Who is this?

There is a popular miracle story that precedes this one in the Gospel of Mark—the calming of the sea. You may be familiar with the story. Jesus falls asleep on the boat, and a great storm overtakes it. The disciples are terrified and wake him. Jesus rebukes the wind and commands the sea, “Peace! Be still.” And the storm ends.

The disciples are terrified and ask each other, “Who is this? Even the winds and waves obey him!”

That is an important question. Who is this? It is a question we might be asking ourselves today, although maybe not for the same reasons and not in the same way.

And so, on the very heels of this question, we come to today’s text, which features a man possessed by demons, living in tombs, in a gentile land. This man with self-inflicted wounds upon his body approaches Jesus as he steps out of the boat, and almost as an answer to the question still hanging in the air around the disciples, he shouts out, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”

Edward Martin wrote a poem with these words:

Within my earthly temple there’s a crowd There’s one that’s humble and one that’s proud. There’s one that’s sorry for his sins, There’s one that unrepentant sits and grins.

There’s one that loves his neighbor as himself. There’s one that cares for naught but fame and self. From much corroding cares, I would be free. If I could once determine which is me.

Our Gospel story today is of a man who could have written a far more powerful poem than that: “My Name if Legion,” he responded when Jesus asked him his name.

Who is this? Jesus, Son of the Most High God.

I want to point out 5 observations about who Jesus is.

The first is this:

Jesus and the Kingdom of God are everywhere

Mark writes that they enter the region of the Gerasenes, but there is some debate about whether that is where they actually were since the Gerasenes was landlocked. Some manuscripts call the place Gergesenes; Matthew calls it the Gadarenes.

The focus for Mark, however, is not so much an exact location but to emphasize that this is a gentile area. Gerasa was a part of the Decapolis, making it a central part of the Greco-Roman world.

Mark wants to make it clear that Jesus’s mission is clearly expanding to those outside Judaism.

Jesus and the Kingdom of God are for everyone

The demoniac is described in great detail, to the discomfort of Jewish listeners.

He lives in the tombs. It was commonly believed at the time that demons were the spirits of the dead, so a Jewish audience hearing about someone described as living in the tombs would understand he was demon-possessed. The tombs detail would also trigger thoughts of uncleanness to Jewish ears—because Jews weren’t supposed to touch dead bodies.

He cuts himself with stones.

Leviticus 19:28 CEB

28 Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put marks on yourselves; I am the Lord.

God forbids “cutting your bodies for the dead.” Self-injury was often a sign of worship in other religions. A Jewish audience would hear that he cut himself and have another reason to consider the man unclean.

There are pigs. Even though the Jews might view the demons entering the pigs as a good thing (since the pigs are already unclean in Jewish eyes), the very presence of a herd of pigs in this story would unsettle the Jews. Moreover, it is yet another reminder that they are in gentile territory.

He is naked. When others are called to see what has happened, they find the man “dressed and in his right mind.” The implication is that, just as he was not in his right mind previously, he also was not clothed. Public nakedness was a shameful thing in Jewish culture and another signal to Jews that the man was unclean.

As soon as the boat reached the opposite side of the Sea, there comes to Jesus

Mark 5:2 CEB

2 As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out of the tombs.

That is an accurate detail, for the tombs were an accustomed haunt of evil spirits, according to ancient belief. 

Mark 5:3–4 CEB

3 This man lived among the tombs, and no one was ever strong enough to restrain him, even with a chain. 4 He had been secured many times with leg irons and chains, but he broke the chains and smashed the leg irons. No one was tough enough to control him.

What more perfect picture of a futile attempt to deal with a social problem by force?  Force rarely accomplishes anything.  It certainly reflects a popular but misguided method of dealing with those suffering from mental and nervous illness over the years.  It hasn’t been too many years since we were doing the same thing.  We still put out of sight people with problems - the sick, the elderly, the mentally disturbed.  “Out of sight, out of mind.” we say - and quickly shunt the world’s unfortunates aside.  But Jesus does not. 

