God In The Graveyard Series

Introduction:

A. Let’s start with a question: Are there certain places you don’t like to go when it’s dark?

1. How about down in the basement? Out in the woods? Down a dark road? Or into a cemetery?

2. During my elementary school years, we lived on the northeast side of Syracuse and around the corner and down the street from us was Woodlawn Cemetery.

a. We used to like to go to the cemetery on our bikes and ride on the many roads throughout the cemetery protected from the busy traffic on Grant Blvd.

b. We played all kinds of games like bicycle tag, hide and seek, and all kinds of races.

c. During the daytime, we didn’t give a second thought to the fact that it was a cemetery.

d. But there’s no way we would go into that cemetery at night! Not a chance!

3. Cemeteries can be a very eerie place at night! Right?

4. I heard the story about a man who was cutting through a cemetery one night when he fell into a newly dug, unoccupied grave.

a. He tried desperately to get out of the grave, but it was too deep and the sides were too steep.

b. So the man decided to just wait out the night and hoped that someone could help him the next day, and he fell asleep curled up on a ball in one corner of the grave.

c. Several hours later, he awoke to the sound of a man who was obviously drunk and was singing and stumbling his way through the cemetery.

d. Coincidentally, the drunken man fell into the same open grave and began to desperately try to climb out.

e. After a few minutes of letting the drunken man struggle to get out of the grave, the other man said, “It’s no use, you can’t get out of here.”

f. But he was wrong! That drunken man jumped right out of that grave in an instant.

g. The fight or flight response is truly powerful!

B. Graveyards can truly be a scary place, not just in our day, but also in Jesus’ day.

1. The story from the Gospel of Mark that we are going to explore today is one of the more vivid and eerie stories in the Bible.

2. It is the 2nd miracle in this section on Jesus’ miracles which began in the last chapter.

3. Let’s work our way through this Scripture section and see what lessons we can learn from it.

I. First, Mark begins with The Place

A. Mark wrote: They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes. (Mk. 5:1)

1. This story occurs some time during the evening, probably after dark.

2. Back in the previous story in Mark 4, we are told that is was late in the evening when Jesus and his disciples set sail across the lake.

3. You will recall that as they crossed the lake, they encountered a violent storm, which Jesus proceeded to silence with a single command.

4. They eventually landed on the eastern shore of the lake, five miles from where they had started.

B. They had arrived at a part of the lakeside where there were many caves in the rock cliffs that overlooked the Sea of Galilee.

1. The place was in the region of the Gerasenes and the precise location is uncertain.

2. In these caves were many tombs in which the bodies of the dead had been placed.

3. At the best of times, this place would have been an eerie place, but at night, and after what they had experienced in the storm, this place must have been a grim one indeed.

II. Next, Mark introduces us to The Possessed Person

A. Mark wrote: 2 As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him. 3 He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him anymore—not even with a chain— 4 because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had torn the chains apart and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him. 7 And he cried out with a loud voice, “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you before God, don’t torment me!” (Mk. 5:2-7)

1. Mark reported that as soon as Jesus got out of the boat a man with an unclean or evil spirit came from the tombs to meet Him and as he came running he was screaming in a loud voice.