Proper 7 - June 19, 2022

Today is Fathers Day. Happy Fathers Day to all you Dads.

This August will be 10-years since my Dad went home to be with the Lord. What a great guy! A wonderful sense of humor, while always teaching me a new way to handle a project or problem.

I have many fond memories of my Dad, but the one that stands out today was his list-making. He always had this ever-growing list of things to do to help him stay on course to reach whatever goal he had set. Dad kept a list so he would not forget.

Our Lord Jesus doesn’t needs such things, because He is God and will never forget. This brings us to our Gospel reading for this morning. Jesus is on a mission, which Luke makes clear again and again in his gospel account. Jesus’ mission, or goal, is precisely what today’s Prayer of the Day reveals: “You sent your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into this world to destroy the works of the devil and protect us poor people against such an evil foe.”

This brings us to today’s theme:

Jesus will not be kept from rescuing you.

Jesus’ willingness to go to the other side of the lake to rescue a man.

In fact, while on the Sea of Galilee with His disciples a storm comes up and Jesus is asleep.

Disciples wake Jesus — “Master, master, we are perishing!”

Jesus calms the storm. The text says, “He rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm.”

This account ends with a question that is not answered until today’s reading: “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Just as in our life, Jesus faced interruptions. The winds and water obey Jesus because they know the answer to the question the disciples presented.

You and I may have turned back if confronted with such a storm.

Not Jesus. He is on a rescue mission and nothing will get in His way.

Jesus gets to the other side, an area known as the Gerasenes. Gentile country.

He immediately met a man oppressed by demons.

This was the greeting in a loud voice: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” The demons are fully aware of Jesus’ mission.

Jesus asked his name — “Legion”, because many demons entered him.

The demons begged Jesus that he would not cast them into the abyss.

This all begs the question, “Who is this Jesus?”

The winds and waves obey Him.

Legion knows His identity and His mission.

Jesus commands the demons and they depart.

The cleansed man wants to follow Jesus, but is told: “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God had done for you. And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.”

We are easily tripped up from getting the gospel to people. We have a laundry list of things to do, and we just can’t fit-in one more thing into our lives.

BUT, what great things has God done for you?

Do we truly understand from what bondage you have been rescued?

But, we have a relentless Savior who actually found us on the rubble heap on his way to rescue the world.

Therefore brothers and sisters, let’s get after the rescue of all people in our family/community/connections. We have the power that defeats every force that Satan will use to keep people in his congregation of the dead. Let’s get out there and rescue them.