His Spiritual Realm
Mark 5: 1-20
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Back to Basics The
New Testament Witness of the Apostle
Peter |
Max
A Forsythe | |
In practically every township cemetery you will see a sign that says closed from dusk to dawn. This is public notice that the authorities will not put up with any trespassing during those hours when mischief is most likely to occur. Time was, when graves were disturbed for the valuables that might have been left with the dearly departed or even for bodies to pass on for medical research. Generally, in our day, the funeral director will discretely remove glasses, rings and watches and pass them on to the family in a timely manner. And there are enough donated remains or unidentified John or Jane Doe's to provide for medical science. Also, modern caskets are carefully locked and sealed, which practice goes a long way to discourage contemporary archaeologists who haven't the decency to wait several centuries.
Still in Western Culture, there is a certain respect for the final resting place of the dead to warrant lawful protection for the graves. Even so, there are usually area rumors of rowdy teenagers willing to prowl in forbidden places to spread rumors of strange goings on in such places. The traditions and myths of men die hard and disappear slowly. The superstitions of the ancients are unfortunately still remembered and superstitious feelings still infectious. I know of one county where a set of colonial graves were removed from the original site to another cemetery further out into the suburbs. For some reason a local occultic group vandalizes those particular graves on an eleven year cycle in conjunction with the fall mid-point between the annual summer and winter solstice.
In my public service I have unfortunately learned more about such cultists than I would care to know. In my experience there have been five occultic groups with whom I have had a minimal knowledge. One group was into ritual mutilation of the skin. They would stir up a section of skin and scare it with heat or tools as a mark of some kind. Unfortunately within the last decade, all sorts of piercings and tattoos reminiscent of unregenerate pagan peoples have become popular. I even saw an advertisement for a "christian" tattooist who apparently had no knowledge of the Old Covenant prohibition for searing, piercing and coloring of coloring the skin.
A second group seemed only interested in the orgy possibilities of their new found religion while a third is a more serious organized group of pagans who go to great lengths to identify themselves as a nature religion only into "white" magic as they seek to be one with the forces of that nature they worship. A fourth group, which I have not heard much about for ten years, was into ritual sacrifice and church burnings. Minimal reports seem to indicate that the group came apart when they attempted to move up food chain to the final level of human sacrifice. The anointed victim supposedly fled in horror and turned state's evidence! A fifth, more sinister deep underground group seems to be linked with the drug trade, much in the manner of the Mandella Cartel and that Texas/Mexican border group responsible for so many disappearances.
Yes, there are still places and peoples on the fringe of geography and society where strange Names are worshiped and even stranger realities known and understood. I once met a minister who had fled the inner circles of a Mafia group when the Holy Spirit turned his life around. His spiritual deliverance was miraculous indeed. Much in the same realm as the report before us in this fifth chapter of Mark. We know from history that the area of the Gadarenes, located in Decapolis, was a predominantly non-Jewish area. We sense this in the report of the huge herd of swine being raised in the neighborhood of the tombs. So in other words, the possessed man came out of the tombs to see and hear Christ, he came from an area where no light of the Hebrew Church had penetrated too well.
This was an area where civilized Hebrews were wont to go! This was an area apart. No doubt, some word of the miraculous goings on had spread into the region, even the non Jews looked up with some regard to the God of Israel. So to this region Jesus and the disciples providentially put to shore. There Jesus was met by the mad man whom chains, ropes and human exorcism could not tame. He must have hid out in the tombs as the only safe place to be left alone from those who were fearful not only of him but also of the "spirits" they supposed inhabited the graveyard.
Every so often I argue with students about the implausibility of ghosts and hauntings of people who are dead and gone. It doesn't do any good to quote the activities of the foundation that Harry Houdini left behind to expose so called spiritualists who claim communication with the dead! This pagan superstition is too well supported by the entertainment media and the growing charlatans who would profit from arranging a connection. I have even heard a person stand up in the middle of a funeral in a church and report that the deceased had spoken a word to him to share with the congregation. The ministress, who had modeled the "worship" more along wiccan lines, did not discourage him and the occult was more apparent in the masonic ritualism than any latent catering to the faith once given to the saints. I could hardly wait to get home and jump into the shower after that performance!
Yet still, even where we could least expect the gospel to penetrate, the Lord our God there has some few servants to be called unto Himself. And so we may understand that the possessed man came to the place where Christ was providentially waiting. Look at verse six and remember the parable of the runaway son! Here was one desperate creature who would come to Jesus. We must always remember that those who appear the farthest form our God and King may have a better understanding of who and what He is than many of those raised in religion and treat the Father as just another relic in the vast collection of their church.
Verse eight implies that the situation for this man is more desperate than for those others who have been freed. Dr Keener tells us that "identification of spirits' names or the names by which those spirits could be subdued was standard in ancient exorcism texts .., but this case, where many demons are present, is the only recorded example of Jesus seeking a name, and here he does not seem to use it in the exorcism."
