The first time I saw it through a microscope, I discovered that it is impossible to view a diamond’s beauty from only one angle or one dimension all at once.  Every diamond has many faces.  Each face is a part of the same stone but no one face reveals all of its beauty.  You have to turn it over several times to see it all and you never get to see it all at once.  So it is with scripture.  There is no one way of seeing any text.  In this scripture this morning, in what appears to be one story, there are at least two, if not more.  One is about how Jesus healed a demon-possessed man.  There is even more than one way of seeing and understanding even that event. 

Looking at this ancient text through the eyes of modern medicine, some see a man who was profoundly mentally ill, perhaps suffering from some sort of multiple personality disorder.  An illness that forced him into self-destructive behaviors including physically abusing himself by beating himself up against the stones in the graveyard until he was bruised and bleeding.  Some have speculated that he was hanging out in the graveyard because it represented some deep and unresolved grief in his life, some past loss or tragedy that held him captive (John Claypool, Mending the Heart, Cowley Publications, 1999).  He makes me wonder about some of those we see walking our Oak Cliff streets after being turned out of halfway houses.  If you see the story that way, it’s very significant to note that Jesus asked the man his name, as though to call attention to the fact that, even though his life was a wreck, he still had a unique identity, was a person, with a name, of worth and value and a life that was of greater significance than just what was happening to him at the moment. 

Others read this text and take it at purely another face value.  This was a man whose mind and body had been taken hostage by some kind of evil spirits that tossed him around, Exorcist-like, as though he were a rag doll on a string, totally out of control of his own senses.  Jesus engages the man, the spirits, in a conversation.  Eventually, whatever possessed the man found itself relocated to a herd of foraging pigs who, in turn, drowned themselves in the nearby sea. 

Unless you are heavily invested in pork belly futures, this is a truly beautiful story, especially in the way Jesus responds with compassion to this man who was completely isolated from his human community because of his behavior and under the total dominance of something that was destroying him.  That speaks volumes about the character of Jesus and the way he responds with compassion to those who are the most marginalized in society.  There is so much to that one aspect of this story. 

There is another story here, too.  It’s not as dramatic as watching demon possessed pigs dance a jig, what my Nancy says is the first evidence in scripture of deviled ham.  Yet, another face of this story is about what happens to the man after Jesus set him free.

Word spread pretty quickly that something spectacular was happening to the guy who was always howling in the cemetery at night.  People began to gather and hear the story about what had happened to the man and the pigs.  Then, curiously, the townsfolk ask Jesus to leave.  What’s that about?  Were they afraid of something?  What was it?  Maybe it was the way Jesus brought the supernatural stuff that always lurks just below the natural surface into the light for all to see.  Who knows?  Whatever it was, they asked Jesus to leave and, because Jesus never stays where he isn’t wanted, he obliged them.  Before he can get away, however, the formerly possessed man asks if he can go with him.  This is where the second story begins.

Jesus turns him down.  It’s not to hard imagine why this man would have wanted to go with Jesus.  For one thing, no one had ever touched his life like Jesus.  One moment, he was possessed by something evil, the next, he was free.  His mind was clear and rational.  He wasn’t trying to harm himself anymore.  It was all because of Jesus.  Can anyone blame him for not wanting to go back?  Going back meant moving back into the same community with people who had known him before Jesus changed him.  What memories would he have had of those people, laughing at him, ignoring him, being afraid of him?  Who wants to go back to a place where you were never taken seriously, or knowing that, even if everyone says they’ve forgiven you, you know they’ll never forget what you once were?

Scripture paints an emotional picture.  “The man who had been possessed by demons begged (Jesus) that he might be with him.”  Begged him, it says.  “Don’t make me go back, Jesus.  Please!  Please!  Take me with you!”  Anywhere Jesus was going was better than where he’d come from.  Have you ever wanted to just run away?  Have you ever fantasized what it would feel like to just go someplace brand new, where no one knew your past, and start all over?  How refreshing would it be to not have a history, just a future?  Do you think Coach Bliss feels that way this morning?  Have you ever felt that way?  Take me with you Jesus.  Anywhere! 

Instead, Jesus sends him back where he came from with these words, “‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’”  This man’s exit from one life gave him opportunity for witness as he entered his new life.  But, his entrance into his new life only had meaning because of what he had just exited. 

