Demons and Daughters
Mark 5
Good morning! Please turn in your Bibles back to Mark 5. We jumped ahead in the story for Palm Sunday and Easter, but now we are going to pick up where we left off in Mark 5. And honestly, as I’ve been working with this passage this week, what has emerged is a much more personal picture of Jesus than where we’ve been the past two weeks. With the story of the crucifixion and resurrection, we’ve seen Jesus in His role as the redeemer of all humanity, past, present and future. We worshiped the exalted, risen Jesus.
But sometimes when we look at the big picture, we can forget that Jesus isn’t just the savior of all mankind. He is the savior of individuals. He is my personal savior. And so we are going to zoom in from the 30,000 foot view and back to how Jesus dealt with three individuals. Three characters who could not have been more different from each other. They came from different walks of life. Different cultural and economic backgrounds. Different religious backgrounds. Jesus met each one of them at their point of need. He met their need, and he transformed their lives.
And I am praying that He will do the same for you this morning. Wherever you are, whatever your need, whatever your past, the good news is that Jesus is a personal savior. And if you allow Him to, He can be your Savior.
Let’s look at our first character. This is Mark 5, beginning in verse 1:
5 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.[a]
Let me pause here for a little background here. At the end of Mark 4, Jesus got into a boat with his disciples and crossed over to the other side of the sea of Galilee. And whenever you see Jesus going from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other, understand that He’s going from primarily Jewish towns to primarily Gentile towns. So Gerasa is part of the Decapolis. Now if you look at Matthew’s account of this same story, he refers to it as the country of the Gadarenes. But don’t let that throw you. This isn’t a contradiction in Scripture. Gerasa was a much larger town, and would have been more familiar to Mark’s Gentile audience. It’s a little like when you’re telling someone who isn’t from Alabama where you’re from, you might say Montgomery instead of Prattville. Now, some skeptics have gotten really picky and pointed out that Gerasa is pretty far away from the Sea of Galilee, and since this story ends with a herd of pigs rushing off a cliff and into the lake it can’t be true. And there is a town in the same region called Gergesa, which does have a cliff overlooking the lake, as well as a number of tombs, so its possible that an early scribe simply missed a letter. But none of that really matters to the story. What matters is what happens there. Let’s keep reading:
2 And when Jesus[b] 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, [another indication that they are in Gentile territory] 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 drowned in the sea.
Now, there’s a couple of things that are worth noticing about this passage before we get to the main meat of it. The first is sin’s ability to isolate us. This man lived all by himself among the tombs. Everyone was afraid of him. No one wanted to be around him. And I’ve talked to a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts that will tell you that the deeper they got into their addiction, the more isolated they became. What might have started out as something social inevitably became something they did alone. They would hide their drinking or drug use from other people in their lives, because they were ashamed of how powerless they had become to control it. Eventually, every relationship in their lives deteriorated, and the only thing that mattered to them was the next hit or the next high or the next bender.
Second, notice Satan’s desire to destroy us. Verse 5 says that the man was always cutting himself with stones. I think that detail is in there to highlight the self-destructive nature of sin. The devil does not care about you. in fact, the devil hates you, because you have the opportunity to have a relationship with God, and he never will. Satan is jealous of you because you are a potential child of God. So don’t believe for a second that the devil wants to make sure everyone’s having a good time. John 10:10 describes him as the thief who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.
And so, once again, we have an example in Mark’s gospel of how the demons know the truth about Jesus. The man comes rushing to Jesus and says, “What do you have to do with me, Son of the Most High God?” It’s not enough to simply acknowledge who Jesus is. James 2:19 says that the demons believe who Jesus is, and they tremble. And after Jesus says, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit,” (v. 8), Jesus asks a question:
9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
Now, pause right there, and answer this question: Who is Jesus talking to? See, we assume the Jesus is talking to the demon, because it’s the demon that answers:
He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
But have you ever considered the possibility that Jesus might have said, “Shut up, Legion. I ain’t talking to you.” See, I’m not sure Jesus really gives a rip what a demon’s name is. But I am 100% sure Jesus cares about my name. Isaiah 43 says that God has redeemed us. He has called us by name. John 10:3 says that the Good Shepherd (that’s Jesus) calls His sheep by name. So I believe Jesus was way more interested in the name of the man with the demons, and not the name of the demon that was in the man.
