On 23 July this year, the Guardian newspaper reported a strange incident on the Franco-Spanish border.
It said: “More than 200 sheep have plunged to their deaths in the Pyrenees while apparently trying to escape a brown bear… The sheep… are thought to have taken fright when the bear appeared in the area last Sunday.
The flock panicked and hurled themselves off a 200 metre-high cliff…
The incident has provoked an angry response from the local branch of the French Farmers’ Federation.
More than 130 sheep died in a similar incident in the French Pyrenees last year.”
The parallel with today’s reading is striking. If you think what’s described in Mark’s Gospel sounds far-fetched, clearly large herds of panicking livestock will jump off a cliff to their death if they are frightened enough.
We’ll come back to that shortly but, since many have been away in August, I want to briefly set the scene so we get a feel for the flow of the story.
In the last few chapters, Jesus has been travelling around, addressing large crowds and doing many great miracles.
As a consequence, he is attracting more admirers and followers. But he is also making many jealous enemies. Great throngs of demanding people come to get something from him or pick faults and oppose him.
By now, Jesus is working long hours in a stressful atmosphere, and he isn’t eating properly. He is in the red zone, in danger of burnout.
So at the end of chapter 4, as we saw last week, even though it’s not yet fully dark, Jesus flops down in a cramped and creaky old wooden boat and falls into a sleep so deep that even a storm of biblical proportions cannot wake him up. Jesus, in his full humanity, is shattered. He is bushed.
Jesus says, at the end of chapter 4, he wants a change of scenery. “Let’s go over to the other side,” he says.
On the opposite shore is a territory called Decapolis. It is quite unlike the thoroughly Jewish side they’ve just come from, where there’s a synagogue in every village and everything shuts on the Sabbath.
Decapolis is a darker, more secular place, inhabited by unbelievers and pagans. That’s why pigs are farmed there, unthinkable on Jewish land.
Why would Jesus want to go there? The answer is simple; he wants some privacy, and he wants it for two reasons.
Firstly, as we know, he is overdue some rest. He needs a day off, a holiday, in fact.
We all need time to rest physically and replenish spiritually when we’ve been busy. Jesus needed it. So do you, and so do I. It’s why most things shut down here in August. It’s a sabbatical month to rest and recharge our batteries before the hectic autumn term.
But secondly, Jesus wants some privacy to spend time with his disciples so he can train them and mentor them. Good leaders invest in others.
Imagine your house is on fire. You are outside and you have one bucket of water. Next to you are twelve sleeping firemen. Where do you throw the water? On the firemen! If God’s work is going to multiply thirty-, sixty-, a hundredfold, Jesus has to mobilise his twelve-man team.
In the very next chapter, as we’ll see, he commissions them and sends them out. Before that can happen, he has to prepare them.
Now, with that in mind, the need for rest and the need to invest, you’d think they would head for a spa with jacuzzis, massage beds, and a decent training facility.
But when we open chapter 5 what do we find?
They arrive on Lake Galilee’s south-eastern shore. If you go there today you’ll notice there is a flat plain set about 200 metres high above steep hills that plunge down towards the lake. The hillside is limestone and it’s pitted with natural caves, which, in those days, were used as tombs.
It’s late and this is an eerie location. Just the kind of place you don’t want to meet a shrieking, disturbed, self-harming, unrestrainable, and completely naked man. There’s a story you didn’t hear in Sunday School…
What do we know about this individual?
Firstly, he’s a tormented soul. He cries out in distress night and day. He’s pretty intense. He’s not top of the invitation list for your dinner party.
Secondly, he’s got a weird thing about death. He lives in the tombs. There’s something dark and macabre about him. He’s scary.
Thirdly, he self-harms. He breaks irons on his feet and cuts himself with sharp stones.
Fourthly, he’s excluded. People try everything. Nothing works. No one wants him around town. So they banish him to this desolate place to live in seclusion.
Such antisocial behaviour suggests this is a madman. But this is no mental health case. He is suffering from a rare and dreadful spiritual condition that can develop when people become involved with satanic rituals, the occult and the paranormal.
Two other details show that this is a case of demon possession, quite distinct from mental illness.
Fifthly, he has unnatural strength. They try restraining him. But he’s like an animal. No one can contain him, even with an iron chain. They try locking him up. He breaks the locks. “No one was strong enough to subdue him,” it says.
And sixthly, he has enhanced spiritual awareness. He knows immediately who Jesus is. In words that don’t come from him, it’s clear he knows that Jesus has power over his spiritual condition. “What do you want with me?” he says.
Nothing in our world can deal with this kind of thing. Politicians, police, prison, probation – none of it makes any difference. Only Jesus can set people free from this kind of oppression.
