Many Millennials today find themselves living among tombs—tombs of drugs, sex, alcohol, cutting and death. Jesus met a Gadarene man who was living in a similar graveyard 2,000 years ago: “Always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones” (Mark 5:5).
This Gadarene man did not just live among death; he sought death, and no one could keep him from it. “He lived among the tombs. And no one could constrain him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. But he had pulled the chains apart and broken the shackles to pieces. And no one could subdue him” (Mark 5:3-4).
Millennials who live in graveyards are pulling apart the chains of traditions that try to hide the tombs. They are breaking the shackles of structures that try to cover the pain. They are seeking truth. “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and revealed” (Luke 8:17).
Millennials want to face the truth of brokenness, pain, and death in a way that few generations before ever have. Piercings and tattoos tell their stories. They are crying out as David did, “For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. I am gone like a shadow in the evening; I am tossed as the locust” (Ps. 109:22-23).
But God is using Millennial’s willingness to face the reality of darkness to place them in a position to become even more receptive to light. The darkness contrasts with the light and makes the light seem brighter. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
God is good at bringing light out of darkness. The first thing He did at the beginning of creation was turn darkness into light. “The earth was formless and void, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen. 1:2-3).
God always speaks light in the midst of darkness. He is even now speaking light over Millennials who live among tombs. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them the light has shined” (Is. 9:2).
Jesus is searching the graveyards for Millennials – the point of Jesus-Now Awakening. The Father is seeking all of His children. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Jesus sought and saved the Gadarene man out of his graveyard, and directed him to share what the Lord had done for him. “But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran up and kneeled before Him. … Jesus did not let him, but said to him, ‘Go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He has had compassion on you.’ So he departed and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed” (Mark 5:6, 19-20).
God forms each child He saves from life among the tombs into a pinprick of light for the world. Millennials who used to live in graveyards are to grow into leadership, the light-bearers of a new beginning. “No one, when he lights a candle, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a candlestick, that those who enter may see the light” (Luke 8:16).
As pinpricks of light, we are each designed to be proclaimers of the truth, which sets others free who are still living among tombs. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may declare the goodness of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).
Will you be the pinprick of light the Lord is forming you into in this Jesus-Now Awakening?
Do you want to know how to leave your dwelling in the tombs behind?
Find peace with God. {eoa}
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