My Chains Are Gone
Scripture Reading: Mark 5:1-20
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” That line comes from the ending of The Usual Suspects, a neo-noir film released nearly 30 years ago. Although the number of people who attend church continues to decline, movies about the devil and demonic possession remain a box-office draw. Just take last year’s The Exorcist: Believer, a sequel of sorts to the original film The Exorcist released 50 years earlier. The sequel earned $137 million on a budget of $30 million, making for a healthy profit of more than $100 million—this despite nearly universally terrible reviews (I didn’t see it).
Movies that feature exorcisms always depict a great struggle between the forces of good and evil. If you remember the original film The Exorcist, the act of performing the exorcism takes an enormous spiritual, psychological, and physical toll on the two priests, ending in both their deaths (sorry to spoil the movie, but it’s almost as old as I am). The demon mocks, blasphemes, deceives, and manipulates objects in the room, all in an attempt to thwart the priests from completing the exorcism.
By contrast, in today’s reading from Mark, the demons possessing the poor man seem terrified of Jesus and submit to him pretty much immediately. This would barely make for a TikTok video, let alone a feature-length film. If this were a boxing match, it would be a first-round knockout. Mark shows us that all the powers of hell, even though they may be legion, are no match for the Son of God.
As promised, we pick up in Mark’s Gospel right where we left off last Sunday, with Jesus and the disciples now arriving on the opposite shore of the Sea of Galilee. They have reached the region of the Gerasenes, i.e., they are no longer within the borders of ancient Israel but have crossed into Gentile territory. Jesus does not explain to the disciples why they have come to the opposite shore, but we find out soon enough.
No sooner does Jesus step out of the boat than he is accosted by a man with a so-called unclean spirit. The man lives among the tombs, a place no living soul ventures. In fact, Mark hammers this point, three times mentioning that the man dwells among the dead. He is cut off from the living who fear his animal-like presence and behavior. He howls like a dog, and like a dog he has been placed on a chain, but to no avail. He is possessed of a supernatural strength that has enabled him to break free from his shackles.
If he has harmed anyone other than himself, Mark doesn’t say, but in a pattern that is recognizable among those who have suffered emotional injury, he engages in self-harm, bruising himself with stones.
For all the power that the demon has over the man, for all of the ways that it has reduced the man to the level of a beast rather than a human being, when the demon catches sight of Jesus from a distance, it runs up to him and bows down at his feet, begging for mercy.
Let’s note that the demon recognizes Jesus right away. In last week’s reading, after Jesus had calmed the storm, the disciples asked themselves, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” They were perplexed, and probably more than a bit unsettled, at Jesus’ mastery of the wind and the waves, whose clamor he could silence with a simple command. Now they have an answer. Whereas the disciples were still wrestling with the identity of Jesus, the demon recognizes Jesus at first sight, asking in a fit of fear, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”
Forgive this brief homiletical detour, but this is another example of subtle humor in the Gospels, the fact that Jesus’ disciples don’t understand who he really is while the demons instantly do. To the disciples, Jesus is their teacher and friend, a prophet, and a charismatic messenger sent by God, but they will not come to see him as the Son of God until after he is crucified and resurrected. But the demons recognize divine authority when they see it.
And that is what this passage is about—the authority of Jesus—the authority of the one who can command the unclean spirit to reveal its name. To have the name of the spirit is to have a kind of control over it. It’s like if someone calls your name from across a crowded room as opposed to saying more generically, “Excuse me!” or “Hey, you there!” When you hear your name called, it makes you stop and turn to see who’s calling you.
Jesus’ disciples don’t understand who he really is while the demons instantly do.
In response to Jesus’ demand to know its name, the demon answers, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” In recent years biblical scholars have drawn out the political implications of the demon’s saying that its name is Legion. The area that had once been the nation of Israel was in Jesus’ lifetime the Roman province of Judea, and stationed throughout Judea and the entire Mediterranean region were Roman legions. A legion was a military term for a unit of soldiers numbering 5,000 to 6,000. The presence of Roman legions in conquered territories like Judea enforced Roman rule and kept a lid on the political cauldron that was always simmering in Jerusalem.
If the demon is identified with Rome, then that sends a powerful message to Mark’s readers of where true authority lies. It lies not with the might of Rome’s legions, however vast their numbers, but with the one who is Lord of all, who sits in judgment not only of the legions of Rome but the legions of Hell. Authority lies with the one who is the light of the world, to whom the forces of darkness beg to be permitted to flee into a herd of pigs (because this is Gentile territory) who then rush over a cliff and drown.
