Legion - Mark 5: 1-20, Matthew 8:28-34 Luke 8:26-39
We had been on the alert for weeks. Our supreme ruler had encountered Him in the desert and had spent forty days probing and testing Him, trying to find a chink in His armour, a weakness in His spirit, a glimmer of sin in his soul. He had failed and had let it be known in the spirit realm that it was going to take the combined forces of Hell to defeat Him. We knew He was on the move and everything within us bristled with anticipation at the battle which was to come. We did not know how or where or when, but we knew that He had declared war on us with His talk of ushering in the Kingdom of God. We were hungry for a fight - we loved a battle - and we were preparing by increasing our activity in the human realm, recruiting hosts we could use to cause disbelief, inertia, disillusionment and despair in the physical world. In the spiritual world our leaders were planning and plotting their next moves.
We had found an ideal host in this man from Gadara. He was young, liked to think of himself as a radical and a revolutionary, had a sketchy knowledge of the scriptures ( just enough for us to be able to pervert his understanding into something deliciously warped) and he was a sinner. He had a gambling habit, which we delighted in feeding. It was not at all hard for a couple of us to move into his spirit and take hold. After a while more of us arrived. We lay low in his life for a long time, whispering to his gambling habit, encouraging his dishonesty, tempting him to excessive drink. Torment arrived and began to disrupt his sleep. Then Avarice and Gluttony moved in too and the excesses began in earnest. Our host started to properly lose control of his life and when Madness started to speak to his already confused and sleep deprived brain we knew we had full control.
Of course, the downside of our invasion of this pathetic individual was that he was expelled from his community and forced to live on the outskirts of town. Despair suggested that he might find a home in the local graveyard. It was a comfortable and comforting place for all of us to live, and even more of us moved into our host. To all intents and purposes he was now completely mad. We had full control of him and we waited for our leaders to tell us the battle plan whilst enjoying tormenting our subject with thoughts of self harm and suicide.
And then one day it happened. Out of the blue with no warning at all, the blinding, holy, terrifying presence of almighty God was standing in front of us. We screamed in pain as His white hot glory pierced our darkness and with one voice we cried out ' What do you want Jesus Son of God? You can't touch us - it's against the law. We have a right to be here. Our host has given us permission. You cant torment us. Leave us alone' His eyes were staring straight into the eyes of the Gadarene man and try as we might we could not get him to avert his gaze. For the first time since we took possession of the man we were not in control of him. Panic started to rise in us as we realised that this Jesus was God in human form and we had no idea what that meant or what He was going to do to us.
Jesus spoke. We could see the words coming out of His mouth and they were alive like sperm, or like living arrows. His voice was like the sound of a thundering waterfall and He said ' What is your name?' The words advanced towards us like holy weapons and we shrieked in terror. We were powerless as these words entered our beings and forced the truth out of us. We detested and despised the truth more than anything else. We belonged to the Father of lies. But we were forced to speak truth by the question of Jesus and in once voice we screamed ' We are Legion'
'Legion, come out of this man.'
His voice had the power of a magnet. We could feel ourselves being dragged out of the places we had hidden ourselves. We clung onto the man's soul, we tried to anchor ourselves in his sin. We wrapped ourselves round his unbelief. But the command was so violently powerful that we could not remain. As we were wrenched from our strongholds we begged for mercy, asking the Son of God if we could be sent into the pigs on the hillside rather than into the outer darkness. To our immense surprise we found ourselves cast into the animals, but no sooner were we there than we realised we had no ability to control them - pigs don't have spirits and cannot be spiritually manipulated. They do however have souls, and their abject terror at being invaded by a legion of evil spirits sent them into a panic which resulted in them charging over the cliffs into the sea. We were trapped in our porcine carcasses until that fateful day three years later when........
The man.
The day I met Jesus was the day I was born again. I was given a new life, a second chance, a completely new start. I dont remember much about the lost years, but I was told later that I had been wandering naked in the graveyard for a long time. Family members had come to leave food for me and occasionally the authorities had tried to restrain me, drug me, lock me up. But I had resisted and fought and in the end everyone had given up on me and left me to my fate. Until Jesus came and set me free.
I remember seeing Him standing in front of me and looking at me right in the eye. I remember hearing Him speak to me and a voice coming out of me which was not my own. Then I remember waking up on the ground with a group of men around me. Someone was wrapping me in their coat. Someone else was pouring water into a cup and offering me a drink. I remember being very thirsty.
And then Jesus took my hands and smiled at me and asked me my name. I told him and realised that for the first time in as long as I could remember I felt completely well. I could think clearly. There were no voices in my head. There was no darkness in my mind. I asked what day it was, what year it was. I asked who Jesus was and what had happened to me. The men with Jesus told me that He was the miracle-working Messiah who had come to bring the kingdom of God to us. I believed it completely and instantly. I felt a fire of passion in my spirit for Him, for God, for people. I wanted to sing and shout and dance for joy.
