Clothed with Christ

 Luke 8:26-39, Galatians 3:23-29

“…have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3:27b

 

We find in our Luke passage a man with demons in him. He wears no clothes and lives in the tombs. What I find interesting in this story is that the demons recognize Jesus as the Son of God, and they beg him not to torment them and send them into the abyss. Secondly Christ asks the demon what its name is. Third, Christ shows mercy both to the man and the demons by sending them into the pigs. Fourth, the reaction of the townspeople. Instead of being awed by the miracle and turning to Christ they turn away asking him to leave.

Let’s go through these. The demon recognizing Christ shows that even evil spirits knew who Christ was while most of the Pharisees, supposedly the most righteous, refused to see Jesus as the Messiah – as the Son of God. In other accounts about the demon possessed, Christ silences evil spirits that declare his name not wanting bad witnesses.

Then Jesus asks the demon’s name. He wants them to identify themselves. This reminds me of Alcoholics Anonymous where people say their name and state that they are an Alcoholic. Many twelve step programs have you own up your own vice. Name your sin – the demon with which you’ve been struggling.

Christ is shown here of one of mercy not only to the man possessed by driving out the demons, but he also takes account of the evil spirits’ request and send them into the pigs. But not everyone is happy with this miracle. The townspeople, perhaps angry at their loss of pigs are seized with fear and tell Christ to go away. They are ruled by fear not love.

Galatians 3:27 says we have clothed ourselves with Christ. We have done this through our faith in him. Before this we were clothed in sin. The man in the Luke story after Christ casts the demons out of him is found clothed and in his right mind. This is the man who with the evil demons inside him couldn’t keep on clothes but is now clothed with Christ. He believes in Christ and wants to follow him, but Jesus tells him to return to his home and declare how much the Lord has done for you – which he does.

Today we don’t believe in, or encounter people possessed by demons, but we do find those imprisoned by demons not only of alcohol or drugs but by hate, unforgiveness, resentment, and anger to name a few. We need to name our sin, our demon that keeps us from being fully dressed with Christ, ask for forgiveness and the power to conquer it. We realize then that if God who grants mercy to demons giving in to what they want how much greater will he honor the requests for healing of his children. We can come boldly to prayer remembering that perfect love cast out all fear.

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