A stirring scene in the Bible features a wretched man, who dwells in a graveyard. The man has been chained and shackled, but, like the Hulk, he’s strong enough to break the chains. He spends his time aimlessly roaming around, bashing himself with stones and crying out. It’s no big surprise that the villagers find him terrifying and repellent, and avoid him at all costs.
A stranger shows up and makes an instant diagnosis, which is demonic possession. Today some might say the poor man was mad, but the stranger knows demons are as real as angels, and can wreak tremendous havoc. Fortunately, the stranger expels the demons from the man and sends them into a herd of swine, which drowns in the sea.
The formerly monstrous man is immediately drawn to the faith of this stranger, who is Jesus. In fact, he wants to get into Christ’s boat and leave with him, but he’s given a different mission: “Go home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.” The man obeys, and we are told, “All were amazed.”
In another vivid scene, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and again makes an immediate diagnosis. She’s been married five times and her current living partner isn’t her spouse. She’s startled that he knows so much about her life and thinks he’s a prophet, but he tells her that he’s the Messiah.
He knows this woman is an outcast because of her relationships, and she thirsts for love and acceptance. He explains how faith can heal her by mentioning “a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” which will quench her thirst forever. Like the possessed man, she rushes home to tell others about this life-changing encounter.
Many of us have a persistent thirst to be understood on a deep level, and to be known, forgiven and loved. This is what God offers the Samaritan woman and the possessed man — a return to spiritual health and wholeness. Christ treats them like they’re worthwhile, even if society has scorned and rejected them. As a result, they experience a change of heart, as their old lives fall away, and they are given a second chance.
In his 20s, Thomas Merton was bound by the chains of a dissolute, apparently meaningless existence, when one day he stopped at a church in New York City. There, he was startled to see “so many ordinary people in a place together, more conscious of God than of one another.”
Afterward, he “walked in a new world….everywhere there was peace in these streets designed for violence and noise.” He later entered a Trappist monastery in Kentucky and became a prolific writer and poet.
One of his books, “The Seven Storey Mountain,” sat on my shelf for years, until one day I opened it and became mesmerized by his honesty about his wild past, and his eventual surrender to God. Like him, I had been the prisoner of a painful past that needed God’s healing touch.
Many of us are shackled to a life that seems bleak and meaningless. The message of Christianity is that it’s never too late to leave the darkness behind. We can encounter the God who takes pity on us, knows everything about us and cherishes us. We can walk in a new world, where we will never thirst again, because the living water of faith never runs out.
Lorraine’s email address is lorrainevmurray@yahoo.com.
