The First Missionary

Mark 5 : 14 - 20

There are not many verses left in this passage, but there is still a lot we can learn from them. We read here the picture of the demon-possessed man after he has been liberated. In verse 15, we read that he is sitting, clothed, and in his right mind. This seems like an insignificant description, but it is actually the picture of true discipleship. It is the picture of the salvation that Christ brings into human life. There is a clear restoration. Sometimes we take this for granted, but to be able to sit quietly, not hurting yourself or others, that is God’s grace. As we have already discussed in the previous part, before the man was set free, he was not only harming others, he was also harming himself.

Without Christ, without the Holy Spirit, our lives will be destructive. We will be destructive toward others and toward ourselves. The picture of people living on their own, like in Europe, not disturbing others but also not blessing others, is not the picture we find in the Bible. In the Bible there are only two options: either we become a blessing, or we bring a curse. If we fail to be a blessing, we will bring a curse to others. If we are not building up others, we will be destroying their lives. There is no neutral state where we are neither building nor destroying. Maybe we think we are not bringing any negative impact into the lives of others. We do not think that we are hurting or destroying others. But this principle is not new. We can already see it in the story of Abraham’s calling.

Abraham’s story is not only about an individual; it is also a warning to Israel, to Christians. In Genesis 12, Abraham is called to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Not long after, he went down to Egypt. He should have been a blessing there, but he failed because he became selfish and afraid for himself. He deceived others by saying that Sarah was his sister. There was some truth since they were relatives, but his motivation was to hide the fact that she was also his wife. He did not even think about his wife being in danger; he only thought about his own safety. In that state, he failed to trust God. God had promised him, but he did not hold on to that promise. Because he failed to be a blessing, he unleashed plagues in Egypt.

This is frightening. Abraham is chosen by God, and he is not a wicked man, yet he could still bring curses when he failed to be a blessing. We are frightening creatures. If we fail to show love, we will show hatred. If we fail to bring peace, we will bring conflict, division, and storms. Again, there is no neutral state where we bring neither peace nor conflict, neither love nor hatred. That is not the picture we find in the Bible. Yet we like to imagine that such neutrality exists.

I have told this story before. Once I was at an airport with my late father. We took the wrong path and ended up at the baggage claim area when we needed to get to departures. There was only a downward escalator, and there were no stairs. So the only way back was to go up against the down escalator. You know this, going against a down escalator is hard. I struggled and finally made it up. Then I called my father to try. At first he made progress, but then there was a moment when he was neither moving up nor down. That only lasted two or three seconds, and afterward he was carried down.

Do you see my point? The neutral state of neither going up nor down lasts only for a moment. If we are not growing, we are not simply standing still. If we are not becoming a blessing, we are becoming a curse to others. If we are not bringing peace, we are bringing chaos. Walking in place is a myth, because the world is not standing still. The world pulls us down, like a down escalator. If we do not grow, we will be dragged downward, and we will even drag others down with us.

Let us return to the passage we read. The picture of this man sitting calmly, clothed, and in his right mind seems insignificant, but it is the picture of the salvation that Christ brings. It is also striking that this story resembles the story of Jesus calming the storm in the previous passage. Both stories end with the response of fear. In verse 15, we read, “and they were afraid.” In the previous passage, the disciples were more afraid of Jesus than they were of the storm itself. If we fear the storm more than we fear God, perhaps we do not yet truly know him. If we are more afraid of the difficulties of life, of war, of crisis, or of insecurity, then perhaps we do not yet know God. A storm is indeed frightening, and it is not something to be taken lightly. Yet God is far more fearsome than the storm. The response from the disciples was right. The One who could calm the storm, who rules over nature, is far more fearsome than the power of nature.

We see the same response in this story: they were more afraid of the power of Christ, who could drive out demons, than they were of the demons themselves. If, in the previous story, Jesus was more fearsome than the power of nature, here Jesus is more fearsome than the power of Satan. The Bible uses the phrase ‘fear of God’ for a reason. The fear of God is real. People who do not know God have no fear of God. They think God is soft and can be controlled. They fear demons, economic pressure, sickness, and insecurity, but they do not fear God. In our lives, if there is no fear of God, it means we have not truly had an encounter with him.

And we see something ironic here. When God reveals himself in Christ, many people tell him to leave. We might say that we are not atheists and that we want God in our lives, but when God comes near, many people push him away. Why? Because we want God we can control. We want him to have a high tolerance for our weaknesses, to support our ego, and to grant whatever we want. We resist God who tells us to submit and to deny ourselves. We want him to deny himself for us instead. But God has indeed denied himself for us, even to the point of death on the cross. A person who truly knows the true God will deny himself. This is not mere theoretical knowledge; it involves experience. And these people in the story asked Jesus to leave because God did not fit their agenda.

