Lord willing I might be teaching my old youth group back in KC over Thanksgiving. As such I figured I would teach on Mark 5:1-20. I am wondering if anyone has the time if they could provide some constructive feedback to the sermon/message. I’ll warn you that the sermon is in manuscript form–it’s what helps me preach most effectively–so it’s a little long, 10 pages in Microsoft Word. So if you don’t have time to read all ten pages before the holiday it’s okay.

Text: Mark 5:1-20 NET

The Bible is a story, God’s story

One of the convictions I have recently come to while reading the Scripture is that, more than anything, it is a story. No, it is God’s story. It is the story about God. How he has created the universe, how it went astray, and how God is restoring that creation to what it was originally intended to be. It tells the story of how the world around us is as horrible as it is. The Bible tells the story of why we as human beings trash this planet and each other. It is our story. And God wants us to read the Bible this way. He wants us to read this story.

To be sure, this story is actual history. It really did take place in space and time. For if this story did not happen in history, like the stories of the Greek gods or the Egyptian gods, then the meaning of this story is lost. God is no longer creator, he is no longer redeemer. Who God is we see in how he acts in actual history. The Bible is the accurate telling of the story of God in actual human history. But it is still a story nonetheless.
What this means is that the bible cannot be reduced down to mere propositional truth statements. It cannot be reduced down to only systematic theology. To do so is to drown out the voices of the various authors and to lose sight of the grand story that is the Bible.
And so when we come to Jesus and his part in God’s story, there is a context to Jesus. We must understand Jesus in the context of the larger story. Too often, when I have read the gospels, I have merely assumed that Jesus was predicted in the prophets in a few passages and never really went back to see how those prophecies worked and how Jesus fits into them. So before we get to Mark, we need to step back and look at the wider context of the Bible and how Jesus fits in.

Recounting God’s Story from Adam to Jesus

So let us recount the story of the Bible, God’s story, so far. God created the world. He created humanity to represent him upon and in that creation and to rule over it and spread his image over and in it. But humanity failed to take dominion over the creation. The relationship that humanity was to have over the created order was turned on its head when humanity surrendered the authority and dominion that they were to have over to creation and did not subdue it.

So God punished the creation and humanity for its rebellion. But promised from the seed of the woman one would come who would and defeat the rebellion, crushing the head of the serpent who usurped humanity’s dominion for itself while the serpent crushed the offspring’s foot. And so God began this story of redemption in Abram, calling him and promising great blessing to his seed. The promise of the seed has now come to Abram. And God produced an entire nation, comprised of twelve tribes, from Abram’s children called Israel.
God redeemed Israel from slavery to show that they are the people of the true God, the Creator of the universe. He established laws and ceremonies for them so that they could be his people and he could be their God. In this nation the world was to see God.

As promised to Judah through Jacob, God established the scepter in Israel when he raised David, son of Jesse, to be king over Israel. David was God’s man, unlike the previous king who was a man that the people wanted, a king like the pagan and sinful nations around them. Yahweh then established a covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7. God would see to it that a son in the line of David would always sit on the throne over Israel. When the king went astray Yahweh would chastise and rebuke him so that the errant king would come back. The throne would always belong to David’s house.

Indeed God was faithful to his word. Solomon succeeded David as king, and Rehoboam succeeded Solomon. The family line remained on the throne. But like David, Solomon fell into sin and idolatry. As punishment, Yahweh divided the nation into two kingdoms. Israel was the kingdom of ten tribes in the north, governed in Samaria by wicked kings. Judah was the nation in the south and was governed by the line of David in Jerusalem. Israel immediately went astray and fell into idolatry. Judah stayed on course, somewhat, depending on the monarch. But the king was always from David’s house as Yahweh promised.
God sent prophets to both Israel, in the north, and Judah. These prophets warned of the coming invasion from the north; that Yahweh, their God, would invoke the covenant curse of exile if they failed to repent and return to their covenant relationship. Yahweh was ready to take them back if they would just come back. He was ready to accept their worship and sacrifices. The south did on occasion under the kings like Uziah and Hezekiah and Josiah. The north failed completely.

