Jesus Vs. Legion - Mark 5:1-13 Series

Now, that right there raises some eyebrows, because they aren’t just crossing a lake; they are crossing a boarder. The other side of the lake is Gentile territory, which meant the entire area, including the ground itself, was unclean. Jesus is taking his disciples to the other side of the lake, which, for a Jew, is the wrong side of the spiritual tracks. But here they are. The sky is clear, the air is still, the water is calm, and the boat glides into the shore. And it’s an eerie feeling. The boat hits the sand, Andrew jumps out with the bow line and ties it up, and as they disembark, they find themselves in a context of total, spiritual darkness. Everything is unclean. Not only is it a Gentile area, but they get out of the boat right next to a graveyard. The #1 most defiling, unclean thing, for a Jew, was a corpse. And here they are surrounded by dead bodies. And then, a stone’s throw away, there’s a giant heard of pigs, which is the most unclean animal there is. And the worst of all, the place is teaming with unclean spirits. Jesus has led these 12 men right into the darkest depths of the most contaminating, defiling uncleanness imaginable. In the movie, “Lord of the Rings,” there is a place like this. It’s called Mordor. It’s full of these kind of pig like creatures called orks, and demonic kinds of beings, and the whole place is just a dark, fiery, dangerous realm. For the disciples, this place would have been their Mordor.

I can just picture Peter pulling Jesus aside here and saying, “Jesus, don’t you have any cultural sensitivities? You don’t take 12 kosher Jews to a pig farm … in a Gentile country … next to a pagan cemetery! This is an amazing scene—holiness personified confronting the Mordor of unholiness. You want to know if the word of Christ has enough power to deal with the problem of evil, there’s no better test than this.

The Confrontation

2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came from the tombs to meet him.

He came from the tombs? That’s strange. Tell us a little more about this guy, Mark.

3 This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. 4 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. 5 Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

Wow. Apparently, the demons would come upon him in episodes, and in between episodes the people would chain him up. That’s the best this world can do in dealing with evil—just try to put some restraints on it. If we lock people away in prison, we can protect society somewhat from their evil, but we have no ability to get rid of the actual evil. Incarceration doesn’t take the evil out of his heart. If anything, it makes it even worse. And this guy had gotten worse, so that now they weren’t even able to chain him up anymore.

This demon spend his days tormenting this guy. He’s destroying his body, but not enough to kill him. The guy probably wished the demon would kill him, but he keep him alive for more torture. Can you imagine being held captive and tortured all day every day? That would be a horror if it were people doing that to you, but powerful evil spirits who had control of your mind doing it?