Transference of Self into the Stories of Scripture

When I read Scripture I intentionally dedicate myself to one character’s part in the story.
I concentrate to the point of taking their place.
I get in their mind and skin.

At different times I've been Zacchaeus, On occasion I've been Pilate. It's the closest I can come to "being there." What has become a customary way of reading has enhanced my understanding of how different circumstances can, and have, influenced some of the choices people of Scripture made in times past. I’ve discovered that what I had occasionally judged as strange or unusual wasn’t so strange and unusual upon deeper circumstantial and character reflection.

Yet Mark’s telling of the demon-possessed man has been the one story I’ve had trouble enter into (Mark 5). It’s unique. It's the one story where attempting to becoming a part of the scene just doesn't work quite as well as in the other stories of Scripture.

I wish I had been with Jesus on that day. It was a day when he reached into the most terrifying of tombs and pulled a prisoner from darkness—dressed him in his right mind and sent him on his way.