This is a frightening situation. It is a situation that makes for a great horror movie. Jesus and His disciples have just come through a storm on the Sea of Galilee. It is nighttime and having survived that frightening storm they are thrilled to now set foot on solid ground. But, as they get out of the boat, they encounter a situation that the disciples could never have imagined.

They hear strange sounds coming from the cemetery. There are shrieks, growls, screams, moans, the rattling of chains. Then, suddenly, a horrifying sight. A madman naked, bruised, dirty, bloody and battered with pieces of chains dangling from his arms and ankles, comes running and screaming directly toward them!

Now, let me ask you something: “What would you have done in that situation?”

I think I would have run for my life... or jumped back in the boat.

Jesus does not.

Jesus redefines the boundaries of holiness

Jewish law is clear that in order to remain pure and holy, one must not only avoid doing things that would make them unclean but also avoid touching and interacting with unclean people. This is why those deemed unclean had to leave communities or announce their uncleanness to passersby.

Jesus breaks an expected boundary in multiple ways. First, rabbis are not expected to enter gentile areas. Then a demoniac approaches him, and instead of ignoring the man, Jesus engages him.

Jesus does not become unclean by this encounter but instead has the power to make the man clean. This detail is important because it connects with the stories following this one.

In the following verses, Jesus raises a dead girl to life—by touching her, which Jews were not supposed to do or they would be unclean. However, instead of becoming unclean, Jesus raises the girl to life.

While he is on his way to heal the dead girl, Jesus also heals a woman who has been hemorrhaging blood for more than a decade. Jewish women who were bleeding were viewed as unclean. Men couldn’t even sit on chairs that menstruating woman had sat on, within a certain amount of time, or they would be made unclean. But when the bleeding woman touches Jesus, he is not made unclean; she is made well.

John Killinger, tells a powerful story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada. The man is in a state of deep depression. He is so depressed that he can’t even bring himself to go downstairs to the restaurant to eat.

He is a powerful man usually the chairman of a large shipping company… but at this moment, he is absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life… and he lies there on a lonely hotel bed far from home wallowing in self-pity.

All of his life, he has been fastidious… worrying about everything, anxious and fretful, always fussing and stewing over every detail. And now, at mid-life, his anxiety has gotten the best of him, even to the extent that it is difficult for him to sleep and to eat.

He worries and broods and agonizes about everything… his business, his investments, his decisions, his family, his health, even, his dogs. Then, on this day in this Canadian hotel, he craters… he hits bottom. Filled with anxiety, completely immobilized, paralyzed by his emotional despair, unable to leave his room, lying on his bed, he moans out loud: “Life isn’t worth living this way, I wish I were dead!”

And then, he wonders, what God would think if he heard him talking this way. Speaking aloud again he says, “God, it’s a joke, isn’t it? Life is nothing but a joke.”

Suddenly, it occurs to the man that this is the first time he’s talked to God since he was a little boy. He is silent for a moment and then he begins to pray. He describes it like this:

“I just talked out loud about what a mess my life was in… and how tired I was… and how much I wanted things to be different in my life. And you know what happened next? A voice!! I heard a voice say, ‘It doesn’t have to be that way!’ That’s all.”

I sat straight up and turned around… I laughed at myself. I thought I must be hearing things. But then I was absolutely certain that I had heard those words: ‘It doesn’t have to be that way!’

He went home and talked to his wife about what happened. He talked to his brother who is a minister and asked him: “Do you think it was God speaking to me?”

The brother said: “Of course, because that is the message of God to you and everyone of us. That’s the message of the Bible. That’s why Jesus Christ came into the world to save us, to deliver us, to free us, to change us… and to show us that ‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ … You don’t have to be anxious or depressed or selfish or hopeless. Jesus Christ can turn your life around. If you will welcome Him into your heart, He will make you a new person.”

A few days later, the man called his brother and said, “You were right. It has really happened. I’ve done it. I’ve had a rebirth. I’m a man. Christ has turned it around for me.”

