a way to find control and to make things seem like they make sense.” He says, “Institutions are not sacrificial. They become bureaucratic and they create an arbitrary barrier between individuals.” Power can do that. Power can separate. Power can create barriers between people. But not for Jesus, because for Jesus, He moved towards people and He used His power for the good of others. He used His power to heal and to restore and He still does that today. He is here for you. Whatever you may be going through, whatever messiness, whatever pain, whatever weakness, whatever sin, it doesn’t repel Jesus. Jesus comes to you with His mercy and with His grace, with His healing power. He alone can heal you. Go to Jesus and find this rest from Him because He is gentle and lowly and He will give rest to your souls and only He can do that. This is the power and the compassion of Jesus that we find in this chapter.
The Power and Commission of Jesus
But we also see the power and the commission of Jesus. In the first six verses of chapter 9, we see that Jesus sends out His disciples. He sends them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. In other words, Jesus is sending out His disciples to do the very things that He had just been doing. He had authority. He had the power. He was casting out demons and He was healing diseases and now He sends out His disciples to cast our demons and to heal diseases. And He gives the Twelve this authority to do that. He had said something similar to the man who had been oppressed by demons. You noticed back in chapter 8 verse 39, the man wanted to come with Jesus, but Jesus sent him away and he said, “‘Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.’ And the man went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.” Jesus is sending people out; He is sending people out with the good news of who He is and what He had come to do.
Now the only thing that messes up this sermon point is what we find in chapter 8 verse 56 with Jairus and his wife. It says that her parents, the girl’s parents were amazed but “He charged them to tell no one what had happened.” So what do we do with that? Well obviously this is a unique time in history. Jesus had come. And He allowed those to go out and to spread the word about Him in Gentile territories in Gentile regions. But in places that were more among the Jews, He was concerned not to stoke the public enthusiasm toward Him so that He might continue in His ministry which, in the end, would include suffering and death. And so He kept quiet in many ways among the Jews in Galilee. And the Twelve, we find the Twelve with this miraculous power that Jesus gave them as He sent them out, that they also have a unique place in history. This is not a repeated ministry for the church today. They had a unique role in the history of salvation, in their connection, in their witnessing of Jesus.
But overall, if we were to take overall the trajectory of the Gospel, and especially if we think about Luke and Acts together, what is the overall trajectory? It’s outward. It’s on the move. It’s taking the message of Jesus. It’s going from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. And the power behind Jesus’ followers, behind His disciples, it’s not their worldly goods. You notice that He says, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.” No, it’s not what they carried with them. The power behind them is the power of the One who sent them. They go in Jesus’ name. They go in Jesus’ authority. They go in Jesus’ power. And so do we. We do the same. Remember that. Remember that as you go out into the world tomorrow or maybe Tuesday if you’re taking the day lightly tomorrow. Remember that as you go out into the world. We go not as an outnumbered and defeated people. No, we go in the name of the risen and victorious and reigning Jesus. We go, everywhere we go, everywhere Jesus sends us, we go with a sense of hope and expectation to see what Jesus might do through us and around us.
Some of you may be familiar with Douglass McKelvey’s book, Every Moment Holy. It’s a book that’s filled with different liturgies and prayers for everyday life, for the common circumstances that we find ourselves in. And in one of the liturgies it says this. It says, “Sorrow that refuses to make space for the return of joy and hope, in the end becomes nothing more than a temple for the worship of my own woundedness.” I wonder if we’re tempted sometimes to go into the world like that and to not look for the return of joy and hope, to make a temple for the worship of our own woundedness. We’re not to be that way. Jesus’ disciples are not to be that way. The Church is not to be that way. No, we are to go and face the challenges around us, the unbelief around us, any hostility that we face, we are to face it with courage and hope and boldness. We do it with weakness and humility, yes, but with courage and boldness because we go with the great power of the One who is on display in Luke chapter 8. We go with Him for us and with us and we do it for His glory.
And we take the Gospel as we go. We take the Gospel with that same confidence and courage and boldness. Yes, there are challenges to sharing our faith, there are obstacles to telling other people about Jesus, but look how great He is! Look how powerful He is and how compassionate that He is! This is the One who sends us with that same power and authority. Don’t be shy with the Gospel message. We have a great message of God’s love and grace for us in Jesus Christ, of His victory over sin and death, His victory for all eternity. Don’t be shy with that message. Surely that needs to have a place, a more prominent place in our discipleship than it usually does. We would not be fearful as we share the message about Jesus, but that we would look for opportunities and know that it is Jesus who brings about salvation and repentance, faith and deliverance.
There’s an order of worship that’s sometimes used for a Christian funeral service. And it begins by saying that the deceased was “born into the Church militant” on a certain day and “passed into the Church triumphant” on the day of their death. That Church militant and Church triumphant – there are two different ways of talking about believers on the earth and believers in heaven. It’s one Church, but one is still running the race and one the race is already done. The Church militant is the Church fighting the good fight against sin, temptation, trials and unbelief. The Church militant is the Church that takes the Gospel to the world. It is the Church that is on the move. In both Luke and Acts, the trajectory of the Gospel is just that way – it’s on the move. It’s into the world. Darrell Bock, who has written, I think, four commentaries on the book of Luke – four, four commentaries; that’s a lot of writing on Luke’s gospel. He says this though. He says that, “Jesus’ disciples are not cloistered but they penetrate the world and share the Gospel. The Church does not withdraw from those outside her, rather, the Church engages the world.” We do that in the name of Jesus and with the power and compassion of Jesus behind us and before us.
That’s our charge tonight. Let’s ask God to help us as we do it.
Our Father, we praise You and thank You for this message of Christ, the good news of His power, His compassion, His love, His mercy, and His choosing us and sending us forward in His name. We ask that You would help us to be witnesses of Him, to be ambassadors of His grace and mercy. We ask that You would use us to help spread Your kingdom in this world, for Your glory and by Your grace. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.