Jesus, demons, and people

One of my theology teachers told a great story.  He was shopping with his grandkids at a mall, and found himself in, of all places, a belt-buckle shop.  (Guess what state the mall was in… starts with a “T” and ends with “exas.”)  Okay, so the honorable professor picked out a belt buckle for one grandchild.  “Oops,” he thought, “I forgot so-and-so…”  He picked up another belt buckle.  Then another family member occurred to him who would like a new belt buckle, and a then a couple more who could just use them….  Pretty soon, his arms were full of belt buckles, and he realized that the whole thing has gotten completely out of control and very, very expensive.  He yelled, “No!” and leaving the belt buckles on the counter, scrambled out of the shop. 

His grandkids caught up to him and asked, “What were you thinking, Grandpa?”

He answered.  There’s such a thing as a demon of materialism, and I think it’s loose in there!”

“Oh, Grandpa,” they said.  “You see a demon behind every bush.”

“No!!” he answered.  Not a demon.  I see three…sometimes four!!!

 

So I thought about that story as I’ve prepared to preach this week on Mark 5:1-20, where Jesus heals a man with an “unclean spirit,” a demon.  After thinking through the account, I come up with a few observations about the issue of demonic influence, and how we might respond to its reality.  I find no reason to believe that demons are any less active today than they’ve ever been, although I suppose they exercise a degree of choice in their manner and victims, according to the present culture and its opportunities to oppose the work of God.  I’ve thought about some of the people I’ve known, and especially some of the patients that I’ve treated during years as a paramedic. 

 

Question:      Who knows (and I certainly didn’t back then when I was in the medical field) where a demonic condition ends and a chemical imbalance begins, and where they meet, or if one/both are even always present in the same individual?

Answer:         Jesus knows, and that is why they, we, I, and everyone in between need Him first and foremost, and then the healing resources of His people, good medical care, and time.

 

So here’s the story…

 

Mark 5:1 They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. 2 When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him, 3 and he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain; 4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones. 6 Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him; 7 and shouting with a loud voice, he said, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not torment me!” 8 For He had been saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And He was asking him, “What is your name?” And he said to Him, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10 And he began to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. 12 The demons implored Him, saying, “Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.” 13 Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they were drowned in the sea. 14 Their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country. And the people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the “legion”; and they became frightened. 16 Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man, and all about the swine. 17 And they began to implore Him to leave their region. 18 As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed was imploring Him that he might accompany Him. 19 And He did not let him, but He said to him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

 

And here are some conclusions that I drew from it…

 

1.         We have no power over the demons, but Jesus has absolute power over them. 

Note all his neighbors had tried to do to control this man.  They’d chained him up, shackled his feet, and Luke tells us that they’d posted a guard on him, for he was so dangerous to others.  Nothing worked, until Jesus got involved.  Our communities may not use chains and shackles routinely, but we have some strategies, most of which have miserably failed.  There is no physical cure for spiritual problems.

 

2.         Jesus doesn’t care very much about demons, but He cares a lot about their victims.

This is a good thing to remember, especially when we’re tempted to get overly interested in the supernatural world of demonology.  While Jesus saw both the demons and the man, and never got the two mixed up, I don’t think I could pull that off!

 

3.         Cultures that reject God are more comfortable living with demons  than with the Son of God. 

The townspeople could get used to the man living out in the graveyard,

yelling and screaming twenty-four hours a day.  They could schedule

around that, and make sure that they never got caught out alone, where

he might attack them or their kids.  “At least we know where he is,” they might have said.

But the idea of living around the Son of God, now that was out of control.  One thing that Jesus demonstrated to them that day was that He had the Lord had power to change them; to make them different people—just like He changed man who had an unclean spirit.

Another thing He showed them was that He had powers that could change their prosperity, their own dreams of wealth and security.  I imagine that 2,000 pigs are worth a lot of money.  They chose profits over people—but before I start pointing my finger at the nearest Wal-Mart, I probably should take a good look at my own Visa bill! 

 

Poem by John Oxenham,

 

            “Rabbi, be gone!  And take this fool of thine!

            You love his soul, we prefer swine.”

 

4.         Once healed by God, none are beyond being used by God to tell others about the wonderful mercy of God.  

It seems that the best stories to tell are the ones that have to do with us being miserable, lost, self-destructive sinners, and the Son of God intervening into our hell in order to bring us to His heaven.  That’s why so many AA, NA, and other “Anonymous” meetings are so successful, they strive to be places where you can tell a dramatic, even shocking story—in the context of being healed, and be accepted and protected, even valued for your story. 

Our church is working on that…why should everyone else have all the good stories?