‘Please don't disturb’

by Tami Rudkin
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 1:28 PM MST

Have you ever been afraid of the dark, the boogie man, or evil spirits? Do you hear suspicious noises when you are alone or imagine a crazy person trying to break into your home while you sleep?

To put this story in its creepy feeling context, remember the last time you were a little freaked out by a misplaced sound or a feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

It was about dusk when out from the rocky hillside caves, commonly used as tombs, appeared a possessed man. No chains could hold him; no human could reason with his diseased mind.

A man so filthy in spirit, so broken in body, so confused in purpose that the village people could hear his tortured cries reverberate through the hills.

Upon seeing Jesus, the wretched mortal fell to his knees, for he knew whom he had encountered. Jesus, urged by compassion for the man’s anguish and contempt for the indwelling sickness, commanded the legion of spirits out of the man and into a herd of pigs grazing nearby.

The resident mad man was healed, but the pigs destroyed themselves by plunging down an embankment and into the water below.

Quickly, as the word spread, the people gathered to witness for themselves the miracle and the scripture says they were afraid.

The villagers weren't ecstatic over the super natural; they weren't rejoicing that a man was rescued; they weren't even asking Jesus to heal their loved ones. Instead, they were frightened, and they were angry.

After all, Jesus had destroyed their pigs.

Commentator William Barclay writes, "A frequent battle cry of the human mind is ‘Please don't disturb me.’”

That observation is obviously true in this situation.

Jesus' display of love for man and power over the spiritual world clearly threatened the villagers. It threatened their livelihood, their personal comfort zone and their religion.

Time after time, people crowded around Jesus, longing for a glimpse, a touch, a smile. And yet these pig owners were so concerned about the expense of knowing him that they begged him to leave them alone.

They had a chance to sit at the feet of the Almighty God, but instead they resented the disruption of the familiar.

This is truly an eerie story. Not because of the demon-possessed man or the storming pigs, but because the people had an opportunity to touch God, and they declined.

It wasn't that they accidentally missed him or couldn't get close enough, but that they couldn't bear what his presence would cost them.

Because they had a stable source of income, because they were comfortable, and because they already had religion, they didn't long for change, nor for the One who would bring it.

How often do we encounter God and still refuse his power and his love? We could be changed, revolutionized, but we love our present life too much.

We calculate the cost and find our complacency is much more comfortable. On our heart's door, we post "Please don't disturb."

And Jesus, like days of old, moves on to do more miraculous wonders among those who are able to be disturbed.

(Larry and Linda Kloster sponsor this column.)

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