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In the name of Jesus, amen.
The Holy Scriptures remind us that we, Christians, are surrounded by enemies on every side: the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Old Testament and New Testament remind us that the devil and his demons are after the Lord’s people. And especially, we see this in the Gospel, more than in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and the book of Acts. In the Gospels, in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the demons swarming and surrounding, drawn to Jesus, like a moth to the flame or to the fire. When the kingdom of God appears, when the kingdom of Jesus appears, the kingdom of the devil is overthrown. The light casts out the darkness. The darkness cannot overcome it.
So, especially in our Gospel text, it’s a wild story. Jesus takes the disciples across the Sea of Galilee to the land of Gerasene, seems specifically for this purpose, to find this man. Matthew tells us, by the way, that there were two men that were there, but Luke just focuses on the one man who had been so troubled by the demons that he was living outside of the town in the cemetery, that he was naked, that they had tried to bind him with ropes and chains, but that he had broken free from these and was a terror to the people who were afraid of him there.
Jesus comes and has this conversation with him. He asks his name, “Legion,” he says, because there were many in there, and the demons we see are afraid of Jesus. They beg Him not to send them to the abyss, but rather to let them go into the pigs. Strangely enough, Jesus grants them their request, and so the demons leave the man and go into the herd of pigs. The pigs, with insanity, rush over the cliff and drown in the sea, and all the people are astonished at this. They run back into town, and we’re going to come back to this point later, but they run back into town, they say what happens, and they come back and they find Jesus sitting there with the man who’s clothed, and he’s in his right mind, and he’s having this conversation with Jesus and the disciples. All the people find this situation frightful, so that they say to Jesus, “You need to leave.”
So Jesus and the disciples leave. The man who’s rescued says, “Please let me stay with you,” and Jesus says, “No, you have work to do now. Go back to your town and speak of how much I’ve done for you,” and so he does.
Now, this text challenges us first, and I think we’ll think maybe about three things about the text, but it challenges us first because… well, because we most of the time don’t even think about these kind of spiritual realities, I think. Modern man has a horizontal life, a two-dimensional life. We think of the things that are around us. We think of the things that are in front of us in the future, behind us in the past, but we don’t think about the things that are above us or below us. We live this kind of very flat life.
The Scriptures give us a vertical life. They say that there’s so much that’s above us, the throne room of God and the angel hosts singing His praises and life everlasting. And also that there’s so much below us, that there’s a danger that’s there, that the demons and the darkness are always there, that there’s a hell below, that there’s a place where those who do not know the love of God in Christ will spend eternity. And so the Bible has this very vertical existence; the things that are important are the things that are above us and below us. When the Bible opens that up to us, it becomes quite frightful.
I remember after church, we were going to leave and take the kids up to Catechism Retreat and take them there into the mountains in Colorado. There’s a particular mountain at the camp called Cedar Mountain, and it’s a pretty… I mean it’s not huge, you can hike up it in a few hours, but I remember the first time I hiked up that mountain was at night in the dark. A couple of guys who had been up there before and I went up there and we hiked up the trail and hiked up the mountain and got to the top. I thought, “Oh, that’s kind of nice,” and we went back down, and no big deal until I went up the next year in the daytime. I said, “We were walking next to that cliff?” I didn’t realize that that ladder was there, barely tied onto the rock, and I couldn’t believe…
So we didn’t realize that there was this place to fall, and I was amazed seeing it in the light. That’s kind of how the Scriptures are. The light comes on, and we see that, whoa, there’s a lot going on down there. The demons are busy. The devil is active. There’s a lot of things for this to go wrong, and the result is, I think, when we recognize that there’s a life below us that the Bible talks about with the devil and the demons, the result is that we become afraid. When we consider how, like a roaring lion, the devil is tracking us down to seek how he can devour us, and we suddenly realize that, that we recognize the danger that we’re in, we become afraid.
But, dear saints, listen to this first of all: the devil is not to be feared. Jesus does not tell you about the devil and the demons to make you afraid. Luke did not write this story in his gospel so that you would be afraid. I’m not preaching this story to you this morning so that you would be afraid. In fact, quite the opposite: the devil is the conquered enemy. It says in this, 1 John says, “For this reason the Son of God was manifest, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” Hebrews 2, that just as we have flesh and blood, Jesus Himself partook of the same, so that through His death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil. Jesus says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Jesus’ death and resurrection is the overcoming of the kingdom of darkness.
