I grew up with them.  They seemed unremarkable.  Hard workers, who loved their wives, were regular at church, and often gathered outside the front doors of the sanctuary to finish that last cigarette before service began.  Their banter was lighthearted.  Laughter and opinions were copiously offered.  The aroma of Old Spice and Vitalis was never absent.  They were a band of brothers, bound by a time and place far removed from the peace of my childhood.

I had heard of some of those places.  Bataan, Coral Sea, Okinawa, Normandy.  Places that, when voiced, would silence laughter and quiet banter.  The old men of my childhood were the boys that fought some of the most devastating battles of the Twentieth Century.  Some endured the horrors of Japanese prison camps.  Others landed on French beaches, code-named ‘Utah’ and ‘Omaha’ to face the furor of Der Fuhrer.

The German strategy was simple: engage the massive Allied invasion force at the waterline and do not allow them to make it off the beach.   And many did not.  D-Day, June 6, 1944, was a pivotal day in modern history.  While not the end of WWII, it was certainly the turning point.  A day that demonstrated that Hitler’s days were numbered.   And his grip on Europe would be broken.  In less than a year, the Allies would be in Berlin and the malignant tyrant, whose name is even now synonymous with evil, would lie dead in a secret bunker.

In Mark 5 we encounter another amphibious assault of sorts.  After a long day of teaching, Jesus instructs his disciples to cross over the Sea of Galilee to the Eastern shore, the region of the Decapolis, the land of Gentiles.  Jesus never explains the move to the disciples.  And the journey quickly becomes deadly when a hurricane-like squall strikes.  The scene in the boat is one of terror.  The disciples wake Jesus, sleeping in the stern, and with a word he does what no mere man can do, stilling the winds and calming the waves.  In awe the disciples ask, “Who is this?”

However, peace is short lived.  Characteristically, Mark notes, “when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.”  In fact, this man was the paradigmatic wretch, possessed by a legion of demons.  His personality almost completely indistinguishable from the demonic horde he hosted.  His violence, his strength, his misery, his terror was infamous in the Decapolis.  Surely here Jesus has met his match.  Like Goliath of old, Legion rushes to engage Jesus and prevent him from breaking its grip on the region.

But Jesus had come to destroy the works of the devil.  With power and authority, he binds the strong man and plunders one of his most prized possessions.   The man, known far and wide, as hopeless is set free, though it came at a cost!  And like the disciples in the boat, the people of the Decapolis are afraid of the power of the Lord Jesus Christ that brings peace.  But what happens next is truly shocking.  The freed man begs to be with Jesus, but the people of the Decapolis beg Jesus to leave.  They preferred their pigs and their demons to Jesus.

What about you?  Jesus is stronger than all your demons. He can free every captive. He can break the grip of what breaks you. But freedom is costly. It cost Jesus and it will cost you. The people of ancient Decapolis preferred pigs and demons to Jesus. What about you? What do you prefer to following Jesus? 

Join us as we examine Mark 5:1-20 and consider Jesus’ power over every demon and our response to Him. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.