Then, just to make sure Legion didn’t butt his way into the conversation again, Jesus sends the whole lot of them into a herd of pigs, and they all rushed off the edge of the cliff into the sea. And this is where deviled ham comes from.
Understand this: Our demons don’t define us. We don’t have to be identified by our addictions or our failures. Whatever label you had in high school doesn’t have to be the label you carry today.
I think the world asks us who we are all the time. And unfortunately, we let our past answer for us. “I’m an alcoholic. I’m an addict. I’m a high school dropout. I’m twice-divorced.” And I think Jesus is saying, “Shut up past. I aint talking to you.” Hush, addiction. You aren’t part of this conversation.
Then, when Jesus has shut the mouth of every accuser, every failure, every past mistake he looks at us again and says, “Now. What is your name?”
A personal savior knows our name. I love the paragraph heading in my Bible. It says, “Jesus Heals a man with a demon.” NOT, “Jesus heals the demoniac.” Our demons don’t define us. Behind every addiction, every label, every identifier (alcoholic, addict, pervert, criminal, divorcee, etc) there is a person. Our identity is in Christ, not in our label.
Now, right after this, Jesus gets back into the boat and crosses over to the other side again. So now we are back on the Jewish side, and no sooner do they pull the boat on shore before they meet a ruler of the synagogue named Jairus. As a ruler of the synagogue, Jairus is important. Influential, respected. But in this moment, none of that matters. What matters is his need. Look at verse 22:
22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him.
I told you a couple of weeks ago about Mark’s favorite storytelling technique—how he would often start a story, then interrupt himself with another story, and then get back to the first story. And usually there will be a connection between the outer story and the inner story. And right here is probably the best example of this in the entire book. While Jesus was on his way to Jairus’ house, look what happens:
25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.
If they gave an award for “All time social distancing champion,” this woman would win. For twelve years, she had been isolated from everyone. According to Leviticus 15:25, if a woman had a discharge of blood other than her monthly cycle, she would be unclean for that many days. So this woman had been unclean for TWELVE YEARS. No one could touch her. No one could be around her. She wasn’t able to go to the synagogue. Those of y’all who are about to lose your minds because you’ve been quarantined for a month now, imagine TWELVE YEARS!!!
Now, the woman knows that no upstanding, self respecting religious figure would ever even be in the same vicinity as her, let alone let her touch him. So when she hears the reports about Jesus, she’s sneaky. Verse 27:
27 She came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.
Then Jesus did something that probably absolutely mortified her. He noticed her. I imagine she was wanting to just blend back into the crowd. But Jesus stops everything and says, “Who touched me?”
The disciples sort of laugh and say, Lord, people aren’t exactly practicing social distancing right now. This is like the crowd at Toomer’s Corner after an Auburn win. How can you say, “Who touched me?”
But Jesus won’t let it go. He keeps looking around to see who touched him. And I don’t think it was the touch that Jesus noticed. It was the faith. Lots of people can be in the proximity of Jesus and never really let him impact their lives. But this woman reached out to Jesus in faith. In desperation. In trust. And Jesus noticed. Verse 32 says, he kept looking around to see who had done it.
And that gets us to our second truth for this morning:
Our suffering doesn’t separate us.
A lot of times, when we are dealing with something for a long time, the people around us seem to get more and more uncomfortable. It’s not that they don’t care about what we are dealing with, it’s that they don’t know what to do. And little by little, people begin to pull away when you’re struggling with something long term. They’ve run out of things to say. And the result is that you wind up feeling just like this woman—in a huge crowd of people, but totally alone. And if that’s you this morning—if you have been suffering in silence because you think people around you don’t have time, or don’t have answers, or don’t have patience for you, then would you be willing to risk reaching out to Jesus? Because look what happens:
33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her,
[I also really like Luke’s telling of the story: he says, in Luke 8:47. “The woman, seeing she could not go unnoticed.” Don’t you love that even when you feel invisible, you can’t go unnoticed by Jesus?] So the woman, seeing she could not go unnoticed…
came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.