Now, this is the point that you may be stirring in your pew somewhat and thinking, is this for real? Are we really supposed to accept demonic possession as a thing in 2024? Shouldn’t we read this as a metaphor for mental illness? I mean, we’re only too familiar with the array of mental disorders that can plague the human mind: Schizophrenia; anxiety; depression; post-traumatic stress; bipolar disorder; and so on. Wasn’t this poor soul just mentally ill?
I’m going to answer that question with a story. In 2001 Sandy and I went to Ecuador on a short-term mission trip with a Korean-American church. There were just six of us (the pastor, his two sons, another man, and Sandy and me). Our ultimate destination was a small village on the periphery of the jungle that had no running water, and electricity for only a few hours a day. But before arriving there we spent a night in a more populated border town that featured a hotel that was laid out as a series of bungalows. Sandy and I had one to ourselves.
After dozing off to sleep, I awoke sometime in the middle of the night into pitch darkness and to the sound of Sandy struggling to find the light switch so that she could return to the bed after having used the bathroom. It didn’t matter. Unbeknownst to us at the time, the electricity cut off at a certain hour.
It must have been a moonless night as well, because even as I turned around toward the window over the bed, I couldn’t see a thing. After a few bumps along the way, Sandy managed to make her way back to the bed. We both laid there and waited for sleep to overtake us.
That’s when I became aware of another presence in the room. I could feel someone looking at me as if they were standing right beside the bed. My first thought was that someone had broken into the room to rob us. We certainly didn’t look like locals, and perhaps they thought we’d be easy marks.
As if on cue, I heard Sandy say, “John, there’s someone in the room with us.” My reply was simply, “I know.”
The presence that we felt looking down on us then slowly creeped its way around the bed in a semicircle, never taking its gaze off of us. Then I heard a rustling sound, like someone crinkling a plastic bag. I remembered there being a bag of snacks on a table.
As our fear grew, Sandy began praying like I had never heard her pray before. I even recited the Lord’s Prayer and might have thrown in a Hail Mary for good measure. At the climax of her prayer Sandy shouted, “In the name of Jesus, get out!”
I kid you not. At that moment I heard what sounded to me like a metal trash can being knocked over in the courtyard outside our bungalow. That was the end of it. No more eerie footsteps. No more rustling sounds.
You have to understand that I had just started going back to church a few months earlier. I was looking for every rational explanation. A burglar had snuck into the room. Rodents were nibbling through the snack bag. When the sun rose, the first thing I did was examine that bag of chips. It was untouched. Nor did the room show any sign of someone having broken in or fled out.
The others in our party were surprised to hear of our adventure, having had themselves a restful night. But when we told the missionary pastor who was hosting us, he was not at all surprised. Such experiences were not uncommon to him. He said that while driving alone, he would sometimes see in the rearview mirror someone sitting in the back seat. As for our experience, he said with a smile, “It was probably a baby demon.”
Now, I don’t know whether it was a baby demon or the B-Team from hell or what, but what I took from the experience is that wherever the kingdom of God is breaking in, there are malign forces that want to keep it out. That’s as true today as it was in Jesus’ day. And perhaps it’s most true in the mission field, not because people there are less educated or more superstitious, but because that is the front line of the battle.
And the land of the Gerasenes, where Jesus has led his disciples, was also a mission field because it was Gentile territory. People there had never heard of Jesus. And so of course all hell would break loose at his arrival. Literally. It makes sense. After all, who was the first person that Jesus met after he was baptized by John and before he began his ministry? It wasn’t Peter or James or John. It was the devil, who tried his best to prevent Jesus from fulfilling his mission to save the world.
Jesus, you must be starving after having fasted for 40 days. Here, turn these stones into bread. Why go hungry needlessly?
Jesus, prove that you are the Son of God. Throw yourself from the top of the Temple so that God’s angels will catch you. That ought to make an impression!
Jesus, all the kingdoms of world I will give to you. Imagine the good that you could do with all that power! Imagine the mouths you could feed, the broken bodies you could heal. Just bow down to me and it’s yours.
Despite all opposition and all attempts at holding it back, the kingdom of God will continue to break in upon the world, and lives will continue to be transformed as a result. None more so than this man who had been possessed by the legion. There he was, no longer rollicking and raving, but sitting, clothed and in his right mind. No shackles on his hands and feet. No chain around his neck. Now free. How different his life would have been had Jesus not crossed the sea and come to a far country for the sake of one man. And that one man would now be free to tell how much the Lord had done for him.
And what the Lord did for him, he also does for you. Jesus enters the tomb and pulls you out from death into life. Your chains are gone. You’ve been set free.