Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man
26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, [b] which is across the lake from Galilee. 27 When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torture me!" 29 For Jesus had commanded the evil [c] spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.
30 Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"
"Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. 31 And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.
32 A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. 33 When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
34 When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, 35 and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. 37 Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.
38 The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.
Dig Deeper
I don’t think you’ll ever meet a human being in your entire life that is more concerned with “fairness” than a six year-old. They are consumed with justice. If someone else got three cookies, you had better not give them two. If someone else got to play a video game for twenty minutes then they feel it is their God-given right to have an equal amount of time. If an older sibling gets to go to bed at a certain time, it is a constant struggle to get them to accept that they should have an earlier bed time. It seems nearly everything in their little lives comes down to a matter of justice and fair treatment. They just cannot seem to easily grasp the fact that “fairness” does not mean that everyone does everything in exactly the same way at exactly the same time. There are often times purposes for the difference in treatment that they may not see or understand but are perfectly legitimate and still quite fair. But it’s hard for them to see that.
This is one of those biblical accounts that can be confusing and distracting as Jesus confronts another case of demon possession. Yet, we have to be careful to not get caught up in the many questions we might have and in the fascination that so many people have with the demonic and focus on the important things that Luke wants us to see here. There are probably two important things that Luke wants his readers to see. The first has to do with the destructive power of evil. The second thing has to do, in some sense, with varying missions that Jesus calls people to. Jesus has a different mission for each person when it comes to following him, but those differing calls are fair for everyone. Some will be called to follow Jesus in one way, some will be called to follow him in other ways. The point is that whatever the call, we need to be ready to follow Jesus in whatever he calls us to do even if it is in a different way than someone else is called to follow him.
Luke tells us that Jesus and the disciples sailed to the region of the Gerasenes which has caused a bit of confusion. There was a town in Jesus’ day called Gerasa but that town was about 30 miles from Lake Gennesaret (Sea of Galilee) which is featured in this story. That means it would have been quite a marathon for the pigs that were sent into the lake. It seems that because of this difficulty, some scribes must have thought it a copying mistake and fixed it by changing the text to read either Gadara (which is only a few miles away) or Gergesa (which is right on the banks of Lake Gennesaret). But none of that was necessary when we read the text carefully because Luke did not say that Jesus was in the town of Gerasa but was in the wilderness in the region of Gerasa. The “region” of Gerasa, in Luke’s day, could easily have stretched as far away as the lake 30 miles away.
The important detail, though, is that Jesus has entered a region that had some Jews living there but was primarily a Gentile area. The fact that this was a Gentile region is further evidenced by the herd of swine. Jews saw pigs as an unclean animal according to the law of Moses and neither ate, handled, or kept the porky perpetrators in their midst.
Jesus had just shown his authority and power as he calmly faced a violent storm out on Lake Gennesaret and now he was about to face a demonic storm that was just as potentially dangerous. Almost immediately Jesus was met by a demon-possessed man that was living like an animal among the tombs of the death. In the Jewish mind (although it is unlikely that he was Jewish) this would have made him unclean on almost every level possible as even stepping on a tomb made one unclean (between demons, tombs, and pigs, you would have a difficult time inventing a more unclean scene for a Jew than this one). Again Luke does not feel it necessary to give any of the juicy details concerning demon possession that we might want but that is not his concern here. The demons seem to recognize the identity and authority of Jesus immediately just as the other demons that Jesus has encountered in Luke’s Gospel. The demonic force had tortured this young man, causing him to be violent to himself and to completely destroy any semblance of human dignity and behavior but still has the temerity to ask Jesus for the mercy of not being tortured itself.
As the demonic force had recognized Jesus and declared his identity, Jesus orders the identity of the demonic to be revealed. The response is not so much a name as a description. At the question of his name, the demonic force replies through the young man that it is “Legion” because they were many. A Roman legion could consists of as many as 5,600 soldiers but there is no telling how many demons were in this young man. They knew the authority of Jesus though, and again ask for the mercy of not being sent into the Abyss. The Abyss is apparently the place of destruction for demons (This contrasts the fate of Satan and his angels who, according to Matthew 25:41, will find their fate to be the eternal fire of Gehenna. Many people today think that the fallen angels and demons are one in the same but the early church was quite adamant that they were not the same). We should not lose sight in all of this, though, that Jesus has faced the storm of not just one demon, but an army of demons and has calmed them with the same authority with which he quelled the storm.
