Summary
Abundant Mercy: The Healing of the Gerasene Demoniac
The account of the demon-possessed man in Mark 5:1-20 is, on the surface, one of the most terrifying scenes in Scripture—a man living among tombs, unrestrainable by chain or shackle, howling night and day, cutting himself with stones. Beneath the horror, however, it is a story of love and treasure: the abundant mercy of Jesus Christ poured out on a man whom the world had given up for lost. Read carefully, the narrative unfolds as a series of rejections that culminate in the one rejection that saves us all.
The man rejected. Whether the town cast him out or he isolated himself to protect those he loved, the demoniac was utterly alone. Filled with so much darkness that he had no words—only sound—he could feel nothing except the bruise of stone against flesh. No human power could subdue him. This is what sin and the demonic do: they isolate, they silence, they drive a person to harm himself, and they laugh at every chain humanity tries to bind them with.
Jesus rejects the unclean spirit. Having just calmed a physical storm on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus steps ashore and encounters a spiritual storm of equal violence. Calmly, with authority, He commands the spirit to come out. When the demon names itself "Legion"—a Roman military term for five or six thousand soldiers—we glimpse the scale of the war raging inside this one man. Yet Jesus does not flinch, bargain, or submit. He confronts evil directly. Curiously, when the legion begs to enter a nearby herd of swine, Jesus grants permission. This mirrors the pattern in Job 1 and Romans 1:24-25: in His sovereignty God places limits on evil, yet He also permits creatures to make choices and to live with their consequences. He does not actively will sin, but He does not override the freedom He has given.
The swine reject Legion. The herd—about two thousand—rushes down the bank and drowns. Even animal nature could not coexist with such darkness; mass death was preferable to bearing the legion within. It is a sobering picture of what sin does when it finds a host.
The townspeople reject Jesus. When the citizens arrive and find the formerly tormented man "clothed and in his right mind," they are afraid—using the very word Mark used of the disciples trembling before the Lord who calmed the sea. They had rejected this man in his suffering; now they reject the Healer who restored him. Everything they had tried failed; one word from Jesus succeeded—and it was too much. They beg Him to leave their region. Power that great, mercy that decisive, can be more frightening than the demons we have learned to live with.
The unwritten rejection. The healed man begs to follow Jesus into the boat, and Jesus refuses. This is not the rejection that matters most, however. Behind the scene stands the rejection planned before time: the cross. Quoting Psalm 22:1-2—"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"—Jesus on Calvary takes upon Himself every unclean spirit, every darkness, every swirl of madness from every age, and the Father turns His face away. The Father had to reject the Son so that we would not be rejected. As Luther sang in A Mighty Fortress, "One little word subdues him"—and that word is It is finished. Our sin is cast out in the name of Jesus Christ, and we are made new by His Spirit. This is the heart of the “Abundant Mercy” 2-6-22 teaching.
The commission of mercy. Jesus did not reject the healed man; He sent him. "Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you." The man who once had no words but howling now becomes a preacher, proclaiming throughout the Decapolis what Jesus had done. Isaiah 55:7 promises that the Lord "will abundantly pardon," and here is that promise enfleshed: a man freed from a legion of demons, given new life, and sent out to tell it. God does not leave us isolated in our suffering. He comes to us, forgives us, and sends us to speak the same mercy to others.
Video citations
- “Abundant Mercy” 2-6-22 — If you would, please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark the 5th chapter. If you are using a Pew edition of the Bible, you will find this on page 34 in the New Testament. We are studying today, a…