I longed to become a follower of Jesus - I had no home, no work, no family or friends to speak of . He was everything and I would have happily followed Him to the ends of the earth. But He told me to go back into town and tell people what God had done for me. He said that God had a work for me to do and people for me to influence. He said that I was to use my freedom to do the good works that God had got planned for me to do. And so that's what I did. And everyone who heard my story was amazed and in awe.
Apart from the people who owned the pigs.
They were pretty cross.
We had found an ideal host in this man from Gadara. He was young, liked to think of himself as a radical and a revolutionary, had a sketchy knowledge of the scriptures ( just enough for us to be able to pervert his understanding into something deliciously warped) and he was a sinner. He had a gambling habit, which we delighted in feeding. It was not at all hard for a couple of us to move into his spirit and take hold. After a while more of us arrived. We lay low in his life for a long time, whispering to his gambling habit, encouraging his dishonesty, tempting him to excessive drink. Torment arrived and began to disrupt his sleep. Then Avarice and Gluttony moved in too and the excesses began in earnest. Our host started to properly lose control of his life and when Madness started to speak to his already confused and sleep deprived brain we knew we had full control.
Of course, the downside of our invasion of this pathetic individual was that he was expelled from his community and forced to live on the outskirts of town. Despair suggested that he might find a home in the local graveyard. It was a comfortable and comforting place for all of us to live, and even more of us moved into our host. To all intents and purposes he was now completely mad. We had full control of him and we waited for our leaders to tell us the battle plan whilst enjoying tormenting our subject with thoughts of self harm and suicide.
And then one day it happened. Out of the blue with no warning at all, the blinding, holy, terrifying presence of almighty God was standing in front of us. We screamed in pain as His white hot glory pierced our darkness and with one voice we cried out ' What do you want Jesus Son of God? You can't touch us - it's against the law. We have a right to be here. Our host has given us permission. You cant torment us. Leave us alone' His eyes were staring straight into the eyes of the Gadarene man and try as we might we could not get him to avert his gaze. For the first time since we took possession of the man we were not in control of him. Panic started to rise in us as we realised that this Jesus was God in human form and we had no idea what that meant or what He was going to do to us.
Jesus spoke. We could see the words coming out of His mouth and they were alive like sperm, or like living arrows. His voice was like the sound of a thundering waterfall and He said ' What is your name?' The words advanced towards us like holy weapons and we shrieked in terror. We were powerless as these words entered our beings and forced the truth out of us. We detested and despised the truth more than anything else. We belonged to the Father of lies. But we were forced to speak truth by the question of Jesus and in once voice we screamed ' We are Legion'
'Legion, come out of this man.'
His voice had the power of a magnet. We could feel ourselves being dragged out of the places we had hidden ourselves. We clung onto the man's soul, we tried to anchor ourselves in his sin. We wrapped ourselves round his unbelief. But the command was so violently powerful that we could not remain. As we were wrenched from our strongholds we begged for mercy, asking the Son of God if we could be sent into the pigs on the hillside rather than into the outer darkness. To our immense surprise we found ourselves cast into the animals, but no sooner were we there than we realised we had no ability to control them - pigs don't have spirits and cannot be spiritually manipulated. They do however have souls, and their abject terror at being invaded by a legion of evil spirits sent them into a panic which resulted in them charging over the cliffs into the sea. We were trapped in our porcine carcasses until that fateful day three years later when........
The man.
The day I met Jesus was the day I was born again. I was given a new life, a second chance, a completely new start. I dont remember much about the lost years, but I was told later that I had been wandering naked in the graveyard for a long time. Family members had come to leave food for me and occasionally the authorities had tried to restrain me, drug me, lock me up. But I had resisted and fought and in the end everyone had given up on me and left me to my fate. Until Jesus came and set me free.
I remember seeing Him standing in front of me and looking at me right in the eye. I remember hearing Him speak to me and a voice coming out of me which was not my own. Then I remember waking up on the ground with a group of men around me. Someone was wrapping me in their coat. Someone else was pouring water into a cup and offering me a drink. I remember being very thirsty.
And then Jesus took my hands and smiled at me and asked me my name. I told him and realised that for the first time in as long as I could remember I felt completely well. I could think clearly. There were no voices in my head. There was no darkness in my mind. I asked what day it was, what year it was. I asked who Jesus was and what had happened to me. The men with Jesus told me that He was the miracle-working Messiah who had come to bring the kingdom of God to us. I believed it completely and instantly. I felt a fire of passion in my spirit for Him, for God, for people. I wanted to sing and shout and dance for joy.
I longed to become a follower of Jesus - I had no home, no work, no family or friends to speak of . He was everything and I would have happily followed Him to the ends of the earth. But He told me to go back into town and tell people what God had done for me. He said that God had a work for me to do and people for me to influence. He said that I was to use my freedom to do the good works that God had got planned for me to do. And so that's what I did. And everyone who heard my story was amazed and in awe.
Apart from the people who owned the pigs.
They were pretty cross.
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