364 How to Become a Christian

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “How to Become a Christian”, originally shared on June 18, 2025. It was the 364^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Ask many church members if they are a Christian and they’ll say something like, “Well, I try to be”. And that’s entirely beside the point. Today we’re going to find out why.

   Lots of stories could be told by those who participated in the peaceful demonstrations against the perceived abuse of power in the past week, as well as by those who exploited those demonstrations for their own violent agendas, in Los Angeles and cities nearby and throughout our country.

   The demonstrations were initiated by efforts to enforce the rule of law with regard to violent criminals but seemed to also include those who entered our country by hoping over the fence instead of waiting in line, but then it was indicated that we may be willing to look the other way  for workers in some large industries like agriculture and hospitality controlled by wealthy people. Or maybe not.

   Two of the major questions we’ve been asking ever since the age of mass media began are, “What is the story?”, and “Who gets to tell it?”.  

   I remember when the Farmer John meat packing plant in Vernon closed a few years ago. About 1,800 to 2,000 people lost their jobs. That’s a lot of people who are not happy about being out of work.

   There are also a lot of unhappy people who were dependent on the meat industry in the story of the healing of the Gerasene demonic in the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday, Luke 8:26-39, that will be read in the vast majority of churches throughout the world.

   But its message does not focus on the temporary loss of livelihoods, but on the eternal recovery of salvation. That’s a lesson that many of us are still learning.

   Jesus and the disciples had gone on a trip across the Sea of Galilee. His home base was Capernaum on the sea’s western shore and Gerasene was probably almost directly across from it, and a little to the south. Gerasene was a non-Jewish, that is “pagan” or “Gentile”, territory, as you might guess as you hear this story, given the prominence of a large herd of swine, an unclean animal for the Jews.

   Then this happens in Luke 8:26-27,

²⁶ Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs.    

   The greeting party that met Jesus and his disciples was a naked man who used to live in the city but now lived in the graveyard.

   Most of us will read this and see lots of red flags. This is not normal.

   The people of Jesus days would see that he was not being supported by his family. That he was not wearing clothing, a thing that distinguished human beings from animals. Oh, and that he had demons.

   In our culture, demons are something we see in the movies. It’s surprising how many people believe in demons but do not believe in God. William Peter Blatty in The Exorcist has a character say, “God never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does a lot of commercials.”

   In our text today, we see that God talks a lot, and that the demons believe in God. The question of who is doing the most commercials depends entirely upon whether you are a Christian or not. We see things as we are, and we see God all the time.

   And, in addition to everything else that the man had lost to the demons, the man had lost his agency, he had lost the power to speak for himself. We see this in Luke 8:28-31,

²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— ²⁹ for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) ³⁰ Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. ³¹ They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

   This man was a mess! Everything that made him human in the eyes of the world had been taken away from him.

   Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. The unclean spirit was in fact many demons, and they immediately recognized Jesus for who he was, and they were afraid, and they begged him not to send them back into the abyss. So, Jesus agreed and sent them where they wished, the unclean spirits into the unclean animals, and to extermination, as we see in Luke 8:32-33,

³² Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

   What just happened? A large herd of swine was gone. Jesus had chosen the restoration of one man over the prosperity the pig owners. He had chosen a miracle for the possessed man over the food supply of the region.

   A miracle does not suspend the laws of the universe. A miracle restores the universe to what it was created to be.

   Look at what happened to the man, and how the non-believers responded in Luke 8:34-37,

³⁴ When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵ Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened. ³⁶ Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. ³⁷ Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 

   The people from the city and from the surrounding region found the man from who the demons had gone, “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

   I studied in Israel for a semester when I was in college. Our chief guide, a graduate student who was an alumnus of my college, took our group to this location and read this text to us. He wept when he read it, and when he was finished he said, “This man was me.”

   He spoke about how he had suffered with mental illness in his life and had had a mental breakdown. He said that he believed that Jesus had come to him and healed him and when he had done it, Jesus had left him, “clothed and in his right mind.”

   Our guide said that Jesus had restored him to himself and to his family and to his community, and he had now taken up his studies again.

   How did the demon-possessed man’s community respond?

   They became frightened, and everybody from that surrounding region asked Jesus to leave them, “for they were seized with great fear.”