I think of Beth Eckert who, by the age of 13, was severely depressed and suicidal. At 14, her boyfriend raped her, filling her with hatred and rage.
At 15, her ex-boyfriend committed suicide and she blamed herself and started self-harming.
She then met the son of a high priestess in a coven. He led her into pagan witchcraft. She got into drugs and embraced the persona of a witch, dabbling in the occult.
But, to cut a long story short, one day Beth walked into a church and she knew she had come home. She got cleaned up and sorted out. She got baptized.
This is how she puts it: “I had no idea all these years what I was missing out on by not knowing Jesus. I had been using his name as a swear word. I had mocked him and tore down everything I had heard about him. And all that time he was just holding out his hand to me, loving me and never condemning me.”
I think of Shane Taylor, one of the six most violent men in Britain’s prisons. It took six prison officers at a time to subdue him.
But one day, after 8 years in jail for violent crime, a prison chaplain showed him from the Bible why Jesus died on the cross. Shane asked God to reveal himself if he was real. Something welled up from deep in his belly, his emotions overflowed and he found himself crying.
“At that moment,” he says, “I knew God had touched me and heard my prayers. All the hate, anger and resentment seeped away, leaving me feeling lifted.” Shane is now a settled family man who runs Alpha courses in prisons.
Jesus meets people in dark places and he lifts them into the light. He totally saves. He alone has authority over evil.
As soon as they meet, Jesus says, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”
He falls to his knees and shouts, ”What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”
Notice, dark powers know exactly who Jesus is. They call him “Son of the Most High God.” Spot-on! They know that he has authority over all angels, including fallen ones, which is what evil spirits are. There’s no one equal to Jesus and they know it.
Then he shouts, “In God’s name, don’t torture me.” So not only do dark powers know who Jesus is, they also know they’re going to hell. Satan knows that when Jesus shows up, it’s game over.
Jesus asks, “What’s your name?” The man replies “My name is Legion, for we are many.” A Roman Legion was a battalion of three to six thousand soldiers. But demons boast and lie and there probably weren’t that many.
At their request, Jesus consents to send them into the pigs. There were 2,000 of them nearby which is quite a herd.
According to industry sources, the average market price of a whole pig in the UK today is £138. So at today’s prices we’re looking at £275,000 worth of livestock.
People are naturally troubled by this, and to be honest my first thought was “No! All that bacon…” but the point is this: the people in town loved their pigs more than they loved this man. Jesus values one man, made in God’s image, more than 2,000 swine who aren’t.
As I draw to a close, there are two twists at the end of the story. The first comes in v15-17. People hear about what happened and they see this man sitting by Jesus’ feet, showered, shaved and dressed. What has happened to Mr. Weirdo?
He has met Jesus. And Jesus changes people. He still does. Jesus transforms, sometimes overnight, the most wretched, messed up people who seem beyond hope - and he makes people new.
You’d have thought the villagers might say, “Wow, this is amazing! Jesus, how did you do that? We tried everything for him and nothing worked. Please stay.”
But no. They want Jesus out of the area. They actually beg him to leave. Why? Firstly, they’re afraid. “This is weird. I’m officially freaked out. We don’t know where this is leading. What’s going to happen next?” This is a surprisingly common reaction to God doing something new.
Secondly, they want Jesus gone because they think too much of their pigs. They value their lucrative pork business and the prosperity it brings more than they value the welfare of a fellow human being. So, “Jesus, you’d better leave.”
The final twist is in v18. As Jesus gets into the boat, the man says, “Can I come too?” What a great idea! This guy’s going to need follow up. And he’ll be great to warm up the crowd with his amazing testimony whenever Jesus is invited to speak. It’s win-win. Perfect...
But Jesus says, “No. Go home to your people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.”
Why does Jesus say that? Because, as we’ll see in three weeks’ time, the next time Jesus shows up in the Decapolis (in chapter 8), 4,000 people come to hear him. Between chapter 5 and chapter 8, this guy is busy – and productive.
To end then, how does this story meet your life?
· Are you exhausted and needing to set time apart for relaxation and spiritual replenishment? Is today the day you open your diary and mark off some time to rest and meet with God?
· I’m not suggesting anyone here today is where this man was but if you are in any kind of dark place will you come into the light and let Jesus change your heart this morning?
· Are you, like the villagers, scared of God? Are you keeping Jesus at arm’s length, wanting him to go away? Aslan is not a tame lion. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Jesus will not be domesticated to accommodate your fears or mine. Will you let God be God today?
· Like the villagers, do you love things more than people? Will you ask God to give you a new heart today so your priorities are the same as his?
· Or is the Lord challenging you to serve him where he wants, rather than where you want? The area he wants you to serve may not be the most comfortable, but it’s where you will be most fruitful.
Let’s pray…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 27 August 2017
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