Salvation from the Other Side
What SHe SAid - Part 12
Lisa Wallover, Guest Writer
Today’s Treasure
On that day, when evening had come, He [Jesus] said to them [the disciples], “Let us go across to the other side.”
Mark 4:35
Suggested Scripture reading for today: Mark 5:1-20
His life was a living hell. Truly. The level of spiritual battle he endured, within his own body, was staggering. Tormented by a host of demons, he existed across the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum. Across from where Jesus often taught and healed and had even cast out a demon from a man in the synagogue. But that man had been a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This man was a Gentile, in a Gentile region. And he had no such hope.
All of the wonders Jesus performed had been shared with the children of Abraham, the Jews who were looking for their promised deliverer. Looking for the one anointed by God to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19).
This man, occupied and oppressed by an army of demons, knew no such promise of deliverance. He was on the other side of the Lake.
And yet,
On that day, when evening had come, He [Jesus] said to them [the disciples], “Let us go across to the other side”.
Mark 4:35
How confusing that must have been to the twelve. Though it was early in Jesus’s ministry, things had appeared clear. All His teaching had pointed to Him as the Messiah promised to the Jews. All His acts of mercy had been to their people. Why would they be leaving their home, where many pressed to see Him, and crossing the Lake to a largely non-Jewish region? What would He need to do there?
Almost immediately they discovered the fearful agony that awaited them: a man, hardly human in his appearance and actions, rushed from the tombs. This man ran at them, naked, with lesions on his wrists and ankles from chains he’d ripped away, and ragged tears over his body, where he’d cut himself with stones. . Falling on his knees before Jesus, he cried out in a voice not his own: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”
Who would have imagined that Jesus would have anything to do with him? Not the disciples. Not the man. Not the demons inside him.
But Jesus knew. This man was under spiritual attack because he was made in the image of God, and Satan hates the image of God.
The demons (who called themselves “Legion, for we are many”) could easily oppress this man and try to mar beyond recognition any likeness he had to the Creator. But Jesus would not let that stand. Suddenly, Legion was confronting not just the man, but Jesus Himself in spiritual warfare. And Jesus had come to fight. He had come to restore this life. He had come to save.
Jesus’s authority is so complete that it only took a word from Him to cast the demons out of the man and into a nearby herd of pigs, which then drowned themselves by running into the sea. Because our enemy is a destroyer, destruction is all he can achieve.
In remarkable contrast, Jesus is our champion and the giver of life; He will fight to win us back. He will cross the sea. He will climb the cross. He will fight until “It is finished” to win our salvation.
We do not need to have an evil spirit oppressing us to experience the attack of the one who hates God utterly. Believing the lies of the devil can lead us to doubt God’s goodness and to miss the gift of our dignity as those made in His image.
Instead, knowing that Jesus came to fight for us, to win us back from sin—both the sin we do and the sin that is done to us—and to restore us in His image, leads us out of this darkness and into His beautiful light.
LIFE-GIVING ENCOURAGEMENT
Saved by Jesus we, like the man, now sit in the clothes He gives us—the clothes of His righteousness. We rest in our right mind, having experienced the great love and power of Christ, who came for us. We deeply resonate with the man when he asks to stay with Jesus. How grateful we can be that God’s Spirit does dwell in us, that He will never leave us or forsake us. And we can hear Jesus commission us: “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”
Where do you need to believe more deeply that Jesus has crossed the sea for you?
PRAYER
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Lord, I stand in awe of Your unfailing and unflinching commitment to redeem Your people, even at the great and terrible cost of the cross. I praise You for being the God who saves—the very meaning of the name Jesus!—and that You have saved even me.
Sharon W. Betters is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, pastor’s wife, and cofounder of MARKINC Ministries, where she is the Director of Resource Development. Sharon is the author of several books, including Treasures of Encouragement, Treasures in Darkness, and co-author with Susan Hunt of Aging with Grace. She is the co-host of the Help & Hope podcast and writes Daily Treasure, an online devotional.
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Contact Sharon with comments or questions at dailytreasure@markinc.org.