That phrase right there makes Mark’s version of this my favorite in the gospels. “She told him the whole truth.” Don’t you love how ambiguous that is? What does it mean to tell Jesus the whole truth?
Jesus, it has been so lonely. Jesus, I am so discouraged. Jesus, I’m broke. It’s like the song the praise team sang just a few minutes ago: I come broken to be mended. I come wounded to be healed. I come guilty, to be pardoned. And my Lord Jesus will stop the universe to listen to me. And he receives me, just as I am…
34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
And at the end of the encounter, Jesus called her daughter. We don’t know her name. Just like the man with the demons on the other side of the lake, she might have had an identity given to her by other people—the crowd who called her unclean. The religious people who called her untouchable. But Jesus? He called her daughter.
Friend, if you are watching this this morning and you feel like there isn’t anyone who will take the time to listen to you tell the whole truth about yourself, then realize that Jesus is never too busy for you. Your suffering draws Him closer to you. He wants to be interrupted by you.
This is where I think Mark’s technique of wrapping one story within another story is so effective. Because, remember, Jesus is having this encounter while He is on his way to help Jairus, the synagogue leader. Remember him? The important official with the sick daughter?
He was as different from this woman as two people can be. She’s anonymous, he’s the only one in this chapter other than Jesus whose name we know. He’s got his own keys to the synagogue. She hasn’t been in twelve years. But the one thing they both have in common is a desperate need.
Can you even imagine what is going through his head right now? He’s probably been pushing his way through the crowd with Jesus. “Coming through! Coming through! This is a medical emergency.” I can imagine he’s pulling Jesus along by the arm.
And then suddenly, he loses His grip on Jesus’ arm, because Jesus has stopped, and he’s crouched down next to this woman in the dirt. And she’s talking. And talking. And talking. Remember, she’s been in isolation for twelve years, and now verse 33 says she is telling Jesus “the whole truth.”
How long do you think that took?
So I can imagine Jairus is about to lose his mind. “Jesus, COME ON! My daughter is about to die! This woman has been sick for twelve years! She can wait ONE MORE DAY!
And while he is about to pull his hair out, some messengers arrive from his house with the worst possible news:
35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
And this is where we see our final point of Mark chapter 5. We’ve seen how our demons don’t define us. That’s good news!
Our suffering doesn’t separate us. That’s great news!
But number 3, our status doesn’t save us. And that’s both good news… and bad news. It’s bad news because, just like Jairus, our social standing isn’t going to make a difference in times of crisis. Our church attendance isn’t going to matter. There will come a day name we’ve made for ourselves, or the wealth we’ve accumulated for ourselves, or the prestige we’ve gained for ourselves, won’t count for anything. There will be a problem we can’t solve. A disease we can’t cure. And all the money in the world won’t make any difference.
But the good news is, Jesus can. Jesus looked at Jairus and said, (verse 36):
Do not fear, only believe.
And He took Peter, James, and John into Jairus’s house. And they went to the little girl’s room. He took her by the hand, and he said, “Arise.”
And she did. Status doesn’t save us. But Jesus does. To his credit, Jairus never tried to power up on Jesus. He never once said, “I’m a name in this town. I deserve to have you help me.” Instead, go back to verse 22-23 and look again at how he approached Jesus:
he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.”
That’s how we come to Jesus. We come broken. We come needy. We come crying out. We come reaching out. And whether we have a demon named Legion or a reputation like Jairus, or even if we have nothing at all like this woman who had spent all she had on doctors, the ground is level at the feet of Jesus, and we can come just as we are.
Our demons don’t define us. Jesus gives us an identity.
Our suffering doesn’t separate us. Jesus draws us close.
Our status doesn’t save us. Only Jesus saves.
[Invitation, Prayer, Cody]
