Devotional:

“1 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 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

It is important to understand the region Jesus and the disciples were in. They were predominantly Jewish in the northwest part of Galilee, where they had been to this point. And that was home to them. They left that region of Galilee and sailed southeast to what was referred to as the country of the Gerasenes and other manuscripts called this area the Gadarenes or the Gergesenes. This was all part of or close to the Decapolis region, comprised of 10 cities spread throughout the mid to southeastern coast of the Sea of Galilee. They left Jewish territory and entered into a gentile region.

Pigs were unclean to the Jews and nowhere to be found in those regions. This area consisted primarily of Greek culture and influence. Jesus had barely put His feet on dry land when this possessed man approached Him. What a welcome, right? He and the disciples were already out of their comfort zone in this unfamiliar land and now the first interaction they had with a local was this crazy naked guy with self-inflicted wounds living in caves with dead bodies. I’m sure he smelled really great too. This man had also grown so strong that no one could bind him anymore and he had wrenched chains apart and broken shackles into pieces. This could only be a demonic presence giving him this superhuman strength.

The possessed man saw Jesus from afar, recognized Him and fell to the ground. No one in this region could have known who Jesus was yet, He literally had just gotten off the boat. Jews didn’t typically visit gentile regions or even have conversations with gentiles. The only ones who knew who Jesus was were those traveling with Him and the demons who felt His presence immediately and trembled in fear. And the man began to cry out what sounds very familiar to us after day four’s devotional. This demon says almost the same thing that the demon in the synagogue in Capernaum said to Jesus. Both times, the demons cried out, proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God.  

After the demons referred to Jesus as the Son of God, we would expect Him to tell them to be quiet, right? Prior to this, in Galilee, Jesus immediately commanded the demons to be quiet after they said He was the Son of God. We know that in Mark 1:25, Jesus quieted the spirit in the synagogue in Capernaum and in Mark 1:34, Jesus commanded the demons to be silent as He was healing people at Peter’s home, but Jesus did something different this time.

He did not command silence from this dark force of evil as they proclaimed Jesus to be the Son of God, instead, He had a conversation with them. He asked the unclean spirit for his name, and He called himself Legion because many spirits were possessing this man. Legion is a term that means many or a multitude, but it was also a significant rank of a Roman officer who was in charge of up to 6,000 men.  

Jesus was speaking to the leader of an entire army of demons that had been using this man as their playground for a really long time. The demon continued to talk to Jesus, begging Him to let them stay in the country instead of sending them back to hell. That is when they saw the pigs and asked if He would allow them to go into the pigs. And Jesus allowed it. Two thousand pigs became possessed and at that moment, the pigs ran off the cliff and into the sea.

Do we know why Jesus granted the demons their wish to enter the pigs instead of being sent back to hell? Not really, but we can conclude that the people around to witness what had happened definitely saw Jesus’s power when this man was healed. And possibly driving the demons into the pigs was more visible to them than if Jesus had just commanded them back to hell.

They witnessed the power of Jesus healing this man entirely and having control of the demons. They saw a dark, powerful presence seeking to destroy this world, powerful enough to force 2,000 pigs to kill themselves. But Jesus, the Son of God, had control of it. This culture did not have faith in a coming Messiah or any belief in God. Jesus’s approach here was different than with the Jewish people. Proving He was the Son of God to a bunch of people who may not have believed in any god, much less the One True God, may have been easier in some ways and more challenging in others. Maybe that is why Jesus did not command the demons to be silent. He had no Pharisees lurking around the corner trying to accuse Him of blasphemy and Jesus needed this miracle to show them that Jesus had come to save the whole world, not just the Jewish people.

After the people saw this, they became scared and asked Jesus to leave, but the seed was planted and these people will see Jesus again. And He will perform more very powerful miracles later in His ministry that we will look at later.

Jesus showed His power over all the earth and the spiritual forces of this world that day in an area that did not know who Jesus was at all. Jesus had started ministering to those outside of the Jewish faith; this was a part of the new covenant, which was for all people.

This madman, now healed, went on through Decapolis to tell his story from town to town, just as Jesus instructed. He wanted desperately to get in that boat and stay in the presence of Jesus. But he had a job to do. He was now a missionary in an unreached land. Jesus commissioned this man to go and tell everyone his story and reach a territory of lost people that others would have written off as unclean and unworthy of God’s acceptance.

Are you willing to do as Jesus commanded this man, resisting the comfortable and easy path of sitting in Jesus’s presence to reach the lost, broken and hopeless to the ends of the earth?

God, remind us that we are not called to be comfortable. Jesus and the disciples were never comfortable. They entered a land that was unfamiliar and uncertain. They planted a seed in a territory that told them to leave out of fear, but because of that seed, many grew to believe in Jesus and God’s purpose. Please give us the opportunity to spread your gospel, to plant the seed for you to continue growing. Amen.