Luke 8:26-39
Please turn in your copy of God’s
Word to Luke’s Gospel. Our reading today is Luke chapter
8, verses 26 through 39. This story also appears in the
other gospels, Mark being shorter and briefer, Matthew being about
the same in length. Other of the gospel accounts,
there are two men who are demon possessed. Here in Luke’s gospel,
there is only one. Also, in another of the gospel
accounts, we are told that the man who was possessed by demons
was cutting himself with pieces of pottery or rock. And that is omitted from this
gospel story. Here now with me God’s word beginning
in verse 26 of chapter 8 of Luke. This is Jesus and his disciples
who’ve just been out on the sea and the storm had been calmed.
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite
Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on
land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For
a long time he had worn no clothes and he had not lived in a house,
but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out,
he fell down before him, and he said with a loud voice, what
have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? I beg
you, do not torment me. For he had commanded the unclean
spirit to come out of the man. For many a time it had seized
him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles,
but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into
the desert. Jesus then asked him, what is
your name? And he said, legion for many
demons have entered him. And they begged him not to command
them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was
feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them
enter these. So he gave them permission. Then
the demons came out of the man, entered the pigs, and the herd
rushed down the steep bank into the lake where they were drowned.
When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told
it in the city and in the country. And the people went out to see
what had happened. And they came to Jesus and found the man from
whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed
and in his right mind. And they were afraid. And those
who had seen it told them how the demon possessed man had been
healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the
Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized
with great fear. So he got into the boat. And
he returned the man from whom the demons had gone out begged
that he might be with him. But Jesus sent him away saying,
return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.
And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how
much Jesus had done for him. Let us pray together. Almighty
God, we submit ourselves this day to your word, we pray that.
It would be over us that it would judge us, that it would speak
into our lives and our hearts. We pray that we might hear it,
believe it, understand it, treasure it and live it for your glory,
for the sake of those who need to know Christ and for our own
good. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Many of us give nicknames
to scary people. If you think back to your literature
classes in maybe high school, you had to read To Kill a Mockingbird
and there was Boo Radley. There was the Boo Radley house.
And I think in every neighborhood I’ve ever lived in, as a child,
but also even into my adult days, there’s always the house we identify
as the Boo Radley house. That’s where the scary person
lives. You don’t walk by their house
at night. You walk by and you think they’re
peeping out the curtains at you. The yard is overgrown. The shrubs
cover the windows. The house needs painting. The
shutters are bit off kilter and on and on our imaginations go
and so we simply name-call we nickname the scary people the
other day we were sitting around the family table and we were
remembering back in the 1980s in a neighborhood we lived in
there was a family they were from Germany they had the Mercedes
with the foreign license plates and we were pretty sure I mean
this was a Back in the Soviet era days, we were pretty sure
they were communist. So we referred to them as the
communist. And it’s how we cope with scary
people, isn’t it? It’s what we do. We, however,
dear brothers and sisters, need to remember that every person
is a human made in the image of Almighty God. We need to see
past the scary, see past the bent and see past the broken.
and see past those who are shackled and under the tyranny of Satan. My wife during college years
worked in a mentorship program and the lady who headed up the
program named Mary said to the girls who were in these mentor
mentee positions, she said, the scarier they look, the more they
are screaming out for your help. But Jesus in our passage meets
legion. Now, I think in our passage,
Satan meets. Jesus. There’s a showdown, as
it were, in Gentile territory. And this is a showdown of age
old promise. Remember after Adam and Eve sinned
in the garden, God told Adam and Eve, life is going to be
hard. You’ve left the garden. I’m sending
you into the jungle. You had order and now you go
out into chaos because of sin. You are sinful, you are miserable,
you are estranged from Almighty God, and there will be a perpetual
ongoing war until the end of times between the seed of Eve,
Jesus, and the seed of the serpent, Satan. And Satan will continually
nip at the heels of God’s people until one day Jesus comes and
crushes the serpent’s head. Last week we sang a good Easter
hymn, sing choirs of New Jerusalem. And it speaks in that hymn, I
think in the second line, he’s crushed the serpent’s head. Well, there’s still a battle
and it rages in the lives of some worse than in others. And Legion here is an example
of that. I want us to look at this passage
under a handful of headings. They all begin with P. The first
P is possession. You have legion, a man possessed
by demons. And you understand that in the
Roman lingo, a legion of soldiers was somewhere between two and
6,000 men. And so when Jesus asked legion,
what is your name? He says, or maybe it’s the demon
who speaks for him. Our name is Legion for we are
many. You understand that’s not legions
real name. But the demons, they speak up
for this man. There are many demons in Legion. Thousands of demons in him. This
man is unconverted and he is he is possessed. We’re told of
his behavior. He’s full of demons. He’s often
naked. He lives in the tombs. He is
often seized by these demons. The people around him chain him
from which he breaks free. And he often goes in the desert. He is a maniac, we might would
say. He is a demoniac. He is a man. super possessed by evil. And
he has the people of his town and countryside on edge. They
fear for their lives. He’s bad for business. He’s the
Boo Radley of the neighborhood. He’s the neighbor you wish would
get transferred. He’s the neighbor you wish would
up and move. He’s the neighbor you don’t like
seeing down the sidewalk. It’s bad for real estate values,
we might say. We need to remember, dear brothers
and sisters, that after the fall, when Adam and Eve sinned, the
brokenness that descended not only on all creation, but on
human beings. We were made in the image of
God and not knowledge and righteousness and holiness. We were given dominion
over the creatures. And that was bent. It was bruised.