And so the reason why we have this story is so that we would not be afraid, so that we would know that Jesus, with a word, sends the demons away, that Jesus, with a word, delivers and rescues us, that Jesus, with a word, brings healing and health and peace, so that we would trust in Him. But here’s the thing that happens, and this is strange; I mean maybe it’s not as strange as it is at first sight, but this is the last thing I want us to think about with this text, because while the people were afraid of this man who was so troubled, living in the cemetery there, naked, breaking chains and everything, when Jesus rescues him, they’re still afraid. And they’re afraid of Jesus.
You would think that they would see Jesus accomplish this great deliverance and they would say, “Hey, Jesus, we’ve got some more work for you to do. Come on into town with us and we’ll show you a few more problems that you can fix, a few more diseases that you can heal, a few more afflictions that you can deliver. Stay with us for a while and bless us with your strength and with your wisdom and with your kindness.” You would think that’s how it goes, but the opposite happens, right? They’re afraid of Jesus.
It’s not, and this is the point, it’s not just frightful for us to look down. It’s also frightful for us to look up and to realize that there are things happening above us as well. It reminds us of Peter, remember when Jesus steps on the boat and they catch all the fish and he says, “Depart from me, Lord, I’m a sinful man.” Or Isaiah, when the curtain is pulled back and he sees God sitting on the throne and he says the same thing: “Woe is me, I’m undone, I’m a man of unclean lips and I live amidst a people of unclean lips.” In other words, when we recognize that we’re also in the presence of holiness, in the presence of God, that’s also a frightful thing for us.
Now, there’s a way that that’s right. We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. But the way that they do it here in the text, the way that these villagers do it, is wrong. It’s almost like they had gotten so used to this man with the demon; they’d gotten so used to this trouble, they’d gotten so used to this affliction, they had adjusted to it, and any sort of change is frightful to them. Someone said on the way, after the first service on the way to Bible class, they said it’s the old saying: “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” Here, the devil that they knew is better than the Savior that they were about to know.
There’s a way, and this is the problem, there’s a way that we become uncomfortable, even afraid, of the gifts that Jesus is bringing to us. Here’s how I’ve seen it, and I need you to help me on this to think about it, and you can let me know what you think as well, but here’s how I’ve seen it in myself and in you as well as we talk about these things: we get used to our sin. We get used to our trouble. We get used to our anger. We get used to our worry. We get used to our frustration or our rage or our lust or whatever it is.
I remember I was talking to someone one time, and they were worried. They were so worried about what was going to happen, and so we opened the Scriptures that said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow. The Lord will be with you,” and we prayed, and we said, “Lord, you’ve told us not to worry. So all of these things that we’re anxious about, now we’re going to give to you so that you can take care of us and that you can bless us.” We prayed, and we said amen. Then I looked at the person, and I said, “How do you feel?” And they said, “Frustrated.”
I said, “Well, why? What’s wrong now? Why frustrated?” He said, “Well, because I… I don’t know how to not worry.” You just get used to it. And so it’s hard to imagine Jesus taking your worry. It’s hard to imagine Jesus taking your frustration. It’s hard to imagine Jesus taking your anger. It’s hard to imagine Jesus taking away the demons because you’ve gotten used to it.
This is also a warning for us, that while the kingdom of darkness is nothing to be afraid of because Jesus has triumphed, the kingdom of light is also nothing to be afraid of. Following Jesus is not something that we should shrink back from. His gifts are not something that we should be wary of. He loves you and desires the best for you, and He gives that all to you, both in His law and in His gospel.
Jesus changes things. He changes the way that we think. He changes the way that we act. He changes the way that we talk. He changes the way that we live. He changes the decisions that we make. He changes how we relate to one another. He changes how we think about heaven and hell, about life and death, about eternity and judgment, about ourselves and the people around us. He changes all of this, and all of it is for the better.
So Jesus comes to deliver us, and our response is not to send Him away, but to rejoice in His presence, to delight in His kindness and His Word, to love His face and His home, the place where His glory dwells. So may God grant it. May God grant us first to live this life that recognizes the above and below, and may God take away the fear both of the darkness and of the light so that we would live as His children in His kingdom. May God grant us this wisdom for the sake of Christ. Amen. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