Yahweh invoked the covenant curse of exile. In 722 BCE, Assyria invaded the northern kingdom of Israel and completely destroyed its capital, Samaria, and depopulated the region of Hebrews. In 586/7 BCE, Babylon sacked Jerusalem and completed its third trip into Judah to take back exiles. The Israel that was established under Moses and Joshua and reigned over by David was gone.
But these same prophets, particularly Isaiah, also promised that there would be a day coming when Israel would be returned from her exile. God would do three things, two really. First he would raise up a new king from the house of David. Isaiah goes back even further and says this king will come from Jesse, David’s father. He is to be a second David. The second thing is that Yahweh will pour out his Spirit upon this king to lead and guide the people, and upon the land to recreate the earth in the Edenic paradise that existed before humanity fell. God would then call not just Israel out of exile in Babylon and Assyria, but all of the nations to come back from their exile from the presence of God. This servant would bear the guilt of his people, those who would be called back, before God and be raised to new life as the Righteous One. And those who this Righteous One intercedes for will be vindicated and delivered from their exile and returned to paradise.

Judah was released from her captivity by the Medo-Persian emperor Cyrus. They went back to the land of Judah and rebuilt Jerusalem and their temple. But there was no King, no Servant, no Righteous One. God did not pour out his Spirit upon the land and recreate the earth into paradise. These promises went unfulfilled and in fact were still being promised through prophets whom God raised up in this post-exilic community of Jews. The expectation of an anointed king, a Messiah, was still there. The people are expecting a king from David’s line to rise up and restore them to their former glory under King David.

This is the context to our story. Just look at how the Gospel of Mark opens up, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Messiah, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1) Note the two titles that Mark ascribes to Jesus. Messiah is the title of the expected king would come and liberate Israel from her captivity and restore Zion to her former glory. In Psalm 2, the king of Israel is called the Yahweh’s messiah. In 2 Samuel 7:12-14 those from David’s house who sit on the throne of Israel will be called by Yahweh his own son. In Psalm 2 Yahweh declares to the king that the king is Yahweh’s son when he is put on the throne. These are titles that indicate that Jesus is the expected king.

Look further at Jesus baptism in Mark 1:9-11. When Jesus is baptized into the Jordan River, the Spirit of God descends upon him and a voice from heaven declares, “You are my beloved Son. In you I take delight.” As in Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 42 the Spirit comes upon the Davidic king-servant. As in 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 2 the Davidic king is called God’s Son. Jesus is the King-Servant that has been expected in prophets of old. The last days Israel expected are here. As Jesus himself says when he enters into Galilee to preach, “The time is fulfilled and the God’s kingdom has drawn near” (Mark 1:14-15).

This Spirit who anoints Jesus is the Spirit anticipated in Isaiah 11. He is given wisdom and knowledge, as his teaching demonstrates. He fears Yahweh, as he does not fail in his temptations in the wilderness. Jesus is shrewd as his interactions with those who oppose him demonstrate.

As Isaiah predicts, Jesus goes about and begins to enact his reign. His teaching and miracles demonstrate his authority as the Davidic King-Servant. Nature, demons, disease, frail and injured human bodies all respond to his command. The people are astonished and frightened by his authority. Jesus also brought back to mind the grace that God was doing in his work. Yes Jesus was showing his power, but it an authority that was merciful. The coming Messiah was to liberate the poor and captive and to restore health and sight.

After convincing his disciples that he was indeed the Messiah that Isaiah had promised, Jesus’ message took a startling change. It was not one of removing the yoke of Rome from the neck of Judah. Rather, upon their confession of Jesus as Messiah (Mark 8:29), he began to talk about the Messiah having to surrender to the authorities—his own kinsmen as well as the Gentiles—and suffer and die at their hands. But on the third day he was rise again. This is what Isaiah said he would do in bearing their sins and cleansing his people. This is how Isaiah said that Yahweh’s people would be vindicated and returned to paradise. Yet they did not believe him. Jesus said in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” This is what Isaiah said in his prophecy (53:10-12) but it did not fit their notions of how this King-Servant from Jesse’s house would restore them to their lost land of paradise.

But Jesus did surrender to the authorities. They hated him because he challenged their authority. He challenged their hold on the people. His power displayed in mercy offended them and they wanted him dead. So through bribing a member of his inner circle—as foretold by their own prophets—they forced Jesus through a farce of a trial, perverting justice. They sent him to the Gentiles and they condemned him knowing there was nothing to condemn him for. He was crucified. He bore the worst sinful humanity could throw at him. He took on their evil upon himself, surrendering to the will of the Yahweh. And in dying, Jesus offered up his body, his life, and his death as the means to atone, to make restitution, for those who would follow him. He went to that cross to represent his people, the many, so that God could execute his wrath fully upon them in Jesus.

