21.04 | The Naked Man of Juba
Mark 5:1-20
‘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.’
Mark 5:15
Around 12 years ago, Lydia and I spent three months living in Juba, South Sudan. South Sudan had recently formed as a nation, after years of civil war with the north. It was a time of extraordinary hope in the nation, but also of processing the trauma of the years of warfare. Every day we rubbed shoulders with emerging leaders and visionaries, hoping for a new chapter to open for their people. And every day we came close to stories of great pain.
One of these stories was a man that we often saw. He stood out from everyone else, for one clear reason.
He was always completely naked.
Naked in the marketplace. Naked at the local shop. Naked walking between them. We probably saw him most weeks. The man with no clothes was a part of the backdrop of life in Juba.
It’s difficult to think of many more radical transformations than the one we encounter in Mark’s Gospel today.
Picture it. There’s a place out of town, where the dead are buried. It’s wild and remote, and its reputation as a burial place is amplified all the more because of the guy who lives there. He roams around naked, shouting and wailing, cutting his skin with rocks. His bare skin, leathery through exposure to the sun, and scarred by the rocks, gave him a shocking appearance. Stories were told of the times they tried to subdue him, binding him with chains. He simply broke them apart with supernatural strength.
I wonder what parents said to their kids about this place and this man? I wonder what names the local kids gave him? I wonder what old men, discussing him around the village, would have said? I wonder what the man had said of himself?
I wonder what his own childhood looked like. What relationships? What dreams? What pain?
When we encounter anything like the measure of pain and darkness we find in this man, there’s a common feeling:
Fear.
Fear leads to withdrawal. To exclusion. To avoidance. Fear must have led to hasty burials in this region, and relatives of the deceased avoiding the tombs of their forebears. Fear drove a wedge between this man and the rest of society. Fear kept him alone. Comfort over here in our villages, problem over there among the tombs.
This man’s issues were so severe that society simply couldn’t handle him. He was beyond their frameworks of possible change. He was simply to be avoided.
Yet not so with Jesus.
He goes to the tombs. He approaches the man. He sees the child of God bound up in the shackles of the enemy. And He brings the man back to himself. And then this man, clothed and in his right mind, joins the purposeful work of sharing the wonders of God in his community.
What do we learn? Simply this:
There is no person or scenario that is beyond His ability to transform.
The man with no clothes in Juba made me uncomfortable. We saw the tip of an iceberg of his complexity. We did not know the story that led him here. But behind all this there was a deeper story—a story of a man made in the image of God, made with purpose, made for joy, made to encounter extraordinary love, and yet marred with the pain of a very broken world.
As that man of the Gerasenes ran back to his hometown, clothed and in his right mind, I wonder what he told them? Not a ten-part theological doctrine of salvation or an exposition of the Torah. No. He would have told them that there is a man called Jesus, who is unlike anyone that he has ever met. And that for this Jesus, there is nobody beyond the reach of His transforming love.
Reflect:
Think of your categories. Are there people in your thoughts or prayers that you’ve come to see as beyond God’s ability to change?
Come back to Him again today. Remind your thoughts of His strength. Remind your heart of His love.
And turn this to pray for the people or person who came to mind.
Is there a divide of fear you need to step across today?
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
Teach me to see
Like you do.
When I see pain,
May I not merely see it with compassion,
But to see through it,
To see what could be
With your word
And your touch.
Would you teach me to walk courageously across the divides of fear
With great love,
And the confidence of your presence with me.
And may my life, too,
Carry the stories
Of the unreachable who were reached
By the very touch of God.
This is entirely beyond me.
And yet,
In you,
May it be.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Judges 15-16 | Psalm 51