Well, the man is still prone to anxiety. He still has to work hard. But, now he has a source of strength. During the week, he often leaves his work-desk and goes to the church near his office. He sits there and prays. He says: “It clears my head. It reminds me of who I am and whose I am. Each time as I sit there in the Sanctuary, I think back to that day in that hotel room in Canada and how depressed and lonely and lost I felt… and I hear that voice saying: It doesn’t have to be that way.’”

That is precisely what this story in Mark 5 is all about. Christ walks into the tormented life of the Gerasene demoniac, this madman, whose life is coming apart at the seams… and He turns it around for him. He gives him a new beginning… a new start… a new birth. - James W. Moore

Jesus is redefining the boundaries of holiness. They are no longer about avoidance. Jesus longs to see all people restored to wholeness and life, regardless of where they currently are.

He is the one who has the power to restore people to a place of wholeness and community.

Someone who was viewed as unclean and unwanted, both by Jews and gentiles, becomes restored to the community. This is a very clear image: the man physically lived outside the community, and now is drawn into community. He was also separated from himself in many ways, and was given wholeness and clarity of mind.

Mark 5:7 CEB

7 shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!”

In the Gospels the demons are pictured as being scared stiff of the power of Jesus Christ.  They try to get away from Him as fast as they can!  This may sound crazy to us, but I would suggest this morning that in a deeper sense it is a question that has been put to Jesus by individuals and societies again and again.  “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” “Leave us alone.  Mind your own business.  Keep your hands off my life.” “What have you to do with me?” the demented man asked. 

The answer is that Jesus has everything to do with him.  Jesus had come to cure him and restore him to his right mind. 

He has authority over even the demonic:

Mark 5:8 CEB

8 He said this because Jesus had already commanded him, “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”

And it is done.  By the power of the shed blood of Jesus, unclean spirits have been cast out of men and women down through the ages - spirits of greed, lust, hypocrisy, aggression.  That is not theory, it is history.   

Jesus asks the unclean spirit, “What is your name?” to know one’s name is to know much about the individual-to have power over him, according to ancient belief.  And the man’s reply has given a phrase to our English language:

Common English Bible Chapter 5

“Legion is my name, because we are many.”

The word legion is borrowed from Latin and refers to an army unit of four to six thousand men.  Jesus does not just confront one unclean spirit, but a whole body of Satan’s troops.  He meets them in combat, and they were utterly defeated. 

The expression “legion is my name” has passed into our usage to refer to any large group or class of which a given individual is representative.  Perhaps this man saw the Roman legions marching back and forth across his land...and thought to himself: “I am like them: a mob, rather than a man.”

I think most of us, at least some of the time, can say: “My name is Legion.” There are many persons warring within us, clamoring for attention, pulling us this way and that.  There is the pious person I am in church; then there is the not-so-pious person I am at home.  There is the sensitive person I want to be, and the insensitive person I all too often am.  There is the person of high ethical and moral standards I want to be in my best moments, and then there is the other sort of person I all too often am in the routines of business life.  I think we can all understand the person who said: “Each of us tends to be, not a single self, but a whole committee of selves.” We are all mixtures of angel and devil, good and bad, clean and unclean.  And Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. 

There is powerful use of military language in this story, which can mean a few different things, but it seems to point to the power that Jesus has.

Legion—the name of the group of demons inside the man—is a word used to describe a division of the Roman army made up of about six thousand soldiers.

Jesus “orders” the demons with the word used for military command.

The pigs rushing into the sea is the same language used for troops rushing into battle.

The imagery shows how powerful the opposition to Jesus is, yet the way the story is told emphasizes the strength and power of Jesus.

St Anthony the Great who was only a few generations removed from the first disicples made a prophetic statement:

“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad.  You are not like us.’”

I believe that applies to the world we live in today. God has been rejected and people look at us as if we are mad, crazy. Christians are being margenalized not only in place like China or Saudia Arabia, but here in the United States.

If you are not like like the world then you are mad, you are crazy, you don’t fit in.

