Mark 5:1-20

They get to the other side of the lake; the disciples are still in a state of confusion and bewilderment. Jesus the man they had begun to follow had just commanded the weather to do his will, and the weather had obeyed.  Getting out of the boat Jesus is immediately confronted with a well-known character in these parts.  A wrench that terrorized the Gerasenes, night and day he would wander amongst the tombs and mountains howling and cutting himself with stones.  Sure there had been attempts to subdue him, to restrain him, to tie him down with shackles and chains.  Yet each time the restraint was short lived with the demoniac quickly breaking the chains into pieces.  He was called the demoniac because that is what he was, a man possessed by something of the supernatural, by spirits of an evil origin, they had warped this man and turned him into a wrench of terror.

From a distance he sees Jesus and runs to approach him, falling at his feet he asks, “What do you want from me Jesus, Son of the Most High God, I beg you, do not torment me”.  In response to being asked their name by Jesus, the demons respond, “Legion, for we are many”.  In an area occupied by Roman forces the choice of language would not have been lost on the crowds gathered around.  For just as this man was occupied by an evil force – a legion, so too was this region – occupied by the legions of the Roman Empire.  And just as this man begged relief from this involuntary occupation so too did these nations earnestly wait for the day in which they would be freed.

Showing mercy, even to evil spirits, Jesus sends them from the man into the nearby swine.  The pigs overcome with the evil that had just possessed them rushed in madness over the side of a cliff falling to their death and destruction.  Like the disciples the night before, confused and bewildered by Jesus’ ability to command the weather, so too were the local people of the Gerasenes. Sure Jesus had rescued them from the terror of the demoniac, but this was only replaced a by a greater terror – that of the man to which the demons were afraid.  In fear they asked Jesus to leave, yet not all were excited or relieved to see him leave.  The man formerly a wrench terrorizing the tombs was now a man in his right mind eager to go with Jesus. Yet Jesus has a different mission for him, rather than to go Jesus asks him to stay.  And so he does, he stays but he does not stay quiet, with great energy and earnest he tells many people what Jesus had done for him and many were amazed.

If you are a follower of Christ I believe you have your own story to tell, maybe you weren’t a demoniac before Christ found you, but every one of us has stories that tell of transformation and renewal.  Jesus calls some of us to go and some of us to stay, but he calls all of us to share our stories…and many will be amazed.

Now: Read Mark 5:1-20

Then: Go Swedish (what’s this?)