Halloween: Is Evil A Red Herring?

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans will spend a projected $8.8 billion dollars on the holiday called Halloween in 2019. Almost 30 million will dress up and the average person will spend over $86 to celebrate.

In fact, I have a neighbor who decorates more for Halloween than any of us for Christmas on my street. My family and I celebrated Halloween. Our kids have dressed up as Star Wars characters and pumpkins throughout the years. We have nearly always celebrated the day with some kind of Fall Festival or Trunk or Treat. As a child, I “trick or treated” my way throughout the neighboring streets in my little town in western Kentucky. So I am not about to demonize all the fun surrounding Halloween.

Yes, the roots of Halloween have to do with pagan rituals but today, it’s more a night to celebrate. No, not everything connected with the modern celebration is all fun and games. Any believer who is sensitive to the Holy Spirit will pull back on a number of elements associated with this celebration.

While many believers, refrain from any celebration of the holiday, I want to pause to consider this: Is There Such a Thing as Real Evil? In a time where we fantasize about goblins, witches, and zombies, there is a real supernatural evil and I want you to be aware of its presence.

I want you to meet the man whom history has called the Gadarene.

Today’s Scripture

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 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. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 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 were drowned in the sea.

14 The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 And 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. 16 And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 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.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled. (Mark 5:1-20)

This is the longest account in the Bible of an exorcism of demons. Jesus no more than steps off the boat then He is confronted with a demon-possessed man. Mark tells us this in his quick action narrative by the word “immediately” in verse two. Mark has just finished telling the astonishing story where the winds and sea obeying the command of Jesus Christ. Now, he tells us the remarkable story where a man not possessed by one demon but a whole army of demons confronts Jesus.

This is Mark’s most spectacular exorcism as we learn the man is possessed by multiple demons, we learn the demon’s name, and we see the destruction of a herd of pigs. Mark is not alone in telling this story as Matthew (8:28-34) and Luke (8:26-39) includes it in his Gospel as well. But Mark devotes some 330 words to it where Matthew’s account is shorter, a mere 135 words.