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Mark 5:1-20
There’s a film called the ‘Longest Day’ made in 1962 about the
D-Day landings of World War 2. In
the film there’s a line from the German Field Marshal Rommel who peers
across the channel from a beach in Normandy. They are awaiting the onslaught of their enemy. Rommel says to his generals:
“Just look at it, gentlemen.
How calm... how peaceful it is. A strip of water between England and the
continent... between the Allies and us. But beyond that peaceful
horizon... a monster waits. A coiled spring of men, ships, and planes...
straining to be released against us. But, gentlemen, not a single Allied
soldier shall reach the shore. Whenever and wherever this invasion may
come, gentlemen... I shall destroy the enemy there, at the water's edge.
Believe me, gentlemen, the first 24 hours of the invasion will be
decisive. For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest
day... The longest day.”
1900 years earlier there was a much shorter – but certainly no
less decisive battle. On one side – The LORD Jesus – the Christ, the Son
of God. On the other hand an
entrenched legion of deadly
opponents. The word Legion (from
v9) means army. Jesus has made
the treacherous crossing, He’s about to land on the beach in enemy
territory. This is war.
Read with me from verse 1:
Mark 5:1
They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. 2
When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the
tombs to meet him.
Jesus is no longer on
friendly territory. The Gerasenes
was a Gentile area, in Jewish thinking – an unclean area, full of unclean
animals – pigs – and unclean spirits.
That’s what v2 literally says – a man with an unclean spirit.
Jesus has crossed over
into enemy territory. And, as we
saw last week, the forces of chaos had risen up against Him. We reminded ourselves last week that
the sea symbolizes the dark forces of chaos and destruction – the sea is
the great Abyss. And it rose up
against Jesus at the end of Mark 4 as He made this crossing.
But, chapter 4, verse
39, without fuss, without breaking a sweat Jesus calmed those forces of
the abyss. “Quiet, be
still!” Then the wind died down
and it was completely calm. Jesus
will not be deflected from His mission.
And so He’s made it
past the border control. Now in
chapter 5 we see the beach landing and battle commences.
And just like last
week, the snapshot for this week’s passage is our old friends the big
fish, the medium fish and the little fish.
[SLIDE]
We are meant to
identify with the demonized man in this story. Right now, maybe you’re thinking ‘Really??! – that guy??’
We’ll think about that in a minute.
But we are the littlest fish.
The powers of evil are much bigger than us. Much bigger! But Jesus is far bigger still.
And really it’s very
similar to last week. Last week,
we were at the mercy of the storm until Jesus stepped in. So this week, we are at the mercy of
the powers of evil before Jesus steps in. We are powerless, we are passive – we don’t calm the storm,
we don’t defeat evil. It’s all about
Jesus and how Jesus steps in to do what we can’t do.
But, here’s what you
might be thinking… Are we really meant to identify with this demonized
man? I mean he looks like he’s
pretty far off the scale in terms of sanity.
Let’s read verses 3-5:
3 This man lived in the tombs, and no-one could bind him any more, not
even with a chain. 4 For he had often been chained hand and
foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet.
No-one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among
the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
Now I live in a
house. No-one has tried to chain
me. I’ve certainly never broken
iron chains with my bare hands. I
don’t spend every night and day crying out and cutting myself. Am I really like this man?
Well notice in v3
‘no-one could bind him.’ And
notice in v4 ‘No-one was strong enough to subdue him.’ Does that remind you of anything we’ve
been studying already in Mark?
Well turn back to Mark
chapter 3 from verse 23. Here the
teachers of the law were accusing Jesus of being possessed by Satan:
23 So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: "How can
Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against
itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided
against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan
opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27
In fact, no-one can enter a strong man's house and carry off his
possessions unless he first [binds] the strong man. Then he can rob his
house.
