Mark 5 2-20

When we think of power, the first thing we typically think is mechanical power. We think of horsepower that drives our cars faster and faster. Monster horsepower is what I get out of my 93 Buick. Sheer power. 0-60 in just a few minutes. Over the summer when someone invites me out on their boat, and I see the power boats running all out across the bay, throwing a rooster tail 50 feet behind them, (I think they are trolling for really fast fish maybe), its impressive, but not all the productive. A few weeks ago I got to see the Barrasso brick making operation and I was impressed by the sheer power those machines put out as they produce the building blocks for just about everything around here.

Or maybe, like my dad who taught political science for 40 years, you think of power as political power. Debating whether might really does make right, doing deep thinking about how power is used in this country and by this country. The power to force another country to do what we want by sheer threat—that’s power, but so is forcing other countries to do what we want because of troops on the ground. That also is power.

My brother thinks and works with another kind of power; chemical power. He looks at the creation and breaking of chemical bonds, and the power that is found in the interaction of molecules. He is a lot smarter than I am. But today we are looking at none of those things. We are looking at spiritual power. More specifically, we are looking at Jesus’ power. Last week we looked at His power over the wind and seas; today over the demonic. Mark 5:2-20.

When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. 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. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of Him. 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!” For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”

Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. 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 afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. 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.” 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.

Let’s pray.

To remind you, we are working our way through the Gospel of Mark. I was given an outline of Mark last year at the conference I attend every year after Easter. The speaker gave me a gift; a new way to view Mark’s gospel. I had always thought Mark was less professional than the other gospels; it was the first written, has the roughest Greek and I really had developed a prejudice against Mark. But now I’m taking the time to see what Mark was trying to do; I’m hopefully seeing more clearly the way the Holy Spirit was using Mark to write the most important aspects of Jesus and His ministry for the people of the First century.

To catch you up, Mark has gone through some of the initial aspects of Jesus ministry, the healings, the arguments with the Pharisees, and some teaching. And now Mark is really wanting to establish in the minds of His readers Jesus power. Last week we looked at one aspect of Jesus power, Jesus calming the storm. This week we get to look at Jesus power over the demonic forces. We tend to dismiss the demonic because our culture is absolutely focused on the material. We have lost a sense of the spiritual, at least most of us have. We are not trained to recognize the demonic. But the people back in Jesus day were more aware of the spiritual realm. I’ve heard the testimony of people from Amazon tribes who are much more aware of the spiritual realm than we are. They have been saved from the demonic through missionaries, but they have hair raising stories to tell of spiritual warfare. We’ve lost something in our growth into the modern age. So you may feel comfortable dismissing Jesus encounters with demons; I do not. This is God’s Word and it describes Jesus cleansing a man of all that possessed him. This is a glorious healing showing God’s power over the forces of evil, something He will fight against His whole life, even up to now. So let’s take a deeper look at the text.

This is a quick chiasm within the overall story of the redemption of the demon possessed man. You’ll notice it starts and ends with point A, the man. Verses 2 and 6. Then that he spent time among the tombs is point B. Verse 3 and verse 5. The middle is verse 4. This was a man who could not be restrained. Chains could not hold him, this was a physically powerful man. He broke iron chains apart. That is the main point Mark is wanting to impress upon us all. But we know God is also a God of power, more power than someone empowered by demons. We don’t yet know how the story will turn out, but we rest secure in God’s power.

The next section is a recognition of Jesus power as the demon possessed man, actually his demons, beg Jesus to spare them torment. What an odd thing, for the demons to ask a favor of Jesus. Do they suspect His goodness will be applied to them as well? Jesus does not care for evil though, He cares about the man who is possessed by them. Jesus seeks to bring healing and wholeness to the man, not the demons.

This uncontrollable man recognizes something in Jesus; I think he recognizes his last chance for freedom from the demons that oppress him, inhabit him. Even when people are possessed there is still something that is still them; a yearning to be whole and sane, a deep wish that they could stop doing what they are doing. So with what the man still has of himself, he runs to Jesus and bows down before Him. Then the demons take over for a conversation with God. I think Jesus’ power is recognized by everyone; the possessed man, the demons and, of course, Jesus Himself. People with addictions do this as well; there is the desire to get rid of that thing that enslaves, but there is the love of it as well. The man may recognize Jesus is his last hope for sanity and wholeness.

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!” For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”

Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

What an odd exchange. There is contained within this exchange the old idea that if one knows the name of a demon, one can control it. What I think is happening is that Jesus has called the demon out to speak with it, rather than the man. When someone is possessed, and you probably don’t need to know this, so if you don’t need to know, just forget it, but there is within the person a split, where the person still maintains some part of themselves, but the demons can be spoken to when Jesus commands them come to the forefront.