   Why? They were non-believers in Christ, but they did believe in the supernatural forces of evil. Maybe they were afraid because they feared the spirit world. Jesus had power there. Maybe they were afraid that he could turn it against them? They could have asked Jesus to stay and hear the good news and be freed from their fear, but they sent him away. They let their fears keep them from their blessing.

   The property owners were already mad. Jesus had killed their livelihood as well as some of the city’s food supply. They missed the blessing of eternity because their eyes were on their needs in this world.

   Jesus left, as they requested, but he didn’t leave them without a chance at salvation.

   We see this in Luke 8:38-39,

³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

   What just happened? All the guy wanted was that he might be with Jesus. And who wouldn’t?

   The man had just gone from being possessed by the forces of evil to sitting at the feet of Jesus (that means learning directly from Jesus), clothed and in his right mind. He begged Jesus to let him stay. But God had other plans.

   And Jesus says to him instead, ³⁹ “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

   The man now has a blessing to share. And Jesus sends him to share the good news in his community.

   What are we, living in 2025, to make of this?

   Most of the world outside the church fears the supernational power of evil. We see things as the baptized people of God. It has no power over us.

   People in the church may or may not believe in supernatural evil, but they do not fear it. In our baptism, sin, death, and the power of these forces are overcome by God’s grace.

   In fact, there is a vestigial exorcism in the service of Holy Baptism used by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in the current hymnbook, “Evangelical Lutheran Worship”, in the “Profession of Faith” section (on page 229) where the sponsors answer for the child or the adult answers for him/herself:

Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God?

Response: I renounce them.

Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God?

Response: I renounce them.

Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?

Response: I renounce them.

   These words are followed by a trinitarian reading/recitation of the Apostles Creed beginning,  “I believe…”

   And the service ends with the words, “__Name__, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

   This grace of God comes to the demon-possessed man through the power of God. We see that power for us on the cross. We belong to God. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit forever.

   The man with the demons is sent home with a cool story to tell.

   How can we declare how much God has done for us?

   What commercials are you producing for God through your proclamation and your daily living?

   Sally and I are at the age where many of the programs we watch on TV contain commercials for Prevagen, an over-the-counter medication that’s supposed to help improve your memory.

   I’ve been trying to learn Mandarin Chinese for a couple of years, and I once asked my cardiologist, who is also my internist, if he thought Prevagen would help me. He told me that the best way to maintain and improve my memory is to exercise it, and I believe that my studying something hard has helped my overall memory.

   The man who had had his demons cast out by Jesus was not given a passive assignment by Jesus. He was told to tell his story. He was new to faith in Christ, but I believe that his faith was maintained and improved by doing something that was hard, by going back to his people and sharing it.

   Telling his story was an expression of his relationship with Jesus.

   We all know lost people in our lives. Who are yours? What do we have to offer them but our story when we are uncomfortable, even when it’s difficult?

   We may not have a dramatic story like the demoniac who Jesus restored to his right mind, or maybe some of us do. But we all have stories, and we can all name the name of Jesus.

   We all have stories that are true to our lives. The story of “How I Became a Christian” or, “Why I Continue to Be a Christian” are stories we all know and can share with the people close to us.

   Even just letting people know that you gather with others to worship God in response to what God has done for you in your Baptism, that’s a story.

   These are the stories that you can tell somebody right now to tell others what God has done for you.

   But what if they respond positively, and want to go deeper? What would you do? Is your church prepared to help someone go from zero to Christian? Having that kind of preparedness is not common. What can you do to prepare your Christian community to receive people new to the faith?

   Is just trying to be a Christian the answer?

   In the movie “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back”, Luke is trying to lift the X-wing out of the swamp, but he believes that his power is too small. Yoda admonishes him and Luke says, “Alright, I’ll give it a try,” and Yoda replies, “No! Try not! Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

   That is the story of the man freed of demons who goes back to his people. That is our story as well. But we become Christians by our being, not by our doing. Our doing comes from our being.

   We don’t try to be Christians. Our Christianity is a gift, a relationship with God that has transformed our being.

   What we do is not an end in itself. That’s living under just another form of religious Law. What Christians do is an expression of who we are.

   How do we become a Christian? We become a Christian by opening our heart to God, repenting of our sin, and allowing God to clean us out and make us a fitting place for God to dwell. We are now God’s people. We are born again, and we may fail, but God has made us holy by his presence within us. It’s a gift.

   What we do now comes entirely from the inside out.

   Be the good news, and share it.