The other Sunday at church, I was preaching on Luke 8. We went for it and covered the whole chapter with its big stories and its big signs. We might wonder what those miracles in the second part of the chapter have to do with the parables at the start. Well, it struck me that they are closely connected.
Just after Jesus has taught a parable about the importance of “good soil” which enables God’s Word to go in deep, reaching every part of our lives os we bear good fruit, Luke records another parable or proverbial saying about things not being hidden but being brought into the light.
Then, we have an exorcism where Jesus casts out demons from a man who due to his affliction is unable to live in his community. He is brought out of his nakedness and distress into his right mind and clothed so that he can live with others again. Perhaps that’s one reason why Jesus doesn’t let the man come with him but instead sends him back.
On the other side of the lake, Jesus raises a sick girl. He puts all the noisy distraction of professional mourners outside the room and with her own family present, he calls her back from the dead. Notice the link there between a storm on the lake, the storm in a man’s mind and a storm in the bedroom of a dead girl. Jesus brings peace so that things can be brought out into the open. Remember that in Romans 6, we are told that we are justified, made right with God and so we have peace with God.
In the middle of a bustling crowd, another storm if you like, it would have been easy for a woman to slip away unnoticed from Jesus. His comment “someone touched me” brings the commotion to a halt. Then Jesus brings the woman out from the shadows, from her shame and her isolation through uncleanness from God’s people, out into the open so that she can be fully restored as one of God’s people.
The Gospel brings us out into the open because that’s where we need to be, out in the light. Jesus removes all distractions so that the Holy Spirit, through God’s Word can get to work in our lives so that we can be fruitful followers of Christ.
Faithroots 