So what’s Jesus
saying. He’s saying there is a
whole kingdom of evil headed up by Satan. And Satan is described as a strong man. And what needs to happen is that
someone needs to come into Satan’s household, tie him up and carry off his
possessions. Now question number
one: What are Satan’s
possessions? Answer: people. That’s what Jesus has been doing, He
has been going into the midst of Satan’s kingdom and taking back the
people he has in his possession.
Question number two: Who
is in Satan’s kingdom? Answer:
everyone born of Adam. Everyone
born of Adam.
Do you remember the
story of Adam? The LORD gave Adam
and Eve everything and showed them only the most incredible kindness and
grace. Satan tempted them to
rebel. And effectively humanity
aligned itself with Satan and against the LORD.
Adam trusted and
followed Satan and not the LORD.
And so the LORD comes and preaches the gospel to them. In Genesis 3:15 He says to
Satan:
[SLIDE]
“The Offspring of the woman will crush your head [Satan] and you
will strike His heel.”
So the LORD says, even
though we’ve aligned ourselves with the devil, the LORD will align
Himself VERY strongly with us. In
fact, He’d be born as one of us in order to crush the devil.
As children of Adam we
are born into this natural alliance with Satan. But the good news has always been that the Lord would be
born in an alliance with us. And
as one of us, He would crush Satan.
And He did that decively at the cross – He crushed Satan, though
He was struck in the process.
But that’s the good
news. And in Old and New
Testaments that’s how the good news is constantly portrayed – the defeat
of Satan and so the deliverance of people who have been under his rule. It’s the strong man being tied up by
an even stronger Man called Jesus, so that we can go free.
But you know what all
of this means. It means that we
are born into Satan’s kingdom and we need to be delivered. We are by nature following the devil,
and we need Jesus to tie him up so that we can find liberation.
Just think of these
verses from the New Testament:
[SLIDE]
Paul writes to
Christians and tells them:
Ephesians 2:1
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2
in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of
the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in
those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among
them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and
following its desires and thoughts.
Astonishing
verses. We might think ‘I am the
master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.’ We may just see ourselves as doing
whatever we want to do. Well Paul
says ‘Yes, you have been doing whatever you’ve wanted. Or to put it another way – you’ve been
gratifying the cravings of your flesh.
But that’s exactly what people do in Satan’s household. The whole time you’ve been (v2)
following the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the
air, the spirit who is now AT WORK in those who are disobedient.’
The most respectable
man or woman you can think of who has not yet been set free by Jesus is a
servant of the devil. They might
not be living among tombs and cutting themselves. But they are no less bound by the ways
of this world, the ways of the devil, and are slaves of their own
desires.
Which means the
difference between this man in Mark 5 and you and me is not that he’s
been oppressed by evil powers but I haven’t. No, by nature, we are all oppressed by evil powers. His is an extreme case – very
extreme! But all of us need to be
set free by Jesus.
Mark here shows us the
most extreme case of evil getting hold of a life. But he shows us this because we need
to see that Jesus has power not only over the natural realm but the
supernatural realm. We’ve seen
Him calm to most extreme weather.
Now we’ll see Him defeat the most extreme evil.
Think of this man. The townspeople don’t know what to do with him. If he lived today we’d try the
strongest tranquilizers. In that
day they tried the strongest chains.
But nothing could hold him.
And there’s a rhythm to his self-destruction. Night and day, night and day he cries
out and self-harms.
If you were visiting the Gerasenes you’d hear
this wailing coming from the cemetary and you’d ask – what’s that? And perhaps people would ask ‘What’s
what?’ – you know how you get used to certain sounds. Emma and I live by the train tracks
and we used to notice the trains night and day. We don’t notice them anymore. Maybe it was like that in the Gerasenes. Legion’s cries
have become background noise as night and day he howls in anguish and
cuts himself with stones.
And yet verse 6 – he sees Jesus from a
distance.
