We are in the midst of a short series on the first question and answer of
the Heidelberg Catechism. This morning we’ll use Mark’s account of an
exorcism to help us to understand this catechism answer better and in this
way to understand the Gospel better.
The first thing that I would like you to consider is the amount of detail
that Mark includes. Please remember that Mark wasn’t trying to be a neutral
observer of the life of Jesus. He wasn’t writing some ‘objective history’
that just lists the facts as they happened. As he tells us at the beginning
of his work, he is writing a Gospel. He is writing with the goal of
fostering faith in Jesus. And so, the details of our text serve that
purpose. He could have written about this event much more briefly. In fact,
Matthew’s account is much shorter. But Mark included the details, and that
for a reason. Right after telling us that the man is possessed by an unclean
spirit, Mark could have cut to the chase and told us that Jesus cast out
this spirit, and it was all good. But he doesn’t do that. He tells us more.
There are things to be learned by noticing the details.
Let’s take a look at this man. For one thing, we are told that he lived
among the tombs. Think about that. The man lived in a cemetery! He was
surrounded by symbols of death. Now, when we think of death we actually only
think of a part of what death is about. We think about the terminal physical
aspect of death. We think about cemeteries. But death is much more than when
a body stops functioning. Physical death is a part of the whole realm of
death and a reminder of that whole. Death is about the body. But it’s also
about the soul and the mind and the heart and all the rest of who we are.
And so, if real life is joy and love and blessing and nearness to God and
more, then death is the opposite of all of that. And so, it is very
appropriate that this man resides in a cemetery. Everything about him
shouts, ‘Death!’
Then there are the shackles and chains. Again, stop and think about this.
Imagine shackles around your ankles. Imagine manacles on your wrists. Do you
feel the weight of the steel? Do the edges of the cuffs cut into your skin?
But then, imagine this man pulling at the chains and actually breaking them.
Imagine these restraints in pieces. What is the picture that you have of
this man now? Our translation expresses this so aptly. ‘Neither could anyone
tame him’. He cannot be controlled. The restraints have not worked. We have
a wild animal on our hands.
Then there is this. ‘And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and
in the tombs crying out and cutting himself with stones.’ The man is in
agony. His torment is so great because of the demons that afflict him. He
screams in anguish. On and on it goes, day and night. And the cutting of
himself, what is that but trying to destroy himself? Is that the demon or is
it the man himself trying to end his torment, trying to end his tortured
life? What a horrible, horrible picture. Remember, though, that it is more
than just a picture. It was a man’s life.
Now we’re ready to ask a question. Why all this detail? Couldn’t Mark have
spared us the horrors of this man’s life and jump quickly to the happy
ending? There is a purpose in the detail. Mark includes it all because the
man’s life and how Jesus radically changed it pictures the Gospel. There are
many ways to explain the Gospel. We could write an essay and use language
like ‘the dominion of Satan’ ‘spiritual slavery’ and ‘sin and death’. But
God knows that we need more than words. We need pictures. So, Mark paints us
a picture. And he does it to drive home what the words ‘sin’ and ‘Satan’ and
‘death’ are really about. We need to feel what those words are about if we
are really going to understand the Gospel. The maturity of our faith is
related to our emotional response to these things.
Mark now turns our attention elsewhere. He tells us about this fascinating
interview that Jesus had with the demon, or should I say demons. More
detail. We’ll have to leave this middle section for another time. Let’s take
the next step and see what’s happened to the man. When the townspeople
gather, what do they see? They see the man seated before Jesus, clothed and
in his right mind. He has been changed. He is not longer the wild animal. He
is now sane. He is clothed, a normal member of society. And he has adopted
the posture of a disciple, seated before his teacher. There is no more
death, no more wildness, no more despair. Jesus has touched this man’s soul.
Where there was once death now there is life. A picture of the Gospel.
We have more to see in the man’s life, but let me interrupt myself here to
ask another question. Who is the man? We are not told His name. Mark, oddly,
leaves this detail out. He names blind Bartimaeus or Jairus but not this
man. I don’t think this is an accident. It just may be that his life is
intended as a picture of every Christian. This man, and his slavery and
rescue from Satan’s demons, is a picture of you and every other Christian.