Jesus' words to "Come out of the man, unclean spirit!" remain sufficient for the cure. Why Jesus allows the legion of spirits to go into the hogs is and must remain a mystery for us. While some propose to speculate upon the fact, I will withhold judgment. Now I do not do so because I would deny the reality of demon possession. I would fully agree with Calvin who dismisses those in his and our time who would label this story as concerned with the mere affectations of men. Calvin would retort to such nonsense: "This passage shows also the foolish trifling of some irreligious men, who imagine that the devils are not actually existing spirits, but merely the depraved affections of men: for how could covetousness, ambition, cruelty, and deceit, enter into the swine? Let us learn also, that unclean spirits (as they are devoted to destruction) are the enemies of mankind; so that they plunge all whom they can into the same destruction with themselves."
Shakespeare as well understands the reality of devilish designs in his description of the fall of the House of Macbeth. That famous passage at the beginning of the play where the weird sisters demonstrate the calling of their witchcraft is amazing in its reality. A reality that I did not appreciate until I began to understand that this devilish demon possession is indeed possible. Contemporary reports of "spirit guides" of another nomenclature to the person in whom they reside is unfortunately seen as a desirable commodity in some circles.
While some such celebrities probably fake it, I am aware of a couple circumstances where there are literally extreme cases of personality warping not touchable by human endeavor. Certainly, Christian counseling may achieve deliverance and a cure for about 75% of those depraved and deprived, while secular psychobabble priests and priestesses are content with a mere 25% success rate in their cures. However, we define it, like the demoniac referred to here in the Gospel of Mark, there remain, (to teach us humility?) a substantial portion of atheists, deviants and depraved who cannot be cured without a specific miracle from our Creator God.
So the authority of Christ here in this situation is final and complete. "Come out of the man, unclean spirit!" The number of spirits is revealed, not necessarily the name. The word Legion implies a whole host of demons, a fact which the two thousand hogs amply demonstrate as they run to their death. I remember one professor in Seminary who decried the entry of the demons into the hogs and so speculated that only the noise of the demons leaving the man spooked them into their destructive run over the cliffs. With that premise, I would also disagree. The true nature of the demoniac is that lives are ruined and destroyed on purpose. To some who serve the will of the Satanic lord over any and all fallen, wicked and evil spirits. if they cannot defame or destroy humans, they are content to do so with any part of God's spectacular creation. As an example of this tendency, we have only to look back at the frustrations of the Mad Man from Baghdad. When he felt the power over his claimed nineteenth province loosening, he turned his attention from mere humans to the oil wells and environment of the whole Persian Gulf region. That was devilish and there are some who might believe that Saddam Hussein ought to be punished not for crimes against humanity but for crimes against the environment!
A final point before we leave this passage for the day. Dr Cole would point out that the actions of Christ here in this region are not inconsistent with his activities elsewhere. While some would point out that the Israelite leper was told to be quiet, the healed demoniac was encouraged to share his testimony of being delivered. While the residents of the area demanded that Jesus leave, the man who was cured asked to go with Jesus. In this context we can see that leaving the man to bear fruit in a gentile area is work indeed that will not compete with what is being done in the Jewish areas where Christ needs no further advertisement.
While we might think his understanding even of a proto-gospel inadequate in the extreme. The work of God goes forward according to His sovereign will. A few years will pass and more of Christ will be heard. In the meantime, the cured demoniac has a whole province to prepare for the greater knowledge of Christ who can save eternally. In the same way today, there are places where the full gospel is not allowed to be spread. Those of us who work within the halls of those pagan institutions can at the very least be witnesses for truth, decency and the necessity of a new life that is better than the pagan one too often beheld in the daily soap opera of the modern age. May we, like the cured demoniac share what we know of the Lord's goodness wherever and whenever we are able: "Once I was lost, now I am found ... Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me."
Do you get a sense of where you really truly came from in this passage. It matters not if one demon, let alone a thousand or more would keep you from knowing the grace of Christ, we are all perfectly capable of doing so ourselves without a monkey or even demon on our back! Did the disciples gain an insight of how far Christ was bringing them on, even as He reached out to rescue one from the very gates of hell? There would we go - if we were left to our ownsome.
Just as the pagan new-agers would have their spirit guides, so would we have angels hanging on our shoulders if the popular evangelical literature and television is any indication. I wonder if very many people would worry how wholesome that angelic being turned out to be if their superstitions proved true enough? The Lord of heaven and earth is offensive to the media experts of our day, but angels or spirits are another thing. What could happen to a world where the natural order is too easily worshiped instead of the creator himself? Can't we see where the world is headed in this life of the demoniac who hid out in the cemetery? This is where all the world would rally if Christ had not come to cleanse him and us so that He may come in and sup with us and we with Him. Like the demoniac, may we faithfully aspire to be with Christ, but also to do His will on earth until He is ready to take us to Himself. Amen.
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Resources Used | |
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Cole, Alan. |
Tyndale New Testament
Commentaries: |
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Keener, Craig S. |
The IVP Bible Background Commentary:
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Pringle, William. |
Calvin's New Testament
Commentaries: |
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The
New Geneva Study Bible
(NKJV) | |
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B2b25 |
19 March 00 |