I find that very interesting. Jesus has just calmed the storm and
Legion is on the land and sees Jesus from a distance. Did Legion see the moment Jesus calmed
the storm? We don’t know, all we
know is he rushes to the shore to meet Jesus. But this is not going to be a valiant defence of the
beach-head – immediately he begs for mercy. Verse 7:
7 He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me,
Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture
me!" 8 For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this
man, you evil spirit!" 9 Then Jesus asked him, "What
is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for
we are many." 10 And he begged Jesus again and again not
to send them out of the area.
Legion recognizes at once that he is no match
for Jesus. Just as in chapter 1,
the demons know Jesus’ identity with crystal clarity. Jesus is indeed the Son of the Most
High God and He does indeed have all authority to judge these evil
spirits. Jesus spoke of tying up
the strong man – well, v10, in Jesus’ presence Legion is a whimpering
wreck. Pleading with Him again
and again.
Same again in v12
12 The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs; allow us to
go into them."
What began as a war has in seconds turned
into complete surrender. This
entire army is begging for its life.
What a turn around. No-one
could bind legion. No-one was
strong enough. And yet Legion
cowers in the presence of Jesus.
And these demons, they can’t even escape into the pigs
themselves. Jesus has such a grip
on them. They have to ask Jesus
for permission to enter the pigs.
Verse 13
13 [Jesus] gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went
into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the
steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
Here is the true nature of these
spirits. While they had hold of
the man they produced uncontrollable madness, howling, self-harm. In the pigs this same self-destruction
caused them to run down the hill into the lake.
This lake which minutes ago looked like it
would kill Jesus and His followers, now it’s the watery grave of this
army of demons. This Sea
(of Galilee) was a picture of the abyss – the Abyss where the
demons and Satan himself will face their ultimate doom. And here they run headlong into it.
Jesus is most definitely stronger than the
strong man. And He is so cool
about it. Isn’t Jesus just so
cool?
He doesn’t boil up a secret potion to give
the man, He doesn’t sprinkle stardust on Him, He doesn’t circle around
Him 9 times sprinkling the blood of a hamster. No holy water, no incantations, no hocus pocus. He just commands: “Get out you evil
spirits.” And they come out. How cool is He?
The bible never describes lengthy battles
with evil spirits. In the bible
no-one ever goes out to try to engage evil spirits. No-one ever goes on search and destroy
ghostbusting missions. As the
gospel goes out, on rare occasions people do encounter these extreme
manifestations. And it does seem
to happen when frontiers are being crossed – like here, Jesus crossing
over into Gentile territory. When
the gospel comes to a new place there does seem to be these kind of
flare-ups of evil. That seems to
be the pattern that we see with Jesus coming on the scene, it seems to be
the pattern we see with the book of Acts as the gospel goes out to new
places. It also fits a pattern of
modern missionary settings where people speak of these kinds of flare ups
occuring especially when the gospel goes to a new area.
But here’s the point. In the bible, the way people deal with
these demonic flare ups is not with a series of rituals but simply with
words. It’s either Jesus calling
them out with a sentence (as in here) or it’s people praying a sentence
in the Name of Jesus (as in Acts).
And that’s it. It’s not
about conjuring or cajoling the powers.
It’s simply a demonstration of Jesus’ power – that’s what’s
needed.
I mean, think for a second how powerful Jesus
is. If a strong man beats another
man in a fight – that shows a certain amount of power. But think about this fight. What kind of strength does a man have
if he’s able to make the other guy beat himself up. That’s essentially
what Jesus does in Mark 5. Fine,
go into the pigs He says. And in
their own madness they destroy themselves. It’s like: Ding
Ding, Round One, Jesus stands there and His opponent knocks Himself
out. That is power. Jesus is infinitely stronger than the
strong man.
But the way He uses His strength is so
different. Look at verse 15 to
see the new state of this man:
the
man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, [was] sitting there,
dressed and in his right mind.
Seated, dressed, in his right mind.
