Fight

Yesterday, we started looking at the story of the demoniac, the man Jesus encountered in a cemetery who was possessed by (as it turns out, "many") demons. 

And we started by giving this man the credit that he's due. He is one tough dude. 

Today, I want to ask you: 

Are you tougher than you get credit for? 

This guy lived with social ostracization, with judgment, with isolation, with the townspeople being afraid of this thing that afflicted him. He lived with demons that literally threw pigs off a cliff the moment they got the chance. He lived with the stigma and the fight. 

How about you? 

As far as we have come in our culture in addressing mental health, the truth is that we're still a long way from where we ought to be. There are many reasons for this, but those aren't important right now. They're not important because for every reason we can pinpoint to explain how it is that we're so far from where we should be, there's is someone wasting away in a cemetery, chains hanging off their limbs, beating themselves up for the life they're living. A life they didn't choose, but here we are anyway. (Did you know that in some versions of the story, the demoniac is literally known to be hitting himself, beating himself, scarring himself in that cemetery?) 

And listen, I get it - it can be exhausting to be compassionate. It seems like everybody is dealing with something, which feels like such a start contrast to the world we thought we knew growing up (those of us of a certain age), when mental illness and inner demons seemed to be uncommon problems. 

Oh, the stigma of the 80s and 90s! 

But that's kind of exactly the point: everybody is dealing with something. 

So let's start giving folks the credit they're due for making it this far. 

For making it through the isolation of fighting their battles alone. 

For making it through the ostracization of not having friends or even family to count on. 

For making it through the memories of a life that didn't used to be like this. 

For making it through the heartache of being cut off from the life they want to live. 

For making it through the stigma of being that person - you know, the one whose demons don't do such a good job of hiding. 

For living with the chains. 

For living with the screams.

For living naked and exposed, unable to hide what you're dealing with.  

For living with the feeling that they're completely out of control, but there's nothing they can do about it. 

...except keep willing themselves to live one more day.

And, oh yeah, for keepin' on keepin' on when they're fighting something that would have driven even the pigs off a cliff by now. 

Good on them. They're doing it. 

Can I say it? Good on you. You're doing it. 

Give yourself credit for that. 

Give the folks around you credit for that. 

Let's start there. 

But...don't stop there. 

Demons

There's a story in the Gospels when Jesus crosses a body of water, lands near a cemetery, and encounters a man possessed by (as it turns out, "many") demons. The townsfolk have done everything they can with this man, including putting him under guard, chaining him up, banishing him to the cemetery. Nothing they do seems to work. 

Then Jesus, with a word, drives the demons out of the man and into a herd of pigs, who immediately send themselves running over a cliff. 

You don't have to believe in spiritual warfare (although you should) to find the practical applications and encouragement in this story. 

All you have to believe, at bare minimum, is that we are all fighting things that are bigger than us. 

And if that's true, then can we please give this demoniac (the man in the cemetery) his due? 

That's the place to start.

Here is a man whose life is so out of control that other folks don't even know what to do with him. They've tried, but the best they can come up with is to basically put him in prison. They've put guards on him. They've put chains on him. They've removed him from their society. That alone is enough to discourage a man. 

But then, somehow, he keeps on keepin' on anyway. 

And listen, it's not like the townspeople forget about him. It's not like they don't know who he is. When he's healed, they see him and recognize who he is. They've always known. 

And he's naked at this point. They know everything. There's no hiding here what he's dealing with. 

Such is the life of someone who is struggling with something bigger than themselves. It's not like the world doesn't see you. It's not like they don't know. It's not like they forget you're out there or forget who you are. They know. You're pretty naked, quite honestly. They just...prefer you to be somewhere separate from them. Somewhere "safe" - they say that's for you, but it's really for them. They want you a safe distance from them while you wrestle with your demons. 

But the fact that this guy keeps on keepin' on in the face of great social harm and interpersonal pain isn't even the half of it. That would be hard enough for any of us. 

But no, this guy is not only living with the ostracization and the judgment and the stigma...he's also living with, as it turns out, "many," demons who would throw an entire herd of pigs off a cliff the first chance they get. 