We discussed this last week. There is a kind of ‘double uncleanness’ in this story. These people were selling pigs to the Roman oppressors. The pigs are unclean, and the ones consuming them are oppressors, who are also regarded as unclean. We can see how stubborn these people are. There is no introspection. They did not repent. They did not admit their sin. So they told Jesus to go away. Jesus drove out evil, and then he himself was driven out by these people.

Sometimes I wonder how evil the human heart can be. When the demons saw Jesus, they immediately submitted. They did not dare to challenge him. They begged for mercy and asked him not to torment them. But look at the hardness of the human heart. These people drove Jesus away. This is an action that even the demons did not dare to do. So who is the demon here, and who is the human?

Do we think we are better than these people? I do not think so. We also have this stubbornness. We would rather have God step aside than have our lives corrected. We may think that nothing in our lives needs to be corrected. We want God who always understands, blesses, and supports us. We do not want God who tells us to repent. This is the evil of the human heart, something we do not even see in the story of the demons here.

We can also see the contrast here in the man who has been healed. Before, he was restless and destructive, hurting others. But now we see his composure. This is like the contrast between the raging storm and the great calm in the previous passage. Here we see the great storm within human life, and then the composure Jesus brings. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in human life. He enters into the chaos, enters into the storm, and rebukes the storm.

This brings us back to the creation story, creation out of chaos. Sometimes, when we talk about the theology of creation, we keep reducing it to arguments against Darwinism or evolution, as if that is the whole point. But if the theology of creation is simply about anti-Darwinism, that is far too reductive. There are many things to explore in the theology of creation beyond that. What is the use of rejecting evolution if our lives are still full of storms and chaos, and we do not let God enter to calm them? When Jesus comes into our lives, he brings re-creative power. He brings re-creation. Jesus rebukes the chaos in our lives. A destructive life, a self-harming life, will be rebuked by Jesus. That is true salvation.

In the Gospel of Mark, there is a motif called the ‘messianic secret’. It describes a pattern in which Jesus often seems to conceal his identity, telling others to be silent and not to proclaim who he is. One explanation is that, in Jewish regions, there was already a distorted concept of the Messiah, so people might misunderstand Jesus as a political Messiah. Meanwhile, in Gentile regions, there was no such problem. But that explanation can be too stereotyping and rigid, as if we cannot proclaim that Jesus is the Messiah among Jews, but we can proclaim it among Gentiles. I think we need to look for another reason.

We just read that Jesus was driven out of that region. These people did something outrageous. They dared to tell Jesus, who is so powerful, to leave. Jesus could easily have responded by displaying his power, but that is not Jesus. What is striking is that Jesus allowed himself to be driven out. If you want to push God out of your life because you refuse to repent, God will go. He will not wrestle with you in that way. Jesus is all-powerful, but we need to renew our understanding of what it means for him to be all-powerful. All-powerful does not mean that he acts like a dictator who must win every battle by force. Jesus was driven out all the way to the cross. He truly went to the cross. But who is at a loss here? Certainly not Jesus. Those at a loss are the people who drive him away because they drive away the only hope that can deliver them from the storm in their lives.

If the story ended here, it would seem that the evil of the human heart wins. But God’s work does not stop here. Their rejection is not the last word. The last word always belongs to God. I believe this is why the healed man is then used by God. He is often described as the first missionary preacher, at least in the Gospel of Mark. It is as if God is saying, “You can push me away, but my work will not stop because of your rejection.” God will move forward in his own way. Perhaps those who refuse to repent will not get another opportunity. We do not know for certain. But this healed man is surely used by God to be a blessing to those whom God intends to bless.

Sometimes we, especially those of us who live in Europe, may feel that we are the ones who choose. We choose our friends, our community, our theology, our church, everything. We do not realize that we are not the sovereign one. God is sovereign. If God did not choose us, we would certainly be lost. If God did not give us the opportunity, there would be no opportunity. So let us treasure the times and opportunities God gives in our lives.

I believe this is one of the hardest acts of self-denial: to admit humbly that God is sovereign, not us. We are not the ones who decide. When we serve the Lord, we are not the sovereign one. Some people think that this is their time to serve God. But God may have used someone else already, and then there is no more opportunity. That is why humility is necessary. This is at the heart of Christianity: humility, receiving Jesus, and receiving the sovereignty of God.

May we keep growing in the grace of God, so that we may become like this first missionary. He was healed and restored. He was once destructive, hurting others and himself, but now his life is used by God to bless others. Do we not long for a life like this? We surely do not enjoy a life that keeps hurting others. We want a constructive life, a life that blesses others, a life that does not bring storms. Only Jesus can bring that. (T.F.L.)