It was twisted. And it is askew until Christ
comes and makes it all new again. But here is a man who not only
suffers the effects of total depravity and radical corruption,
There’s the then some. This man is possessed by demons. And like Jesus, we need to look
past this and we need to see a man, a human broken and bruised
and his form is bending low beneath life’s crushing load from this
sin filled world. There’s possession. There’s also
in this passage power. If you were to make your way
through Luke and list every time Jesus opened his mouth and commanded,
peace, be still. Or he touched a leper and said,
be clean. Or he touched a woman who had
suffered for so long in her life and said, be well. Or he touched
the dead and said, my child, sit up. He took bread and gave
thanks and fed 5,000. On and on you could go as you
made your way through just Luke’s gospel. And you would see that
Jesus is able to open his mouth. And as he speaks, he is Lord
and master over all creation and over all humanity. And he
can make what’s wrong with this world right. By the same powerful
world that spoke and the world we see came into being, the same
powerful world that Colossians tells us upholds everything,
this same tongue, these same lips can speak. And by the power
of almighty God, he can bind the strong man in a life-like
legion. He can take his darkness and
give him light. He can bring him from death to
life. He can come and make his blessings flow as far as the
curse is found. Friends, what does salvation
do? What does the power of God do in the life of a man like
Legion or in the life of someone like me or you? You see, in Southern
American Christianity, we’ve really reduced salvation to this. You don’t want to go to hell,
do you? And the person says, no, of course I don’t. And so
we say, just believe on Jesus and you’ll go right to heaven
when you die. Well, that is true, isn’t it? Part of our salvation
is our glorification. We will be made perfect as we
enter glory. We will die to sin no more. But
friends, there’s a Christian life. There’s a reality to our
lives as we are disciples of Jesus. And by his power, he sanctifies
us. We are no longer children of
darkness, but children of light. We are no longer set apart for
ungodliness and unholiness and wickedness and death, but we
are set apart to be children of the king. And he puts his
spirit in us and makes us clean. He clothes us. He puts us in
our right minds. He renews our hearts and our
wills so that we know and love the word of God and we know and
live the word of God. That’s what Jesus has done here
by his power for legion. Friends, Jesus changes everything.
He comes to make his blessings known as far as the curse is
found. And it doesn’t matter how dark,
it doesn’t matter how many demons, it doesn’t matter what addictions
or what sin sickness there is in your soul. It doesn’t matter
how thick are Satan’s chains. It does not matter how weak and
wounded and sick and sore you are from sin. Jesus’ almighty
power is over all. And he calms and he speaks and
he can say to you, like he said to this demoniac, he can command
these demons to depart. He can demand sin to depart.
He can demand Satan to be bound and the strong man cast out of
your house. There’s possession in this passage,
there’s power, but there’s also there’s pigs. This passage is
an offense to those who, well, maybe from Eastern Carolina.
It’s a big part of our economy, isn’t it? These passages are
an offense if you’re of the PETA stripe. These passages are an
offense if you like all three kinds of North Carolina barbecue,
the Eastern, the Middle and the Western kind. But I don’t want
you to miss out on what’s going on here. A lot of times we focus
on the pigs and say, oh, the poor pigs. Don’t miss out on what’s taking
place here. What is Jesus doing? He’s casting the demons into
the pigs. And where do the pigs go? They
go into the lake. What does Jesus promise to do
with all evil one day? To cast it into the lake of fire.
And so here you see a little picture of what’s to come. And
you even see that the demons know this. Oh, Jesus, don’t send
us into the abyss. Don’t send us there yet, at least.
That’s their ultimate judgment. At least send us into the pigs.
and into the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is just water.
It’s not the eternal torment appointed for the demons and
the fallen angels who do not love and serve Almighty God.