Think about that for a second. This guy's demons are so powerful that the minute they are not restrained by...what? by an act of sheer human will?...they immediately kill their host. Immediately. And this guy has been living with these demons for...how long? Without them killing him?

That's some tremendous will to live. That's some amazing act of pure want.

Maybe it's hope. Maybe he believed that one day, he wouldn't be like this. Maybe he remembered a time past when he wasn't like this. Maybe he had a family from before all this happened, and he was just waiting to be able to hug his kids again. When it would be safe for him to do so. Maybe this just isn't how he wanted to go out. Maybe this wasn't the first hard time he'd faced, and he'd gotten through all the others. 

We don't know. All we know is that there was something in this guy that was letting him hold on in the face of tremendous odds - alone, abandoned, untouchable, uncontrollable, out of his mind, possessed by his demons. And somehow, he hadn't run off a cliff yet. 

So can we please start by giving this guy some credit here? 

Eternity

If, when we all get to heaven, we are just given to each other the way that God always intended us to be and we're not divided by family lines, colors lines, ethnic lines, language lines, or any of the other lines we like to draw here any more, then that raises a significant implication for the way that we speak about the coming Kingdom. 

Because if it's even possible that I don't recognize you in heaven and you don't recognize me, if we're not just waiting for each other by the gates, if there's not some great big massive family reunion...and if, rather, we are simply swallowed up in something whole, complete, good, and loving that feels so natural and wonderful to us, finally as things were meant to be...

...then I cannot have a single selfish reason for wanting you to go there. 

It is, I think, one of the really common evangelistic pitches of the past hundred years or so: please give your life to Jesus because I don't want to do eternity without you. Selfishly, I want you to be there. I want to continue the same fun, love, good times that we have here into all eternity with you, and heaven just won't be the same if you're not there. 

As if heaven - the perfect plan of God's salvation and restoration - would somehow be incomplete if Joe decides not to come. Thanks, Joe. Ruined God's whole plan for everybody. 

If, in fact, all of this is true, then the only reason to want anyone to go to heaven is for their own benefit. 

It's got to be because you want to see them whole. It's got to be because you want to see them loved. It's got to be because you want to see them swept up in something greater than them, something that maybe eluded them here in this life, something that puts their whole reality into perspective and becomes, as God intended it to be when He first gave us to one another, "very good."

That has to change the way that we preach Jesus. 

And, I think, for the better. 

We have kind of this bad reputation for preaching hellfire and condemnation, for using fear of brimstone to bring persons to the baptismal waters. Asking others to say a prayer or to come to the water because we are worried about them. 

But what if we were hopeful for them instead? 

What if we were able to paint for them a vision that we could see for their life - a vision of goodness and happiness and wholeness and love - that we can see because we see Jesus? What if we were telling them how amazing it's going to be to be fully loved...and not just loved, but known? What if we could really tell them it's not about us at all...there's no guilt here. It's just us knowing what a beautiful future awaits for them and can't they fall in love with the idea, too? 

I think that's a better way to preach Jesus anyway. 

But if what Jesus says is true and we aren't given to each other in eternity the same way we are here in finite time, then...I think it's the only way to preach Jesus. 

Friend, He loves you. And there's a whole heaven that already knows it and can't wait to wrap you in that love.  

Extended Family

The problem with an eternity where there are just a bunch of family reunions going on, with brothers and sisters and mothers and friends popping in and out is...what do you do with all the other folks in heaven? 

We have that trouble down here. We get into our little bubbles, and we struggle to figure out what to do with everyone who isn't in them. That's how we get such divides. But heaven won't be so divided. 

You might say maybe we get so caught up with our own group that we don't even notice anyone outside of it, that we're all so pre-occupied with our own thing that nothing else matters. No divides here; I'm just happy to see grandma again. But again that makes heaven about you...and it ain't gonna be.

Jesus told the Sadducees that after this life, we don't belong to each other in the same way that we do here. We don't have husbands and wives, mothers and brothers and sisters. I'm not sure we even have friends. I'm not sure that we get to heaven and find anyone we knew this side of eternity. 

I'm not sure that's as devastating as we think it is. 