The disciples and others are questioning who Jesus is, but the demoniac instantly recognizes Jesus as the Messiah, running to him and calling him “Son of the Most High God.”

This story again answers the question, who is he? Even the wind and waves obey. Even powerful demons obey. Even the Roman military, by implication, is powerless before the Messiah.

Jesus, the Son of the Most High God, longs to bring us into wholeness and community too.

During Lent, we have time to reflect deeply on the ways that we have been separated from God and from community. At times these reflections make us feel unworthy. We sometimes look at our sin and think there is no way that God would want us.

We are reminded that God is God with us. God goes to where we are, wherever that might be, to illustrate his love for us. While it might have been shocking to the Jewish listeners to witness the Messiah behaving in ways they didn’t expect, it is in God’s character to love that much.

This former demoned possessed man wanted to go with Jesus and become one of his disciples. Jesus wouldn’t let him, he told him there in verse 19:

Mark 5:19–20 CEB

19 But Jesus wouldn’t allow it. “Go home to your own people,” Jesus said, “and tell them what the Lord has done for you and how he has shown you mercy.” 20 The man went away and began to proclaim in the Ten Cities all that Jesus had done for him, and everyone was amazed.

That is where it begins.

Maxie Dunham wrote “We need to begin there, because I believe that many of us are out of touch with the powerful dimension of Christ’s work in human lives.

Am I on target? What’s going on in your life right now? Are you facing a severe illness? You’ve heard of Jesus’ healing power, but you pray for healing only half-heartedly. You have marvelous doctors who serve you. The healing power of Christ brings you to wholeness.

Are you stumbling along in confusion, without energy or direction? You’re aren’t happy where you are with what you are doing. You know you need to make a change, but you’re frightened about the future, so you hang on to what bit of security you have. You’re not convinced that the living Christ will guide your path, therefore you don’t submit to Him, you don’t seek His will and direction in your decision-making.

Are you living in a sort of twilight zone of depression? You feel victimized by the circumstance not in control of our life is so tied up with someone else that someone doesn’t care and suffer. Maybe its past deep emotional ties bind you and you feel dependent and trapped.

You want to believe that there’s a way out, that God will deliver you from the twilight zone of fear and depression. You’ve heard that Jesus could do this. You’ve even talked with friends in the past to turn to Christ for deliverance. But the shoe is now on your foot, and your faith has shrunk, grown cold. You can’t bring yourself to that place of wholly resting in Him – believing and waiting for His deliverance – acting on every idea He puts in your mind, and every bit of guidance, however insignificant it may appear.

Trapped! That’s the descriptive word for so much we feel. Trapped in unhealthy relationships. Trapped by alcohol or drugs. Trapped by sexual lust that keeps your mind burning and diverts your love and attention from your spouse to whom you are committed in a relationship Christ wants to make fulfilling and holy. Trapped in an insecurity that turns you into a person. Trapped as an ultra-consumer who thinks meaning will come from the things you can buy and trade and sell and own.

Trapped. Bound, and without the certainty that Christ can do great things for you — can come to you in your cemetery of deadness and break the chains that

Isn’t that one of our big problems We’re not claiming Christ’s power in our lives.

God longs for us to view holiness as love-centered instead of law-centered. We, like the Jews, can get caught up in marking boundary lines. But when we are motivated by love—when we are holy— the love and grace are more infectious than uncleanness of sin.

We must be focused on our love for God and others instead of on rules.

Others are longing, this season and always, for a God who loves them and will go the distance for them, who has the power to save them too. We are the ones who carry that message with our presence, our care, and our love.

CONCLUSION

Who is this man? Waves and wind obey him. Demons are commanded with power. And we are all set free to live lives of wholeness and community.

Whatever is trapping us, whatever is keeping us away from wholeness and community, Jesus desires to set us free. But he also desires to set those around us free too. We are the ones who are able to share this message of hope and love with others. We are to be the ones who don’t run from those the world despises. Instead, we embrace them because we know that love transforms people in the most powerful and beautiful ways. It restores all of us to community again.