The View From The Top (2)

 I sat in the back of the church this morning because I might cough. Coughing is very disturbing during a church service, particularly when you are in a place where certain coughing diseases have made everybody nervous. So I sat quietly down and placed all my cough suppressant products along the pew shelf. It was very convenient, as if in the year 1100 the church builders had my cough in mind.

 My favorite portion of the Church of England Sunday service is the Gospel reading. This morning's Gospel reading was taken from Mark 5:1-21. In it is the account of Jesus crossing the Sea of Galilee in a boat, and meeting a man with an unclean spirit. Whose name was Legion.

"And when He had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man came out of the tombs." 

After thinking about graveyards and tombs yesterday, this grabbed my attention. The people there clearly did not like this man. How could they? He creeped around the tombs and shouted at people top volume. No one could restrain him anymore, even with a chain. He had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart and the shackles he broke in pieces. It is obvious that Legion was unloved, had no friends, no regular or nourishing food or water, no clean clothing or shoes, painful self-inflicted bruises, uncared for teeth, no friendly conversation to comfort him, and no prospect of a future.

Jesus had mercy on the man, and sent the Legion of demons into a nearby herd of pigs, who ran down a hill and drowned in the lake below.

The man, who was now clothed and in his right mind, sat by Jesus and begged him to let him stay there. But Jesus told him to go home and "tell everyone how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy He has shown you."

The people who saw and heard the changed man were amazed. They would have thought such a thing was impossible.

The Vicar shared with us that there is a constant spiritual tug of war going on for our souls. He said it is like a toddler holding one end of a rope, and a giant holding the other. We simply can not win. But when Jesus comes into our lives, He picks up our end of the rope, and the battle is won. 

I love the way people wanted to sit next to Jesus after he healed them. It was the only place they wanted to be. That is what I would have wanted to do, too; just walk up and sit right down.

 One day we will.

See you along the Way!

the SconeLady