Think about the person who is most encouraging, accepting, loving, affirming...the person who is most special in your life. Think about the person you are most excited to see in heaven, the one you can't wait to wrap your arms around again...the one you can't wait to have wrap their arms around you. 

Got 'em in mind? Really got 'em there? 

Good. 

Now, imagine you die and every single person you meet in heaven is exactly like that. 

Imagine everyone is excited to see you. Imagine everyone is ready to wrap you in a hug. Imagine you are welcomed like you're supposed to be there, like no one could imagine that place without you. Imagine knowing, instantly knowing in your gut, that you're surrounded by family, even if you can't put a single name to a face anywhere. 

That's what heaven is going to be like. It will be so whole, so complete, so pure, so wonderful that you won't even notice you didn't see grandma because everyone seems like grandma. Everyone seems like family. You are so absolutely, wholly, thoroughly loved...and not just loved, but known, that heaven just feels...complete. 

See, Jesus says we are given to each other. God's people are here for one another, all the way to the ends of the earth. We lose sight of that here, in this life. We lose track of that because we get our own little nuclear thing going, and it kind of blows up everything else. But when we're no longer given to each other that way, when we no longer have to leave parents to cleave to one another, we will discover that we were always cleaved. We were always together. It's exactly what Jesus said.

In eternity, we are known exactly how He promised we would be - by our love for one another. 

And that love...is gonna fill us all up in ways we can only imagine with the most sanctified imagination. Because it's going to be so different from what we know here. 

But yeah, I mean, I still hope grandma is there, too. 

The Other Side

Man, you guys. The more I read what Jesus has to say about eternity, the more I'm convinced that it's just not going to be like we think it is. 

Actually, I wonder if we really think that's what it will be like or if that's just what we've been telling ourselves for so long because it sounds good to us. It sounds like what heaven should sound like. 

A group of Sadducees famously came to Jesus and asked about a little family problem they were having. The problem was this: 

A man married and didn't have any kids, then died. So his brother married his widow, but they didn't have any kids, either, and then he died. So a third brother stepped in and married the widow, and they didn't have any kids either, then he died. All told, there were seven brothers, one widow, and no kids. Now, they asked Him, when we all get to heaven, whose wife will she be? 

And Jesus said, "Don't you understand? In eternity, you won't be married like you are here." 

Fast forward two thousand years, and the prevailing message of heaven is that when we die, we will be swept up into this great big reunion of family and friends, everybody we've ever known just waiting for us on the other side, happy to see one another again and finally together. For all eternity. 

Can you almost hear Jesus saying...don't you understand?

It's a comforting thought. At least, it's comforting here for human grief. This isn't goodbye, we say; it's see you later. This isn't the end; there's a new beginning coming. All the folks that we loved spending time with here will be waiting to spend time with us again and this time, it will never end. They go on living, we go on living, and then for eternity, we all go on living together and it's the greatest thing we can possibly imagine. 

There are a few problems with this. 

First, it implies that our loved ones live in heaven with one eye toward earth. If that's the case, then Jesus isn't the most wonderful thing in heaven. Being in the presence of God isn't the greatest gift of all eternity. They're just in eternity partying it up and hanging out and looking at the door, waiting for when we will walk through it and join them. 

Friend, I cannot say this plainly enough, although I hope I am also being somewhat gentle (maybe): Heaven isn't about you. There's absolutely nobody in heaven who is waiting specifically for you to get there because you're somehow going to make eternity better. 

Second, though, it's just not what Jesus says. Jesus says when we are swept up into eternity, we don't have the relationships that we had down here. And it's not just in this question with the Sadducees. At another point in His ministry, He says that anyone who has given up mother or brothers or sisters here will be given back even more than they have lost. 

Not "you will get more time with your mother when you're with Me." Not "your brothers will be waiting to reconnect with you." Just...you will get back even more than you have lost. 

Which means, I think, that eternity is full of mothers and brothers and sisters. 

Listen, I'm not out here trying to ruin eternity for you. I'm not trying to tell you that the end of this life is the end of those relationships. I'm just trying to say...that's a really small picture of heaven. That's a really small anticipation of eternity. 

The vision that Jesus gives us for what's actually going to happen is much greater. And, I think, even more beautiful. 

(Stay tuned.)