Oct. 11, 2009
Background Scripture: Mark 5:1-20
Devotional Reading: Luke 7:18-23

Don’t let the Demoniacs and pigs get in the way of the important episode in Mark 5:1-20. Evil spirits were a 1st century A.D. way of describing and handling what today we call (although perhaps no more accurately) mental illness.

If you have ever worked with people severely disturbed (or greatly “possessed”), the episode may not seem quite so strange. And, for the record, nowhere in this passage does it indicate that Jesus necessarily believed that the demons caused the herd of pigs to plunge off the cliff.

Many years ago a woman came to me for counseling. She was desperate because, she said, “voices” were “speaking” to her from “a crack in her ceiling.”

I could have said to her: “Don’t be deluded, Miss, those voices are imaginary!” Instead, I said, “What are those voices saying to you?” This established a bridge over which we could communicate and ultimately bring her to a sense of healing her anxiety.

We may assume that the passage is set on the eastern, pagan shore of the Sea of Galilee – we wouldn’t likely find a herd of pigs on the Jewish side! It was a lonely, barren land of limestone caves used as places of burial. The place is enshrouded with tales of demons and the evening is dark. Then, out of the darkness comes a man obviously possessed.

Barclay says: “It was a perilous place and a perilous hour and the man was dangerous man” – like the times and places experienced in our lives.

Binding the demon

No one had been able to bind the demoniac: “… even with a chain; for he had often been bound with fetters and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him” (5:3, 4).

There are many problems in life that seem impervious to physical restraint and control. Still, we keep looking for the person or force with the most physical power to subdue them.

Iraq is a case in point. Militarily, there was never a question of subduing the Iraqis with “shock and awe.” But, when Iraq was militarily overpowered, there remained and remains the problem of bringing order out of the chaos, and physical might alone cannot do the job.

Order, based upon physical and material power, cannot prevail in the long run, just as the strongest chains could not keep the demoniac bound and harmless.  Jesus had the power, but it was not a physical power, but of the spirit, and the demoniac somehow recognized that power: “when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped him” (5:6).

Although Jesus did not menace the demoniac with the threat of physical force, his response was spiritually powerful: “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit,” to which the demoniac replied with awe: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the most High God” I adjure you by God, do not torment me” (5:7).

A soul or a pig?

Some readers of Mark cannot help wondering if it wasn’t the violence of the demoniac that spooked the herd of pigs. Others are bothered to think that Jesus was responsible for the destruction of the herd. In fact, that was the attitude of the nearby villagers who came out when they heard the ruckus.

As some have commented, they were more concerned about the loss of the herd of pigs than they were glad that the demoniac had recovered his senses. It is therefore understandable that “they began to beg Jesus to depart from their neighborhood” (5:17).

Let’s be honest: In how many of our communities would Jesus be likely to get the same negative invitation? In the British parliament of the early 1930s, one MP exclaimed: “God pity the British Empire if it is to be run on the principles of the Sermon on the Mount!”
For all the protestations that ours is a Christian nation, how many of us would want to see our country governed on the basis of Jesus’ teachings?

So, if Jesus came to your town and the crowds shouted, “Go Jesus, go!” would it be an invitation to stay … or to leave?

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.

Published on Oct. 7, 2009