In displaying such love, such mercy, such obedience and righteousness, God vindicated Jesus and raised him from the dead. He was vindicated over the injustice, vindicated over humanity’s sin, over the power of the evil demonic forces that plague and rule over the earth. God declared Jesus to be just and righteous and holy and rewarded him with a body that marks the new age that the Jews had indeed been expecting. He was given the life that comes from the new age and new creation that the Spirit was going to bring about, predicted in Isaiah.

That’s the context in which we come to our passage.

Healing a Demoniac

As we begin Mark 5:1-20, the reader must remember what has just happened. At the conclusion of Mark 4, Jesus does something very significant. The disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee. While crossing the lake, a violent storm came upon them. Even these fishermen who knew the lake well were terrified, probably because they know the lake so well. They wake Jesus and complain about him sleeping while they are about to die. Jesus’ response is one that is very shocking, he rebukes the wind and says, “Be quiet. Be still” (Mark 4:39). The wind storm stops and waters are completely calm. The disciples in Mark 4:41 have only one question, “Who is this that also the wind and the sea obey him?” That is the question Mark leaves his readers with as he transitions into our text. Who is this Jesus that controls even the weather and the seas?

This is big too because the sea in the Jewish mind is much more than a mere body of water. It is the very symbol of chaos. Just look to Genesis 1 where once earth is created, it is covered by the sea and the earth is without shape or form. In the Psalms and the poetic writings of Israel time and time again the seas are portrayed as chaos and monsters arise out of them. In the New Testament times the great beast of John’s Apocalypse arises from the sea. It is the sea that separates the people from God and is removed when the reader of John’s work reaches the end. Yet Jesus has the authority and power to take dominion over the sea and to calm it at his very command. Only the Messiah was going to be able to do that. Only Yahweh could do that.

And so in our text Jesus and his disciples cross the sea and arrive at the region of the Gerasenes. Now a brief word about geography here. The city Gerasa, from which Gerasenes would come, is about 33 miles away from the Sea of Galilee. It’s territory did not extend that far, herdsmen wouldn’t be able to make that trip in the kind of time that Mark speaks of here, and there are no hills and caves. The city that governs the region of the Gadarenes, as in Matthew 8, doesn’t solve the problem. It is most likely the town of Kersa which is six miles from the Sea and a short distance from the Decapolis. Kersa is an Arabic name that is closely related to the Greek Gerasa. The need for hills and caves along the sea shore in this region is solved as well (see Brooks, Mark in the New American Commentary, pages 89-90).

When Jesus gets out of the boat a man with an unclean spirit, a demon, comes to meet him. I find Mark’s description of the man in Mark 5:3-5 to be quite stunning. The man possesses unnatural strength, constantly breaking any shackles or chains placed upon his wrists and feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Furthermore he would cry out in the mountains and tombs of the region while also cutting him. This guy scares me. He would make anything seen in any movie—including the now beloved “Paranormal Activity,” and no I haven’t seen and don’t need to in order to make that claim—like child’s play.

As Mark records in 5:6, this man doesn’t just coolly walk up to Jesus. He runs to Jesus. He sees Jesus getting out of his boat from a distance and just takes off running. When he gets to Jesus he bows down, in a position of worship. He is acknowledging something that Mark wants the reader to learn. There is something unique about this Jesus. He does works that only God can do and this demoniac bows to him after running a distance to meet up with Jesus.

Note his confession about Jesus in 5:7, “What do you want with me Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg of you by God not to torture me.” The demon asserts that Jesus is the Son of the Most High God. Most High God is a term that goes all the way back to Genesis 14:17-24 when Abraham met up with the priest-king Melchizedek. So to be called the son of the Most High God is to refer to the king. The son language goes back to Mark 1 and the titles being references to the anticipated Davidic King. The demoniac recognizes who Jesus is as the rightful king and Messiah. Knowing this and what it means for him, that Jesus can do with him as he pleases, he strangely invokes God’s name to plead with Jesus not to torture him. We see in 5:8 this was the demon’s response to Jesus command to leave the man. It is important to note these speakers when you read these texts as even though they are demons they can speak the truest statements.

So Jesus enters into a conversation with the demon and asks his name, “What is your name?” The demon answers, “We are Legion because we are many” (5:9). The fact that it is not just one demon oppressing this poor man but several could explain why his behavior was so horrific. Each demon might be responsible for different aspects of his self-destructively violent behavior. And the demons keep begging Jesus not to cast them out of the region. Take note that the verb for beg, parakaleo, in 5:10 is an imperfect tense verb, the action is incomplete and keeps repeating itself.