Don’t miss out in this little vignette of the pigs. We sing
in Martin Luther’s hymn, a mighty fortress is our God. Low his
doom is sure. One little word shall fail him. And you see that Jesus is able
to cast out the demons and to send them away to their judgment. The story of the pigs is maybe
insignificant to us. But it is significant to the
demoniac. It is significant even to the demons themselves. All
things, including pigs, serve the glory of God. They serve
his ends and his purposes. There’s possession in this gospel
story, there’s power, there’s pigs, there’s also Another P,
there’s the populace. There’s the people of the surrounding
countryside. There’s the people of the garrisons. Decapolis, this ten city area
that’s on one of the opposite ends of the Sea of Galilee, where
Jesus has done his ministry. It’s a it’s a cliffside overhang
over the sea. There’s there’s tombs along the
shore. You go up the hill past the tombs
where legion would have lived. And you go into these ten cities
of Gentile territory. And you can imagine what terror
and what fear is our passage gives us. had filled these people
when their Boo Radley, as it were, their scary person had
been healed. He was clothed. He was in his
right mind. He was sitting at the feet of
Jesus. And their response is this. Jesus, we’ve gotten together. We’ve taken a vote and we don’t
think it’s good for you to be here. You’re bad for business,
too. And so they kicked Jesus out of their area. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
We live in America where you used to have God in schools.
You used to have prayer in schools or in the governing arena. We were one nation under God
and we’ve kicked Jesus out of the schools. We’ve tried to file
his name off our coins where it no longer says in God we trust.
We’ve kicked God out of the family. We’ve kicked God, for the most
part, out of the mainline church in America. And we wonder why,
don’t we? God doesn’t bless America. Well,
we’ve thrown them out. We’re just like the people of
the garrisons. Jesus is a little too scary for
us. He’s a little too radical for us. He changes a little too
much. He upsets status quo. And we get a bit nervous. Well,
we’ve all gotten together, they said, and we’ve agreed it’s time
for you to go, Jesus. Too much fear, too much upset. He took the darkest of their
dark. and brought light and it has
upset their apple cart. Well, there’s a final P in this
passage and it’s purpose. Legion has a new purpose in life. He’s going to do something for
the Lord. And, you know, sometimes we think we have to do something
big for God. I’m going to be a missionary.
I’m going to be a preacher. I’m going to go to Bible school.
I’m going to translate the Bible into foreign languages. And there
are some people for whom that is their calling. But I want
to encourage you as Jesus did Legion. We don’t have to be on
the front line. We don’t have to be on the cutting
edge. We don’t have to be out there. We don’t have to be across
the world doing transcultural things. Sometimes God’s best
work for us is in the everyday normal kingdom business. Sometimes God’s best plan for
us and best use of us is in everyday life. It’s in every Monday morning. You got to roll out the trash
cans. How many times a day you’re changing diapers or at least
three times a day you’re doing the dishes, you’re sweeping the
carpets, you’re vacuuming the rug, you’re hosting someone at
your home, being hospitable, you’re in worship, you’re out
and about in the community, in the neighborhood. It’s, dear
friends, the normal kingdom business. What does Jesus tell Legion? You go to your home, you go to
your town and you go to your region and you tell everyone
you can, what God has done for you. And that’s exactly what
Legion does. He returns and he tells the whole
countryside, Hey, I’m Legion. I’m the scary guy. I’ve gotten
a haircut. I’ve shaved my beard. I’ve got
clothes on. And guess what? Jesus did this
for me. He’s the first preacher into
the Gentile land in some sense. They kicked Jesus out, but Jesus
sent a missionary in. What are we to take away from
a passage like this? Well, I want us to think very
hard as Christians, as people of the church, about the attitude
of the people of the garrisons. You know, sometimes as Christians
and especially sometimes people in the church, we don’t want
to upset the apple cart. We don’t want to upset status
quo. And so we like things the way
we like things. I want to leave you with this
thought today. As Christians, as a company of
saints, as a church of God’s people who gather week by week
to worship and to grow and to serve. How might we be like the
people of the Gerasenes? And too much Jesus is too much
for us. Too much Jesus is too much for
the countryside. Too much Jesus, well, it’s just
that, it’s too much Jesus. How can we be Christ-centered
and let that light shine into a dark world and pick up the
broken pieces, the shattered pieces in the lives of our own
but also in this community. Let us pray together. Our Lord
and God, we thank you and we bless you for a story like this
where we can look and see someone so beat up and bruised and shattered
and into pieces because of evil and sin and how Jesus can make
all things new and make all things right. We pray that as a church,
as a company of believers, as families, as individuals, as
witnesses into this community, that we might go and tell all
who will hear who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Help us to be bold, help us to
be joyful in our duty, and help us to never ever say, too much
Jesus, too much fear. too much disruption, but to be
a Christ-centered people for Christ is the answer for what
ails the world in this day and in all ages. And we pray your
blessing and help in Jesus name.