His life is a picture of something in that catechism question that applies
to us all. ‘What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my
own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my
faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His
precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil.’ We do
not often relate our salvation to the power of the devil. Maybe we should.
Jesus freed this man from all the power of the devil. He has done the same
for you.
But someone may say, ‘Wait a minute. My life was nothing like his. I never
came close to experiencing what he did.’ Do not confuse the reality of the
devil’s power with just one way that it happened to show itself. His power
is evidenced in many different ways. Who was under the power of the devil,
the immoral prostitute who came to Jesus or the pious Pharisees who refused
to? Satan’s slavery is experienced in different ways. Remember the rich
young ruler. He was polite: ‘Good Teacher.’ He was interested in spiritual
things: ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He was moral: ‘All these
things I have done from my youth.’ And yet, at the end it was clear that he
was under the power of the devil. This did not show as demon possession. No,
it showed in his idolatry to his wealth. It does not matter that you were
never a prostitute or demon-possessed or a Pharisees or a rich young ruler.
It is still a fact that Jesus freed you from all the power of the devil. In
my case, I was something like the young ruler. I was a nice, respectful
young man, interested in spiritual things. And yet, I was not freed from
Satan’s power until I was converted. I need the vivid picture of this
demon-possessed man to make clear to me how horrid my life was, appearances
notwithstanding, before I became a Christian.
Now, it may be that some of you were more fortunate than I. I wasn’t
converted until I was sixteen. Some of you had the grace of the Gospel
applied to your hearts much earlier than that. Maybe it happened when you
were too young to remember or at your baptism or even in the womb. [Remember
John the Baptist! Luke 1.38ff.] It does not matter when it happened as long
as it did. But regardless of when it happened, we all can benefit by asking
ourselves what we would be like if Jesus had never freed us from Satan’s
power. Ask yourself right now, ‘What kind of person would I be?’ You have
some hints. Just consider the sins that you wrestle with now. Some of you
wrestle with different lusts: the lust for comfort, for control, for
pleasure. Some of you struggle with a lack of discipline and there are times
when it feels as if you are on the way to becoming untamed. Others of you
are fighting the sin of pride and others the sin of fear or the sin of rage.
Thank God, the Spirit is at work and He is dealing with these sins and
restraining and removing them. None of you are enslaved by the devil. But
imagine if the Spirit weren’t at work in your life. What if Jesus never
freed you? What if you Satan had his claws into you and your sin problems
got worse instead of better? The man in our text is you. Just as Jesus freed
him, He has freed you. And praise Him for that! This text is a mirror for
your soul.
There’s one last part of the man’s response I want to look at. After the
torment, the interview, after being freed, after sanity returns, after the
power of the Gospel has been applied, the man wants to go with Jesus. It
says he ‘begged [Jesus] that he might be with him’. Ten minutes before, he
was a raving lunatic with no hope at all. And now, he has a completely new
life. And it’s all because of the Man standing in front of him. There are
family and friends to see and enjoy once again, but this man wants to be
with Jesus. Well, of course! That makes complete sense. But what is Jesus’
word to the man. ‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord
has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.’ Again, of course!
This is still a picture of you. This world is filled with many distractions.
You have been taught to focus your attention and your desires here and to
leave thoughts of heaven, thoughts of being with Jesus, for later. But as
the reality of what the Gospel is about takes greater hold of your soul, as
you see more and more clearly that this man really is you, then the desire
to be there with Him will also grow more and more. And the day will come for
you, just as it has for that man, when that desire will be fully satisfied.
But for a time that man was sent back to his world, to his friends, to tell
them ‘how much the Lord has done’. That is also you. You have been freed
from Satan. Go and tell your friends ‘how much the Lord has done for you’.
And do not think that you need a conversion like this man had. Just believe
the Gospel of Jesus. Believe the Gospel that changed this man’s life.
Believe the Gospel that has freed you from Satan’s bondage. Believe it and
then speak.
