“People to meet in heaven: the Gadarene Demoniac”
Mark 5:1-20
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
In May of this past year, author Nicole Cliff wrote an article entitled, How God Messed Up My Happy Atheist Life. This is what she said: “As an atheist since college…like many atheists…I started out snarky and defensive about religion, but eventually came to think it was probably nice for people of faith to have faith. I held to that, even though the idea of a benign deity who created and loved us was obviously nonsense, and all that awaited us beyond the grave was joyful oblivion.” And she said, “I did not wish to believe. I had no untapped, unanswered yearnings. All was well in the state of Denmark. And then it wasn’t.”
It started, she said, when she was going through a tough time. She was worried about her child. She said, “Be with me,” to an empty room. She didn’t know why she said it, nor to whom. Then she simply brushed it off, moved on, and didn’t think about it again.
Until, a short time later, while she was surfing the internet, she came across an obituary written by a family friend. And as she read his words, that when we get to heaven, no one will be able to say, “I merited this,” she began to cry. Later that day, she cried some more. And after reading other Christian books and feeling like “a boat tossed on the waves,” she emailed a Christian friend and asked if she could talk about Jesus.
The next few days, she said, she felt like an idiot, wondering what on earth she planned to ask—“Do you like Jesus? What was Jesus’ deal? And why did He ice that fig tree?”
But an hour before their call, she knew—she believed in God and had become a Christian.
She said, “No one could have, in a billion years of their gripping testimony or by showing me a radiant life of good deeds or through song or even the most beautiful of books brought me to Christ. I had to be tapped on the shoulder.” And she said, “I have been cracked open to the divine.”
So it was for the Gadarene demoniac.
If you would, please turn in your Bible to page 1068 as I read the words of our text. I’ll start where it says, “Jesus Heals a man with a Demon,” Mark chapter 5, verse 1: “They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.”
Let me stop there for just a moment.
Mark wrote in verse 1: “They came to the other side of the sea…” Who’s “they”? It’s Jesus and His twelve disciples.
He had already spent the day teaching the people. In chapter 4, He told the story of the sower and his seed. He said, “Some seed fell along the path where birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground. Some fell among the thorns. And some fell on good soil and produced a good crop.” And He told the parable of the mustard seed.
As Mark wrote in chapter 4, verse 33, “With many such parables He spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to His own disciples He explained everything.”
Then that very evening, Jesus said, in verse 35, “Let us go across to the other side.”
And as they made their way across the Sea of Galilee, that’s when, all of a sudden, a storm came up and waves broke over their boat.
And where was Jesus? Verse 38: “But He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?’”
And with a voice that taught thousands, He commanded the wind and the waves to be quiet, to be still. And as it says in verse 39, “And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”
And the very next morning, before even the sun came up, as Mark writes, “They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.”
And whom should Jesus meet just as soon as He stepped out of the boat? Mark wrote, “Out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.”
Unclean spirit is right! No one could bind him, not even with shackles or chains. And as it says in verse 5, “Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.”
Now before I say anything more, there’s one thing you must understand—if Jesus is who He says He is, if He’s the Messiah sent to fulfill all prophecy, if He will crush the serpent’s head and bring a kingdom of justice, righteousness and peace, then He must conquer the forces of evil. We’ve already seen His power over illness and disease. He’s commanded the wind and the waves on the Sea of Galilee. Now He must overwhelm both sin and hell.
And if I could say, out of all Jesus’ encounters with demons, and there are many, this one is the most amazing of all.
But what happened when this demon, or rather, these demons, saw Christ? Look at verse 6: “And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before Him.”
And there’s a first lesson we should learn from this text. So many today will call Jesus a good man and a great prophet, but nothing more. They refuse to believe He is the all-knowing, all-powerful, sinless Son of God.
But the demons know better. They know who He is and what He came to do. As the apostle James wrote in his epistle: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder!”
Jesus had no halo, no glow around His head. Nothing seemed to set Him apart from ordinary men. Still, just as soon as the demons saw Him, they ran and fell down before Him, then cried out with a loud voice, “What have You to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure You by God, do not torment me.”
“What have You to do with me,” they asked, “Son of the Most High, El Elyon, God, the Sovereign One? Shouldn’t You be in Israel, suffering? Dying? Why are You here confronting us, judging us? Don’t we still have more time?”
“What is your name?” He demanded. They answered, “Our name is Legion--hundreds, thousands--for we are many.”
And they begged Him to not send them into the abyss.
And there we find a second lesson to learn from this text. As Luther wrote in the words of his hymn: “Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us, we tremble not, we fear no ill; they shall not overpow’r us. This world’s prince may still scowl fierce as he will, he can harm us none. He’s judged; the deed is done; one little word can fell him.”
Now look at verse 11: “Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged Him, saying, ‘Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.’ So He gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.”
And just as soon as the people heard what happened, verse 15, “They came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.”
“They begged Jesus to depart,” it says. They had never seen such authority, such power. And they were afraid.
And there’s a third lesson to learn from this text. Many, it seems, are open to Jesus as long as He keeps His distance. They just never want Him to come too close.
They like the gentle Jesus of the picture books, with the smooth touch and the long, wavy hair, not the powerful Christ of the gospels. They like the marble Jesus they can touch for good luck, but care nothing for a Christ that demands total allegiance. They love Jesus, they say, as long as He doesn’t interfere with their business, their lifestyle, their habits, or their plans. Take me to heaven, they say, but don’t mess with my life on earth.
But as the people of Gerasa soon found out, when Jesus comes into your life, nothing will ever be the same again.
There is that question that often troubles us--is there demon possession today?
Sure there is! St. Peter wrote in his first epistle: “Be sober-minded, be watchful; for Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” And Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
But is there any hope? Of course there is! For John wrote in his first epistle: “Greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world.” And Paul wrote to the Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor power, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Just one more thing. Go with me finally to verse 18: “As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged Him that he might be with Him. And He did not permit him but said to him, ‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.’ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.”
And just a few months later, when Jesus came ashore once more, how many were there to greet Him? The Bible says a great crowd ran from all the towns and villages, and got there ahead of Him—five thousand men, with their wives and children. And there He taught them many things.
There on the shores of Gadara, by the grace of God, a maniac became a missionary.
In the words of a hymn: “Waft, waft, ye winds, His story, and you, ye waters, roll, till like a sea of glory it spreads from pole to pole; till o’er our ransomed nature the Lamb for sinners slain, Redeemer, King, Creator, in bliss returns to reign.”
We thank You, Father, for Your great power over sin, death, and hell. Give us, we pray, in our time and place, the grace and strength to stand. This we ask in our Savior’s name. Amen