Sermon Tone Analysis

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Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
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Analytical
Confident
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Social Tendencies
Openness
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Anger
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Frank Finkel (January 29, 1854 – August 28, 1930) was an American who rose to prominence late in his life and after his death for his claims to being the only survivor of George Armstrong Custer's famed "Last Stand" at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.
Historians disagree over whether Finkel's claim is accurate; although he provided several details that would only have been known by someone who was at Little Bighorn, there are inconsistencies in his accounts of events.
In the history of aviation, there have been a small number of "sole survivors" of airline crashes.[1]
Lone survivors are often left with physical and psychological injuries.[1]
The youngest sole survivor is Chanayuth Nim-anong who on 3 September 1997, survived a crash when he was just 14 months old.
He was the sole survivor of Vietnam Airlines Flight 815, which had 65 deaths in total.
The oldest sole survivor is Alexander Sizov, who survived a crash at 52 years old.
He was the sole survivor (and a crew member) of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash, which crashed on 7 September 2011, with 44 fatalities.
Another sole survivor is a former Serbian flight attendant, Vesna Vulović.
According to the Guinness Book of Records she holds the record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute at 10,160 metres (33,330 ft).
There was some controversy in 2009 when it was reported that her story might have been communist propaganda, but black box data strongly supported the official story.[2]
One of the more controversial lone survivors was Huang Yu (Chinese: 黃裕, Hanyu Pinyin: Huáng Yù) who tried to hijack the Cathay Pacific aircraft Miss Macao in 1948 but ended up crashing the plane killing the other 25 people on board.[3]
The earliest known sole survivor is Linda McDonald.
On 5 September 1936, she survived a Skyways sightseeing plane crash that killed 10 other people, including her boyfriend.[4]
The deadliest aviation disaster to have a sole survivor involved the collision between a Japan Air Self-Defense Force North American F-86 Sabre and a Boeing 727-200 over Shizukuishi, Iwate, Japan on 30 July 1971.
The crash killed all 162 on board the Boeing 727, with the sole survivor being the pilot of the F-86 Sabre, a 22-year-old man named Yoshimi Ichikawa.[5]
Northwest Airlines flight 255
The deadliest aviation accident involving a single aircraft which had a sole survivor was Northwest Airlines Flight 255, which crashed in Romulus, Michigan on 16 August 1987, killing 154 out of the 155 people on board the aircraft, as well as two people on the ground.
The sole survivor of the crash was a 4-year-old girl named Cecelia Cichan, who was seriously injured.[6]
Since 1970, one-third of lone survivors of airline crashes have been children or flight crew.[7]
video of sole survivor
I want to start with the politics of the situation.
I know, don’t talk politics in church.
But we have to this time.
It actually will help us understand this story.
This story is dependent on an understanding of the world, as it was known, at the time of Christ.
Herod the Great died in 4BC.
The land was divided up among his sons thereafter, and Philip got the land to the north east of the sea of Galilee.
But where this story takes place, it was different.
It was called the Decapolis, or Ten Citites.
Everyone referred to it as Decapolis, but no one really agreed on the meaning of which ten cities were included.
Some would say this ten, others another combination thereof.
To make it more complicated, the scribes who copied the manuscripts of Mark couldn’t agree on where exactly this incident took place.. .
Gerasa, Gergasa, .... or Gadara.
So if you look this up in your various Bibles you are going to find a variety of opinions on that.
There’s one thing that really matters, however.
And everyone agrees on this.
This was not Jewish land.
The people here weren’t Jews.
Please, get that straight.
They were running pig farms.
That’s a no no… a non starter for Jews- it simply tells us that whoever and whereever this story is about it is not a Jewish place or about Jewish people- it’s about someone else in anyplace but a Jewish city.
And, to accentuate the point- it surrounds the story of a cemetery- a burial grounds.
Jews believed these places were unclean.
In fact to touch a dead person made you unclean.
This place and the characters in it were as unclean as its going to get.
And here is this unclean man in his unclean place who is possessed by innumerable unclean spirits.
It’s a dirty story!!! It’s a tragic story.
This unclean land- whatever it was, was under Roman rule- the rule of outsiders.
This unclean man- was under the influence of unclean spirits- demons as it were.
Unclean slide, hazardous materials,
The situation has left him literally a walking disaster zone.
Think Charlie Brown’s pigpen with demons instead of dust.
He carried around in his body, literally, the imagery of his city- completely under enemy control.
He couldn’t help himself- he was under the control of enemy invaders and it was a sad sight to see.
He was naked.
He was out of control.
He could not be subdued, yet he was totally under the control of these enemy invaders.
When those who wanted to control him placed chains on him, he broke the chains by th power of the enemy that was controlling him… the demons.
He was a mess.
And again, he was a picture of this land where he dwelt.
Death everywhere, uncleanness rules, and hopelessness prevails.
That’s what Rome brought to those that they possessed.
Death if you rebelled.
Submission at any cost.
The acknowledgement that you were less than they were, and a requirement that you submit or die.
And so you submitted.
To the taxes, to the torment, to the trouble, to the people and spirits that ruled.
Most people under Roman control recognized Rome as the monster they hated but had to submit to.
Rome had come from across the Mediterranean Sea- the sea where monsters come from= and most people would have loved to see that monster thrown back in the sea where it belonged.
And into this situation, the unclean place under unclean rule with unclean motives and unclean spirits- comes the man announcing a new kingdom who would rule all earthly kingdoms and subdue all earthly rulers.
What happens when this possessed demoniac comes face to face with his polar opposite in so many ways?
This Kingdom announcer, this kingdom changer- demands the spirit to come out of the man.
Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.!
And the spirits come out, and go into a herd of pigs, about 2000, and they run down the hill into the sea and die.
Interesting, isn’t it?
They asked Jesus to leave.
They show him the door.
The usher in the movie theater has come to Jesus’ row with the flashlight in hand and He’s gotta go!
They recognized that something truly formidable was at work in Jesus Christ.
I think what probably bothered them more than anything was that they could not control him.
If he was able to destroy and entire herd of pigs- who knows what he might do next?
And I think that is what always bothers us most about Jesus… we can’t keep Him in our box.
He gets out.
And when He inevitably gets out, He does unimaginable things.
Unacceptable things.
He changes people and circumstances and He shows us where real value ought to be.
Let’s get real… what bothered this gathering of people?
It was the material loss.
2000 pigs?
Come on.
That’s a lot of bacon, and it’s going to look bad on our bottom line.
So in spite of the fact that a spiritual miracle has occurred, and in spite of the fact that this man with the legion of spirits has been saved, in spite of the truth that this crazed, naked, uncontrollable, demon possessed man was now sane and clothed, fully in control of his faculties and of sound mind an body- it cost them their shekels… and that means Jesus has to go.
We can’t have things like this happening around here.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with a business man who had been ordered by his board of directors to close a business and fire every employee in the company.
It was going to save the company about $73 million dollars- at the expense of the blue collar workers who ran the company.
This friend of mine did something very unusual- he didn’t follow his orders.
He said those people deserved their jobs and their paychecks- and he couldn’t do it.
So he lost his job, is currently in a lawsuit for breach of contract that has cost him well over $1 million dollars in legal fees and it’s not over yet.
Money does strange things to people, doesn’t it?
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