Pentecost 5 – 19 June 2016 – Year C
Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
26 Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes,
which is opposite Galilee. 27 When Jesus3 had stepped out
on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he
had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28 When
he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice,
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do
not torment me.” 29 For he had commanded the unclean
spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept
under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds
and be driven by the demon into the desert.) 30 Jesus
then asked him, “What is your name?” And he
said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31 And
they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. 32 Now
a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to
let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then
the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down
the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
34 When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and
told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people
went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man
from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his
right mind, and they were afraid. 36 And those who had
seen it told them how the demon-possessed4 man had been healed. 37 Then
all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart
from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and
returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone
begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done
for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how
much Jesus had done for him.
Today’s
Gospel demonstrates Jesus’ power over demons.
This is part of the teaching of the Bible that Jesus is God and
therefore has power over everything. In progressive
reading of the four Gospels we have heard that Jesus has power over sickness,
injury, the weather, even death. Today’s
account of Jesus driving out the demons is another demonstration of His power
over all things.
Jesus and
His disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee into an area that was more heavily
populated with Gentiles. No sooner did
they set foot on the shore than a demon-possessed man challenged them. This particular demon possession was fairly
spectacular. The man lived among the
dead, he wore no clothes, and the locals were unable to restrain him even with
chains.
Jesus
showed His power over the demons by conversing with them. Although the demons are the sworn enemies of
God, they must answer His questions.
They have no choice. Their answer
indicates the strength of the evil forces in this man. A legion was an army force numbering in the
thousands, but it would have made no difference if there had been a billion in
this man. Jesus is Lord over all and even
the demons must obey Him.
When the
Lord commanded them to leave, they had no choice but to leave. The only question was where to go. The demons asked to inhabit a nearby herd of
pigs. Even then they needed Jesus’
permission. The demons entered the pigs
and the pigs promptly stampeded into the lake and drowned. The Bible does not tell us what happened to
the demons after the pigs drowned.
The swine-herdsmen
had a totally predictable response to the situation. They fled into a nearby city for backup. When the people heard the news they went out
to check on Jesus. The scene gives us
more insight into the difference between people who are saved and people who
are still demon possessed.
The man
who was now saved was sitting at Jesus feet.
This is a figure of speech that meant he was listening as Jesus
taught. The round trip to the city
probably took a few hours, so the man who was now free of demons had several
hours of tuition with Jesus. He could
not get enough of Jesus. He wanted to go
with Him when He returned across the lake.
On the
other hand, the other people were terrified of Jesus. They asked Him to leave. They were polite about it, but they still saw
Jesus as a problem … not as a saviour.
Jesus
complied with the people’s wishes. He
left, but He left a missionary behind.
The man who was now demon free wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to
your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” When Jesus arrived, this man was full of
demons. When Jesus left, this man was a
missionary to the people on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.
Whenever
the topic of demons comes up, our imaginations tend to go into overdrive. The culture in which we live has come up with
all kinds of speculations about demons and most of them are wrong.
The Bible
teaches us that demons were once angels.
God created them sometime during the six days of creation along with all
the other angels. Soon after the
creation a group of angels rebelled against God. God immediately condemned these evil angels
to an eternity of punishment. The Bible
tells that God created hell specifically for these evil angels (Isaiah 14:
12-15; Ezekiel 28: 12-19; Revelation 20: 10). The Bible refers to these evil angels by
several names: fallen angels, unclean spirits, evil spirits, demons, and so
forth.
Since
demons are angels, they are spiritual beings, that is, they do not have
bodies. They are not subject to the laws
of the physical universe. Since demons
are fallen angels, they are enemies of God.
The
problem with being an enemy of God is that God is All-knowing, All-Powerful,
unlimited by time and space, totally unlimited.
Even though the demons are fallen, they are still God’s creatures. They cannot win against God in a direct
attack. They must find some other way to
express their hatred of God. The
battlefield in their war against God is here among the human race … yes my
friends – that’s us!
