The Geresene Demoniac Liberated

Mark 5: 1-20

Passages in Matthew 8: 28-34 and Luke 8:26-26-39 also describes this event.

Jesus has just amazed the disciples in an encounter with a wild sea. They now see His power (and mercy) in an encounter with wild men!

This is an account which reveals much about:

• the depths of depravity men can experience

• the damage demons can do

• the knowledge that demons possess

• the authority of Jesus

• the drama of conversion

• the responsibilities following conversion

• the irrational preference man can have for sin and hopelessness instead of the gracious blessings of Jesus Christ

• and more.

Verse 1 –

The “other side of the sea” would correspond to the southeast corner of the Sea of Galilee.

• “country of the Gerasenes” – Gerasa was a sizeable town some 6 miles southeast of the coast. Vespasian had put a garrison there just a few years before this. Later ruins show a basilica, several large buildings (including 2 theaters), a paved street, etc.

• Matthew uses a reference to Gadara – a smaller town closer to the sea.

Verse 2 -

• “immediately.” It seems they barely made shore when “a man with an unclean spirit” (a demon) " met Him. And, oh, what a meeting this will be!

• Matthew adds the detail that there were two demoniacs involved. Apparently, the one spoken of in this passage served as the spokesman.

• A man “with” (not of) – an unclean spirit. This differentiation is important for it shows Jesus' domination of spiritual powers.

Verse 3 -

The man is living in the tombs!

• These would have been subterranean tombs (quite common) using natural caves and/or man-made recesses, sometimes even supported by columns.

• They would be away from the city, thus are desolate, lonely places.

• Unclean. Death. Decay. Stink. Scavengers. Macabre, oppressive atmosphere.

• It would be a horrible place to live.

• In the excavations of 4th Century el Kursi, very near here, just such tombs were excavated.

Verses 3 and 4 -

• No one could bind the demoniac anymore but he had often been bound before and probably often. This is so typical of man’s approach to “problem people.” But Jesus prefers conversion to constraints.

• Was the man’s power increasing? No, it was the power of the demons exploiting him that was increasing. For the demoniac himself, the only things that were increasing was his desperation and danger!

Verse 5 -

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  • He was “constantly” demonized. No break, no recess. No vacation from his problems

“crying out” – shrieking, animalistic

• Aristophanes uses this word to describe frog noises and, in another of his plays, of a boar’s squeal…

• It’s a horrible thing, an evidence of how his very humanity was being overtaken by something loathing and vicious.

“gashing himself with stones”

• Self-punishment? Suicidal actions? Or unconscious, uncontrollable violence? Perhaps such violence was forced on him by the demons. Whatever the case, the Greek word here is intense. The man was being severely injured.

Verse 6 -

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  • “From a distance” – This probably isn’t a response of the man himself, but the demons whose supernatural knowledge made them aware of just Who was invading their space!

  • Once again, we see Jesus come to a person. He doesn’t just wait for them to come to Him.

  • The “bowing down” involves the man’s body, but the act represents the supplication of the demons themselves. This is shown by the request that is made. The man’s personality has been completely overwhelmed by the demons.

  • The bowing down is not an act of worship. It is merely an admission of Jesus’ overwhelming power over the demons.

Verse 7 -

“crying out with a loud voice”

• This must have been a very eerie, unsettling experience for the disciples who are watching this scene as the text uses the same animalistic term of verse 5. But here the brutish shriek becomes verbalized. (A growl in the night, for instance, is frightening. But a growl that uses language to communicate is unearthly, a thing of sheer terror.)

“Jesus, Son of the Most High God”

• Again, we see supernatural knowledge involved here for this isn’t a Messianic term. It is an accurate one, however, one that acknowledges the man Jesus is also divine.

• What the Jewish religionists refused to acknowledge, the demons really did. And this acknowledgement includes their oh-too-real awareness of Jesus’ authority.

The demons also know the timeline of history as ordained by God, a history that, for them, ends in the lake of fire. And so they, tormentors of this poor man that they are, plead to escape (for a little while longer) their own torment.

Verse 8 -

Jesus is talking to the demon and commanding him to leave. But He is allowing this conversation in order to reveal to the disciples, possibly to the swineherds nearby (and certainly to us), the full picture of what’s happened to this man…and what will happen.

Verse 9 -

For the above purpose, Jesus asks the demon his name. It is “Legion,” meaning there are many of us. Indeed, a legion was the word for 6,000 Roman soldiers.

Verse 10 -

But even in such numbers, they have no power over Jesus whatsoever! All they can do is plead for a temporary stay of judgment.

The reference to being sent out of the country, (i.e. beyond the border) is probably to the abyss where some demons will be bound even prior to the final judgment.

• Jude 6 describes it as being “eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.”

• There are corresponding passages in 2 Peter 2:4 and Rev. 20:3.

• To make the point more emphatic, Luke records the demon spokesman’s specific request not to be sent into the abyss.

Verse 11 -

“a big herd of swine”

• Of course, this would have been against Jewish law for Jews to be involved in this business. So, either these pigs were herded by disobedient Jews or by Gentiles who traded to such Jews.

Verse 12 -

The demons so feared being “disembodied” that they sought permission to possess the pigs. Quite a come down – but now they’re the desperate ones!

Verse 13 -

Jesus allows this.

But the pigs are not cooperative hosts! They go berserk and rush to the sea and are “drowning” (as the tense describes here) and (as the tense describes in the other gospels) they are “drowned.”

What happened to the demons? Well, the focus of this event is clearly the liberating of the man but, presumably, the legion of demons ended up just where they so feared – the abyss, these “eternal bonds under darkness” where they await the “judgment of the great day.”

Verse 14 -

“The herdsmen run away.” That’s a bit of an understatement! And they report it. But they report it as a disaster for they are focused on pigs – not men! They completely miss the point of this astounding miracle.

Verse 15 -

The countrymen come to see the scene of this momentous occurrence and what do they see? “The man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had the legion.”

• Sitting down (relaxed, safe). He is not constantly running about, shrieking and cutting himself.

• Clothed – not naked. He is now respectable, human again, and sensible to social responsibility.

• In his right mind. Meeting Jesus brings always intellectual liberty and solidity. Jesus puts things right. The man is in control now, not the demons.

So how do the people react to this wonderful, beautiful miracle? They’re frightened! They look closely (that’s the stress on the Greek word used here) and they decide they prefer the crazy, dangerous demoniac to this liberated man!

Verse 16 -

They retell the incident, especially “all about the swine.”

Verse 17 -

They have an entreaty to Jesus too. They want Him to leave!

Verse 18 -

But there’s one man who doesn’t want distance between himself and Jesus ever again.

• It’s the freed man.

• He wants to be with Jesus.

Verse 19 –

But, in this case, Jesus explains that following Jesus is best done by being a faithful, humble, grateful reporter of what Jesus had done for him. This is often a tough duty…to serve Jesus when He seems far away. But He isn’t far away. He sticks close; He is with us always. And our inheritance includes being in His presence forever.

Verse 20 -

The newly-freed man (and as Matthew states, men) completes what Jesus asks him to do. He becomes a faithful reporter of what happened that day. So should we!