The demons, for some reason, want to stay physically in the area, but that will not happen. Christ is not out to do any favors for evil. It seems ludicrous that demons would ask Jesus for a favor. He doesn’t give them a break. Jesus came to give humans a break, a fair deal, not the forces of evil. So even when Jesus gives them permission to go into a group of pigs, he really isn’t doing them any favors.

Jesus gave them permission to go into animals. A friend of mine personally saw a demon cast out of someone, where the exociser gave the demon permission to enter an animal. I have never personally seen that happen in the one exorcism I have witnessed, but it is an option, apparently. The fact that there are herds of pigs nearby suggests that this was an area that had more Gentiles than in many other places Jesus visits. A Jew could not have contact with pigs, which is why it is so shocking that the prodigal son ends up feeds pigs and eating what they eat.

The pigs, probably maddened by the sudden presence of demons, all rushed into the nearby body of water, killing themselves. Jesus power kicks them out of the man and into the pigs. The key thing is that Jesus as the authority to order these demons out.

The local folks discover the power of Christ, and it isn’t what they want. They were comfortable with the mad man living in the tombs. He was a noisy nuisance, but he didn’t intrude on their lives very often. Occasionally someone would try to help him by capturing him and chaining him, but that failed when he started breaking all the chains. So they went back to raising pigs, knowing they couldn’t do anything with the man. Then all of a sudden, things change. The people come to see what has happened; the man in the tombs is well again, and all their pigs are drowned in the sea. They have seen something miraculous, but are more worried about their other farm animals than embracing their rediscovered neighbor. Which is sad.

They see Jesus power, and ask Him to please leave, now. Go away, we don’t like or understand your power, so please leave. We can contrast their experience of Jesus power with that of the healed man. The villagers are afraid of Jesus power, having seen it from afar, but the person who lived through Jesus power most of all, and benefited greatly, he sits at Jesus feet. He knows the depths from which he has been saved. I think we’ve lost that sense as well, that understanding of the very great depth of our own depravity, that we’ve been saved by God’s graces out of our own personal hells. More than that, we’ve been saved from Hell itself. We’ve been saved from ourselves, we’ve been saved by Christ Himself who loves us powerfully.

There ought to always be a response. We’ve been saved powerfully, completely, but not to just hang around and enjoy our good fortune. We’ve been saved to be part of the mission of the Church, capital C. It is our job to play a part in continuing to proclaim that people are freed in Jesus name from spiritual oppression and lostness. Our response to God is always one of obedient servanthood. We have been saved to a life of serving the One who saved us. If we ever forget that, then we are getting above ourselves. We serve a powerful Master, and that makes us powerful as well, but never more than powerful servant serving the Master. We see this very clearly in the man’s response to Jesus.

End- You see Mark knows the end of Jesus story. He knows that Jesus will appear to be powerless, going into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a war horse, submitting humbly to the torture of the chief priests and their attendants. Jesus will appear to be powerless as He stands before Pilate and before Herod, standing quietly, accepting His fate without any protest. Mark knows Jesus will be forced to carry His cross up Golgotha, the hill of the skull where He was crucified. Mark knows Jesus will hang there until He is dead. And to be honest, that death and the appearance of being powerless does not square with the powerful Jesus we are given in these last couple weeks. This week, casting a multitude of demons out of a man, and last week calming the raging storm with one word. Why? Why is there is disparity between Jesus power and His actions?

It can only be love. Only love for us could have sustained Jesus through the hell of Friday, only love could have compelled Him to stay up on the cross. Only for love would Jesus have taken up the cross, despising its shame, and hung there. Being powerful is redefined by Christ on the cross. The powerful God came to fulfill His task; to die on the cross for our sins. Power means nothing if it is not accompanied by love. Power without love is scary. Love with power can wipe away the sins of you and me and escort us, when we pass, into God’s presence as one known and loved by God forever. That is real power, to change the nature of our relationship to God forever. We were enemies, but now are adopted children. We were lost and angry; now we are found and fine. Jesus power frees us from the power of sin and death just like it freed the Gerasene Demoniac. I invite you, if you have never exchanged your fallen nature for Christ’s perfection by accepting Him into your heart, to do so now. There is no better time. In a moment we’ll pray for that to happen.

But I want to finish with this thought: As children of the most high God, you also have been given power; the power to do good or to do evil. We can crush people with a word, or we can build them up. We can invite people to know God, or we can let them languish away from God. We can help those who need a hand, or we can watch their misery from a safe distance. You have power. The question is if you are going to use it in love, submitted to the Father, or whether you are going to take your power and use it as you see fit. I look at you all and I see a powerful congregation. Maybe you don’t see that, but I do. I know you are creative, strong willed, prayerful, powerful people. When you combine your power with love, with God’s love, there isn’t anything that is impossible for us.

Let’s pray.