The
demons’ main weapon is deception as Jesus said, [John 8:44b] When [the devil] lies, he speaks out of his own
character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. It wouldn’t be much of a temptation if the
devil appeared to us dressed in red body armour with horns and a pitchfork, and
smelled like smoke. Demons present
temptations in ways that seem to make sense … ways that seem like the right
thing to do … ways that have a certain appeal.
As the Apostle Paul wrote, [2
Corinthians 11:14b] Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
In Eden,
the devil used a serpent to tempt Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. Mankind fell to that temptation. From that time on, every human being inherits
a sinful nature at conception as the Holy Spirit inspired David to write, [Psalm 51:5] “Behold, I was
brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write, [Romans 8:7–8] “The mind that is
set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law;
indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot
please God.”
Friends
in Christ, the Word of God teaches us that we are all conceived and born sinful
and are under the power of the devil until Christ claims us as His own. We would be lost forever unless delivered
from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation. (Ps 51:5; John 15:14; Ps
58:3; Job 14:1-4; Romans 5:14; Isaiah 53:6) Because we humans pass our
sinful nature down from generation to generation, demon possession is our
natural state. We are by nature sinful
and unclean. Instead of loving God with
all our mind, soul, and strength, we love ourselves. Every human being by nature is terrified of
God, resists him, and fears him. Our
lives apart from God show that we are [Isaiah
65:2] a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following
[our] own devices. The devil’s
control over us at birth may not be as spectacular as the man in today’s
Gospel, but we all enter this world at odds with God and slaves to sin.
Since
demons deal in deception, they adapt their lies to the culture of any given
time and place. Science and rationalism
has had a profound effect on our culture.
Many in our culture don’t even believe demons exist.
This
suits the demons just fine. It doesn’t
bother them one bit if we don’t believe in them. Demons don’t care if the crime rate goes
down. They don’t care if charitable
donations go up. They don’t care if
people give each other a helping hand.
They don’t care there is a cure for every disease. They don’t care if we are one, great big,
happy family, as long as we are one, great big, happy family on the broad road to
hell.
The
demons don’t even care if there are churches on every corner as
long as the churches don’t talk about sin and its punishment or Jesus and His
salvation. The demons don’t even
care if we talk about god as long as that god is not the god who took on human
flesh and died for our salvation. The
demons don’t even care if we talk about Jesus as long as that Jesus is just a great example or just a great moral teacher or just a great liberator or just a great unifier. The only God – the only Jesus that the devil
hates is the Jesus who died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins and then
rose from the dead in order to certify His victory over sin, death, and
the devil.
There is
only one person who defeated the devil.
That person is Jesus Christ, crucified for the
forgiveness of all sins and raised from the dead. That person and that person alone is the only
person who endured every temptation that the devil could throw His way and yet,
never sinned. That person and that
person alone endured the abandonment to hell for us as He died on a
cross for our sins. Jesus Christ –
crucified for the forgiveness of all sins and raised from the dead – the only
person to defeat the devil – that same Jesus Christ offers His victory to us.
Demons
don’t always identify themselves by driving pigs into a lake. Sometimes they inhabit people who we trust
and who seem warm and friendly. They
inhabit people who look respectable on the outside and seem very nice. Just like dangerous strangers groom children on
social media, demon possessed people tempt us with all the things we like. It is their goal to make us feel very
comfortable and even righteous while traveling the path to hell.
The real
lesson that we can take away from today’s Gospel is that Jesus is the one who
exposes demons and deals with them. The
same Jesus Christ who demonstrated His power over demons in today’s Gospel has
defeated the devil once and for all on the cross. We can trust in Him. We can trust in His holy
life, His innocent suffering and death, His resurrection from the dead and His
ascension into heaven that we may be forgiven and have eternal salvation. He is the only one who can protect us from
the attacks of the devil. What a
wonderful Saviour we have in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead: How
blessed we are to be a baptised child of a God who’s Holy Trinity embraces us
in every way with a grace and love that will prevail and protect us from all
temptation and harm forever. Amen.
The peace
and love of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep
your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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