So in 5:11-12 the demons look around and see a large herd of pigs and beg Jesus to be allowed to go into them. Why the pigs? What about the pigs attracted the demons to them? One reason is that they were the first thing they saw that Jesus might consider allowing them to go into. They weren’t going to bet on getting a shot at another human being. Pig herding might have been big in that region and so there was an abundance of pig herds. But more than that, pigs are unclean animals. The demons are unclean spirits. Unclean is attracted to unclean and so the demons were drawn to the pigs.

But note how Mark describes Jesus response to their proposal of entering the pigs. Mark says, “Jesus gave them permission.” The aorist verb there is epitrepo, which means “to allow” and demonstrates the Messianic and Kingly authority that Jesus has over the demons. Mark is demonstrating the authority that Jesus has over this wicked, perverted, and chaotic order. Thus Mark has identified Jesus as the Davidic King who has authority over demons.

And once in the swine, the demons were free to act in their full self-destructive behavior and drowned the two thousand pigs in the Sea of Galilee. The demons could be seen as returning to the chaotic abyss where they belong. But Mark’s point is that Jesus exercises full authority over the demonic realm as the expected Messiah who has come to establish God’s kingdom in the new heavens and new earth. Just as nature and the weather, and in the next stories disease and death itself, have to obey him so do demons.

Now follow the actions of those who owned the pigs and saw this. They ran back into the town and reported what they saw. The people of the town came to where Jesus and the liberated demoniac were sitting, seeing the man now in his right mind. Note their reaction to seeing what Jesus had done, “fear” and “awe.” What Jesus did was something that hadn’t been done and it scared them. So they asked him to leave their region. They didn’t want him to be around them. They sent their Messiah and Servant-King from Jesse’s Stump away because they didn’t see him for who he was like Legion had.

But as Mark concludes this story, the former demoniac isn’t afraid of Jesus like they are. Again using the imperfect form of the verb parakaleo, Mark 5:18 says the demoniac begged Jesus to let him follow him. Now normally this is the point where Jesus says, “Shh. Don’t tell anyone. Just offer up the appropriate sacrifices according the Law of Moses.”

But this isn’t quite Jesus response as we read 5:19, “Go to your home and to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you, that he mercied you.” Now first I must note that completion of what Jesus did for this man. Mark uses the perfect tense “has done.” The demons are gone and they aren’t coming back. And I chose to not say “have mercy on” but rather “mercied” because it is in the active voice. What Jesus did was to enact mercy in the life of the demoniac. Jesus “mercied” or “graced” the man. He did not just show a merciful disposition towards the man, though Jesus certainly did. Jesus went beyond that and performed mercy in the life of the man through the exorcising of the demons and thus purifying him.

Also note who cast out the demons in Jesus statement, “the Lord.” The Greek term is kyrios, which the LXX (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) uses for Yahweh. Jesus tells the man to go to his home and proclaim what Yahweh, the God of the Jews, has done for him. The man is to proclaim the gospel no doubt. But he is to speak of what Yahweh has done. But what does Mark say the man does? Mark records in 5:20, “He went away into the Decapolis and began to proclaim there what Jesus did for him. And all were amazed.”

He was told to proclaim Yahweh, instead he proclaimed Jesus. In this man’s mind, he could not separate out the work of Yahweh from the work of Jesus. It was one and the same. This Davidic-King is so acting out God’s will that it is seen as God acting. Jesus is perfectly representing God and accomplishing God’s will, that to the man it is God acting. So we see Jesus being that faithful King who obeys God and calls the people of God back to their God, as Isaiah prophesied he would.

But note further that the man went to the Decapolis. That is not a Jewish region. Mark is telling his readers that Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah who came only for the Jews. His people are both Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, rich and poor. Jesus is not racist, sexists, or concerned with age and economic standing. Jesus came to establish God’s kingdom.

Rethinking Jesus and the Christian Life and Message

And that is the point of this story; Jesus is establishing the kingdom of God. Mark is arguing, no proving, that Jesus is the expected King-Servant from Jesse’s stump. And as that King-Servant, Jesus is setting up a kingdom. A kingdom that is free from oppression by a decaying creation and the demonic realm. Jesus is not merely being merciful to people, though he is exercising mercy. Jesus is demonstrating his authority over creation. He is showing that he is the king of the realm which is seen when Yahweh pours out his Spirit upon the land.