What an incredible “before and after” photo
this man would make. I’m always
dubious with before and after shots – the internet is full of them. “I lost 15 dress sizes when I took
this pill.” That’s why I’d steer
clear of that pill. But what
about this man’s before and after shots?
Before: living among tombs, naked, cutting himself, unable to be held by
the strongest chains, screaming out night and day.
After: Seated, dressed, in his right mind.
What a conversion!
That is the power of Jesus. No-one is a lost cause for Jesus. No-one is too far gone. Do you think there are issues in your
life that you just cannot change?
Are there night and day self-destructive patterns they are beyond
you. Are there parts of your life
where you feel like you’ve made your home in the tombs, cutting yourself,
crying out? Do you feel like it
would be impossible for you to change?
Well you’re right. It is impossible for you to change. You are the smallest fish. You don’t have the power to overturn
patterns of evil in your life.
But Jesus does. With a
word Jesus does. There is power
in the Name of Jesus. There is
incredible power available to all those who come to Christ.
In Mark 4 we saw the long-term power of His
word to change us. That is the
ordinary way in which Jesus grows His people and grows His kingdom. Long-term, gradual multiplication that
ends up producing supernatural growth – that’s the usual way. But Jesus is also able to overturn
things dramatically. He is able.
But this power is extremely threatening.
Look at how verse 15 goes on.
15 When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by
the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they
[were overjoyed and asked Jesus to deliver them too??… No, they] were
afraid. 16 Those who had seen it told the people what had
happened to the demon-possessed man--and told about the pigs as well. 17
Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
We saw this last week. The disciples were
afraid of the storm but then when Jesus calmed the storm they were
terrified of Jesus. Here Jesus
has proved Himself to be the biggest fish yet again. And again people are afraid of Him
The power that Jesus has is frightening. Truly frightening. More frightening than an army of
demons because He’s more powerful than an army of demons.
But the difference is, the demons used their
power to destroy, Jesus uses His immeasurably greater power to heal and
restore and give dignity and peace.
But the crowd don’t want that power.
And so at the end of this story you realize
it’s not the man from the tombs that’s crazy. At the end, the crazy ones are all the people who ask Jesus
to leave.
Jesus has the power to tear you away from
what binds you. But we’re quite
attached to the things that bind us.
So often we make our homes in the things that bind us – just like
Legion made his home in the tombs. And Jesus then becomes far too
threatening. And so the people
ask Jesus to leave.
Scarily, Jesus agrees to their request. Verse 18:
18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been
demon-possessed begged to go with him.
Here is the fourth request of this
story. Two requests from the
demons, one request from the people and now this man makes a
request. Can I come with you
Jesus?
That’s the best request of them all
right? And it’s coming not from
an enemy but a friend. Surely
Jesus will grant this request.
But here’s a shock, verse 19:
19 Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and
tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on
you." 20 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.
Jesus grants the requests of demons, He
grants the request of a hostile mob, He refuses this plea from the man
He’s just delivered.
Why?
One reason only – so that he might be a witness.
He’s not used by Jesus in spite of his past
but because of his past…
Mercy – this
man’s story could not have been ‘Hey mum and dad, I got a part-time job,
paid my way through university, got onto a graduate scheme, bought my own
flat…” His story spoke of the
omnipotent mercy of the Lord
Jesus says ‘Tell how much the Lord has done
for you.’ Verse 20, so Legion
tells how much Jesus had done for him…
Jesus just tells him – go to your
family. The man takes the message
far beyond just his family, he tells in the whole Decapolis, which is a
very large area, how much Jesus had done for him.
Mark 7:31ff:
31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to
the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32
There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly
talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man….
ð
Feeding 4000
We
want to be with Jesus. But
Jesus sends us out for a few more years to witness to our family and
those further afield. And one day
we will see Him face to face – Him and those we’ve witnessed to about
Him. And we’ll feast.
Who are you – the man in the tombs needing
deliverance?
The crowd afraid of Jesus’ power
The man witnessing
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