Week Three: Excursions from Galilee
Monday 1st March Ah it’s hard to leave Galilee! Before we go too far, let’s do a day trip on a boat like the one Jesus and his disciples took across the Lake.
Lake Galilee is also called ‘Kinneret’ meaning harp, because it’s shaped like one. Today, like Jesus does in Mark 4: 35, we’re going over to ‘the other side’, which I think Jesus meant to sound rather ominous!
Just like in Northern Ireland ‘the other side’ usually means Catholics/Protestants depending on our own identity, to Jesus’ disciples it meant outside firmly Jewish territory, where there were lots of Gentiles.
Sadly, it’s still a divided land. Travelling here involves crossing lots of checkpoints and ‘peace walls’. Some of our main sights are actually not in ‘Israel’ but areas under the Palestinian Authority. (And remember, many of the Arab Palestinians here are Christians.)
Anyway, here’s our boat:
The boat Jesus took would have been similar, apart perhaps from the roof cover, about 8m long and 2.5m wide. It was evening time, getting dark, which adds to the mood of foreboding (Mark 4:35). Mark says the disciples took Jesus ‘in the boat, just as he was’. An intriguing phrase! It seems Jesus was already in the boat asleep when they put out from shore.
Then again, maybe the disciples are still learning to take Jesus ‘as he is’ and not the carefully polished, rose-tinted, managed Jesus they’d like him to be? On trips like this, Jesus can surprise us!
Storms are frequent and sudden on Lake Galilee, like the one that terrifies the disciples. That’s a natural fear. It taps into Jewish thinking about water as dangerous, needing deliverance. The watery chaos at creation, for example, or the flood or Red Sea.
But the greater fear is after Jesus stills the storm. Only God can control the weather, bring calm to swirling waves … in the end, it’s not the storm they are afraid of, it’s God, there with them in the boat!
I think it’s more than a healthy ‘fear of God’, because of the way Jesus responds: ‘Why are you afraid? How is it that you still have no faith?’ (v. 40).
Have you ever considered that we might actually be more afraid of God at work than the situation we’re in? What if God really does answer our prayers … make his will clear, bring all those other people into church to sit in pews around us, reconcile us with someone we’ve fallen out with …
God at work can be scary! Because it’s often something new, something we can’t understand.
There’s plenty of time to mull these things over on a pilgrimage, on the way from place to place.
Here’s the full story:
Late that day he said to them, “Let’s go across to the other side.” They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?” Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, “Quiet! Settle down!” The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. Jesus reprimanded the disciples: “Why are you such cowards? Don’t you have any faith at all?” They were in absolute awe, staggered. “Who is this, anyway?” they asked. “Wind and sea at his beck and call!”
Mark 4: 35-41 (The Message)
Tuesday 2nd March After a lovely calm crossing, it’s time to get off and explore a new place – Kursi. (No I hadn’t heard of it either!)
We’re very close to the Lebanese border today, in the Golan Heights, and in tense times this site is out of bounds. It was pretty off-limits to people in Jesus’ earthly lifetime too – a military outpost of the Roman army.
Look at the photos below: tombs cut into rock, and a big sloping foothill. Kursi is the modern name of the place where we believe a troubling encounter took place, the exorcism of a man plagued by a ‘Legion’ of demons.
When Jesus called this the ‘other side’, he really meant ‘other’! Pigs will feature in the story, and remember they’re not kosher, so this is not a nice Jewish neighbourhood.
‘Immediately’ upon arrival, Jesus and his disciples hear the possessed man, so here’s the story without further ado:
When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. 3 This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. 4 For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
(Have you noticed, by the way, that the word ‘tombs’ has come up three times? It’s like this place is an encounter with the forces of death itself!)
6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. 7 He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”
9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” 10 And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
11 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12 The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” 13 He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
14 Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. 15 When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. 17 Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
Mark 5: 2-17 (NIV)
Now the disciples just thought the storm they’d just experienced was scary! But just the same way the wind and waves obey Jesus, so do demons. When Jesus comes on the scene, the man falls down. Is this worship and recognition, or a cry for deliverance?
When we say today that people have their ‘demons, to face their demons or battle with them, we are using the word metaphorically, I think. Destructive things that have power over us. That attach themselves to us and degrade our humanity. Say an alcoholic’s struggle with drink. Or the psychological scars within us, the fears, regrets and shame that we carry around and that sabotage our efforts to live a blessed life.
These demons are often the loudest when we’re silent, and people who go on retreat often find it a tough experience. Spiritual directors try to pinpoint these blockages and wounds and defence mechanisms and name them.
Like Jesus asked the demon in Kursi to name himself.
Legion. Maybe this is a group name for the many demons afflicting him inside and out. Maybe it means there are too many to name. Maybe it has to do with the Roman ‘legion’ stationed nearby. Ethnic conflict, military occupation and oppression, glorification of violence, rule by might, these things all have a whiff of the Enemy about them.
Jesus exorcises the demons, and they go into a herd of pigs instead. These swine run headlong down the slope we see up there, into the lake, and are drowned.
Once again, the response is fear. The people of the village are probably angry about their herds – their livelihoods. They beg Jesus to leave the region.
Aren’t we strange beings? A violent, supernaturally strong, uncontrollable man gets his life and dignity back – and the response is fear! Scared of demons, but more scared to face them, and more scared still to know that God is at work in this world of ours, driving out evil forces.
Wednesday 3rd March Join us this evening at 7.30 for a short Lent service. Then come back on Thursday for our last few days before we head south towards Jerusalem.
Greek this Week 