This King came and died as an offering for sin, to cleanse a people and to atone for their sin. His reward for his sacrifice is resurrection. God vindicates his Servant by not allowing the enemies of his Servant to prevail against him. They killed him but God raised him. God delivers Jesus from death and the grave. And upon his resurrection he enters into the new age and creation that Isaiah spoke of. That new age and the kingdom that inhabits it has been inaugurated and is here now, awaiting its full consummation in Messiah’s return. It came when the Spirit that came upon Jesus raised him with the resurrection body of the new creation. It is here right now.

Jesus told us the way to participate in that new age and kingdom, God’s great story, in Mark 1:15, “Repent and Believe the good news.” The way we can benefit from the Righteous One’s justifying work and intercession is to believe the good news that he has brought the kingdom near and to repent and return to the Yahweh. But to do so means we must conform ourselves to the image of the crucified Messiah. We too must die. We must take up our cross and follow him. Our lives must mirror Messiah. We must speak truth to our enemies. We must fight disease. We must free the poor from oppression. We must fight the battle against spiritual forces that oppose the coming kingdom. We must love and enact mercy in the lives of our fellow human beings. Those who truly want to enter into the resurrection kingdom will themselves follow suit and die to themselves.

But we must see something very important. Jesus was willing to die because he knew that he would rise. As Isaiah puts it, “I offered my back to those who attacked, my jaws to those who tore out my beard; I did not hide my face from insults and spitting. But the sovereign LORD helps me, so I am not humiliated. For that reason I am steadfastly resolved; I know I will not be put to shame. The one who vindicates me is close by. Who dares to argue with me? Let us confront each other! Who is my accuser? Let him challenge me! Look, the sovereign LORD helps me. Who dares to condemn me? Look, all of them will wear out like clothes; a moth will eat away at them” (50:6-9 NET). Jesus could turn his back to his attackers, his beard to be plucked because he knew that God would vindicate him against them. He obeyed Yahweh and went to the cross.

Consider this prediction of Jesus about his death and resurrection in light of what I just read, “Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31 NET). Or Jesus third prediction in Mark 10:33-34 (NET), “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and experts in the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, spit on him, flog him severely, and kill him. Yet after three days, he will rise again.” Jesus viewed his resurrection as his hope, his vindication, in enduring the cross.

Note how Paul views the resurrection and suffering together in Philippians 3:10-11 (NET), “My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” For Paul to suffer as he does is because his hope is the resurrection. It is in the resurrection that we can have Messiah and know him fullest. But to be resurrected means first we must die. We must be what some called cruciformed, conformed to the image of the crucified Messiah. Sometimes we look at Hebrews 11:29-35 and think that’s what our ministry is going to be like. We forget to read the rest of Hebrews 11 and see that is as normal as the previous part. But the hope they all shared—those who faced lions and saws—was that of resurrection. We think that what is normal for the Christian life is shutting the mouths of lions. We don’t think it’s normal to be sawn asunder and poor and imprisoned. But that is normal because God calls us to be conformed to image of the crucified Messiah, trusting that he will raise us like he raised Jesus, just as those whom Hebrews speaks about to us.

So my question to you today is first this, what do you hope in when you die? Is your hope heaven? Or is it something greater? Is it to be in a place where the wolf and lamb go out to pasture together; where the lion and the serpent and the oxen all lay beside each other in the fields? Is it a new heaven and a new earth lit by the very presence of God in the person of Messiah where there are no tears or death or sorrow? Is it to live in a world where you can live the life God created humanity to live? Is it to return to the paradise that Adam and Eve forfeit in the Garden and to have God call you his own? The only way to have that future is through the hope of the resurrection. It is those who are raised up by Jesus that enter into that kingdom and new earth and heaven and age.

So the question then becomes do you trust Jesus to do that for you? Do you so trust Jesus that you are willing to take your cross and to fill up the cup of Messiah’s suffering by dying yourself in going downtown and serving the poor? Are you willing to take up your cross and go overseas to some disease-ridden, third world country that hates the gospel and proclaim that the King has come and his kingdom is here now? Are you willing? Do you trust Messiah to vindicate you when you go to your cross and die? This is what Jesus means by repent in Mark 1:15, take up your cross and follow him, be conformed to his crucifixion. Do you believe that he will deliver you from death in resurrection power like Paul believes?

Furthermore, are you willing to admit that God is right? Are you willing to admit that you have transgressed his law, both in Adam and personally? That you have rebelled against him and are ready to face his wrath? Do you trust the Righteous One, Jesus Messiah, to intercede on your behalf, to represent you before God the Father in the heavenly realm and to be your righteousness? Do you trust God to vindicate your surrender to his wrath and justify his contention against you in the heavenly court room with resurrection? Do you trust him?