Micah looks around him and sees nothing but unrighteousness
and treachery. There are no righteous
ones left. He is like a vinedresser
after the harvest looking in vain on the plants for fresh ripe fruit and seeing
instead nothing but leaves and vines.
Not only are strangers a problem, so are friends, neighbors and even
within the family, there is no honor remaining.
A couple of years ago I was preaching on preparation during Advent and
looked at the "prepper" movement, people who fear that something will
soon happen that will drive the world into a state of chaos, whether what is
called an EMP (electro magnetic pulse) which will knock out the electric grid or
something else that will cause us to turn on one another. Don't we see that this is the normal state of
a fallen world? One of the things I
found was a company that sells underground bunkers and one of the selling
points was that even your neighbors wouldn't know you had one. Why would I want to live in a world filled
with survivors of whatever apocalyptic scenario you can envision who were
characterized by having the ability to survive but who hated their neighbors
such that they wouldn't tell them how to be saved or share what they had with
them. Such an attitude, completely
motivated by fear and keeping hold of what you have in this life, and not
loving our neighbors, is anti-Christian.
Everyone avoided the man in the tombs. They kept him shackled as well as they could
and isolated him among the dead for he himself was dead to them. Jesus made a special trip to see him this
day. There seems to be no other reason
for going across the lake to the country of the Gerasenes but to heal this man,
this lonely, demon-possessed man. Why
did his life matter so to Jesus? Of all
the people He could have gone to and make Himself known in what the Jews
believed was a place where the gates of hell were located, why this man? Why not a leader of the people there? No, Jesus went to Him because His power would
be most manifest in this man and because he needed Him more than anyone
else. He went to the most unrighteous
man among an unrighteous people and set him free. If Jesus could set this man free from bondage,
what can He do for you?
Paul tells his story of conversion to Agrippa. He begins with flattery, he is fortunate to
have Agrippa hear his case because he is knowledgeable about the Jewish
religion. Then, he states the crux
(pardon the pun) of the case and that is that they say they believe in
resurrection but now that it has happened in the case of Jesus of Nazareth they
prove they really don't believe at all.
The case turns on the important issue of resurrection. They found Jesus to be a blasphemer and
therefore He, of all men, cannot have been resurrected by God, their judgment
cannot be overturned thus. Paul is
telling these men who hate him how to avoid the apocalypse but they won't hear
it. Are we telling our story regularly?
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