Football did not come home

Mark 5: 18-20 “As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.”

Last night football did not come home. England were knocked out of the semi-final of the World Cup. It did not come home. But the demon-possessed man did!

The fact is that the disturbed man had a normal life but all that had been lost because of the life he had lived and what had happened to him. He had a home but he had made the tombs his home. He had a family but he was on the mountainside alone, other gospel writers say he was with another similar man also, who knows there could have been more than two in the tombs they called home.

Jesus would not let the man go with them.

You see there was more than one broken man here. There was a broken home and a broken family. Jesus healed the man but the man was responsible to go and heal those who loved him or who had become afraid of him and distant from him.

Some of the followers of Jesus need to go back not forward. Go back and help fix what they hurt because they were hurt.

May our homes of desperation be turned to joy and sorrow into dancing. Let the stories of mercy resound within our families.

Football’s not coming home but may our homes and families broken by the enemy be renewed by the returning home of sons and daughters restored by Jesus!