It’s one thing to be a new Christian in a new place, where you have no history.  It’s altogether another to go back into the very same world from which Jesus saved you and live out your new found faith there.  But, that’s what this man did.  He went home and “began to proclaim . . . how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.”  Our best witness is not among those who’ve only known us at our best.  Our best witness is among those who have seen what Jesus has done for us against the backdrop of our very worst.  Isn’t it true that some of our biblical heroes are able to witness to us of great faith only against the background of very sordid pasts?  Our greatest opportunity for making a gospel impact in this world is in the lives of those who know the whole story of our lives, from exit to entrance.  Jesus wants to give others hope through our exits and entrances; he wants to give us hope as well.

Life is full of exits and entrances, isn’t it?  We’re always exiting something, someone’s always leaving, aren’t they?  Anne Murray’s soulful words ring too true for comfort, Railroad station, midnight trains.  Lonely airports in the rain.  And, somebody stands there, with tears in their eyes.  It’s the same old scene time after time.  That’s the trouble with all mankind.  Somebody’s always, saying goodbye.

What this story in scripture teaches me is that Jesus can turn our exits into entrances.  In the case of the man formerly possessed of demons, his greatest challenge was believing that an exit could become an entrance.  An entrance into a whole new and healthy way living, of doing community and of sharing the hope.  It’s all in what face of the story you choose to see most, which way you choose to turn it in the light.

I met a little girl in our hallway one day not long ago.  “How old are you?” I asked her.  “Almost eleven,” she said.  I told her parents that it’s been a long time since I defined my age in terms of what I was about to be.  “How old are you, pastor?”  “Almost forty-nine.”  Not hardly.  Yet, think about it.  This little girl thinks of her life in terms of what will be, not what was, of what she’s about to enter, not what she’s leaving behind.  Isn’t that the way Jesus wants us to live, too?  Thinking of every exit, even from one day to the next, as an entrance.  What if we could learn to think of all of life’s exits as entrances, too?  What if we could believe that Jesus could transform even the worst of exits into the best of entrances?

I’ve really grieved for some of you folks this past few weeks.  For some reason (I can’t imagine what that might be) I’ve been more aware than ever of parents watching their children leave for college.  Another friend, whose last child left home for college just last week vowing that he’d spent his last summer at home, is also a kindergarten teacher.  She’s living with both ends of the spectrum in full view.  While keeping her own handkerchief close by as she’s watched her last son turn his overloaded car east, she’s watched other wispy-eyed parents all week as they dropped their children off for the first day of school.  Kindergarten to college, someone’s always saying goodbye.  But, what if it’s true that every exit is also an entrance?  And, what if our faith was meant, as much as anything, to sustain us in times like these, when we’re saying more goodbyes than hellos, by helping us trust Jesus to transform exits into entrances, for ourselves, our children, our parents?

Exits can be painful.  Especially the ones that are forced upon us by others.  How many in our congregation this past year have faced forced termination from employment?  Other times, even when they’re painful, we choose some exits for ourselves.  Staying where we are is too painful; the only way – is the way out.  The 60’s ballad by The Animals keeps ringing in our heads, We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do!   Of all modern inventions, none gives me trouble than these automatic revolving doors.  You time it just right to step into the wedge meant for you, just fast enough but not so fast that you run face first into the glass ahead of you.  They never move fast enough for me once I’m in.  I’m always out of sync with the pace.  Exits are like that sometimes, painful and painfully slow.  We don’t always get to choose the timing or the pace.  Either way, whether they’re chosen for us or we choose them for ourselves, an exit is an exit.  More often than not, we loose a piece of ourselves on the way out.  Especially when we face life’s biggest exit.

What if, even then, Jesus wants to turn the cold, harsh stone of death around for us so that we can see its diamond-studded life side?  What if, in the middle of even the worst exit, loss of a job or loss of life, Jesus called you by name, to remind you that you have an identity that is greater than what is happening to you at the moment?  What if the greatest opportunity for life and witness is just on the other side of the door you’re facing right now marked “EXIT”?  Would you be willing to believe that Jesus could turn whatever you are exiting right now into an entrance into something new and good you could have never imagined so that, when you enter that new place, you’ll be shouting “how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you”?

Paul Carderella was telling me just this week about how Vicki felt so blessed to have been there with her mom when she died, holding her hand all the way.  As her mom slipped closer and closer to the edge, Vicki said, “Mom, I’ve got your hand on this side.  Jesus is waiting for you on the other.”  With that, her mother slipped away, exiting this life, only to enter the next. 

That’s what Jesus does.  Turns our exits into entrances.  That’s what Jesus does. 

Do you believe that?

Would you?