Many are confused about why the demons would ask to be sent into a herd of pigs and why Jesus would possibly grant such a request. There are further questions as to why the herd would immediately rush down the bank and into the water, and even more questions about what happened to the demons when the pigs drown. But as Luke does not answer these questions, we won’t attempt to speculate, as fun as that might be to do. In all likelihood, Jesus was making a point. The demons had asked to not be sent into the Abyss and Jesus granted that request but only so that he could demonstrate several things. Pigs were the classic symbol of unclean animals and unclean animals were an Old Testament symbol of sin. So Jesus sent the ultimate in evil forces into the ultimate symbol of sin. He then showed his authority over both as the herd of pigs immediately ran into the Sea of Galilee (Lake Gennesaret) and died. The sea was common Old Testament imagery. Going back to the dark abyss of pre-creation and the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea, the sea became a symbol for evil and destruction. It was the place where evil came from or would be sent to be destroyed. (Isa. 17:12; Isa. 23:4, 11; Isa. 27:1; 42;10; 57:20; Jer. 6:23; 50:42; 51:42; Ezek. 26:3; 27:32-34; Dan. 7, etc.; See also Rev. where the Beast comes from the sea and things like the great millstone are cast into the sea to be destroyed.) Jesus has once again shown his authority; this time he has demonstrated his authority over evil and sin and the ability to completely destroy it. He may also have foreshadowed the ultimate destruction in the Abyss that the demons would face one day.
At its core, this is a scene of resurrection and new life for this young man. He had been completely dehumanized by the demonic and was truly among the dead, cut off from society in every way and separated from God. He is, in many respects, a picture of our own selves dead in sin and separated from God. But after encountering Jesus, we see him as the perfect picture of restoration. He was wild, naked, dangerous, and full of evil but after Jesus freed him he is clothed, docile, respectful and sitting at the feet of Jesus in the standard position of a learner and a disciple. He has been brought from sin and death among the tombs and been restored to life once again. This is what Jesus wants to do for everyone who will recognize his true identity (as ironically only the demons did in this incident). It doesn’t matter how sinful or evil someone might be, Jesus has the authority and power to release them. The other option is to remain in the power of evil and sin and to go the way of the pigs, a short run to destruction and death.
But now that this man has been freed, he wants to do what so many others had been called to do; he wanted to follow Jesus as his disciple and go with him. Many would be called to such a vocation but not this man. This was not his calling. But it’s not a matter of Jesus being unfair or punishing him. It was just not his role to be one of Jesus’ immediate followers. He would be given a different sort of way to follow Jesus. He would stay and go back home to tell people how much God had done for him through the work of Jesus (no doubt Luke intended for his readers to see that whatever Jesus was doing, God himself was doing).
This was no easy task. The immediate response of the people was to be so fearful of the display of Jesus’ power and so closed to such a power that they didn’t want Jesus to stay among them. To add to that, it would have been a major challenge for this man to be accepted back into his society as a normal person that could be trusted. But that is likely the very reasons that he has been sent back by Jesus. If he left to follow Jesus, he would become little more than a legend, but in stayin,g the folks of his community would be awed and challenged each time they saw him and heard him speak of the incredible act of emancipation that God had brought into his life. His experience is not only a foreshadowing of the mission to proclaim the gospel to the Gentile people around the world but is also a stark reminder for us to not follow Jesus by closing ourselves off in church events all day, everyday. We must go back “home” and tell everyone about the freeing power of Jesus Christ in our life. We must be witnesses and tell people what Jesus has done for us.
Devotional Thought
There seemed to be no hint from this young man of feeling slighted or treated unfairly by Jesus because he told him to go back home. We can certainly feel that way at times, though, when God calls us somewhere or to do something and we’d rather do something else. Is there anything that God has called you to do that you feel is unfair or that you’d rather not do? What can you learn from this demon-possessed man for your situation?
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