Monday in the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, January 30, 2023

Mark 5, 1-20

Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea, to the territory of the Gerasenes. When he got out of the boat, at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him. The man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain. In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains, but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones. Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran up and prostrated himself before him, crying out in a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!” (He had been saying to him, “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”) He asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “Legion is my name. There are many of us.” And he pleaded earnestly with him not to drive them away from that territory. Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside. And they pleaded with him, “Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.” And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine. The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea, where they were drowned. The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town and throughout the countryside. And people came out to see what had happened. As they approached Jesus, they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion, sitting there clothed and in his right mind. And they were seized with fear. Those who witnessed the incident explained to them what had happened to the possessed man and to the swine. Then they began to beg him to leave their district. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him. But Jesus would not permit him but told him instead, “Go home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.” Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.

The room St. Mark (and also St. Matthew) gives this event in his Gospel tells us of the impression made upon those who were present for it and well as for the significance they attached to it.  We should note also that Mark links this with his double account chronologically of the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the woman with the blood issue.  Reflecting on the relation between these can help us with our understanding of each.  

First, we should notice that the Lord’s departure for the Gentile land of the Gerasenes was made very abruptly.  He also leaves very abruptly.  The Lord had been preaching to the people in and around Capernaum, and then he decided, towards the evening, to set out for “the opposite side” of the Sea of Galilee, where no Jews lived who could be responsive to his message.  After surviving a tremendous storm at night, Jesus and the Apostles alighted on Gentile territory where “at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him”.  It was as if the possessed man had been waiting for him.  Peter or one of the other Apostles must have spoken a few hasty words with a bystander who knew the situation because we are told that “man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain”.  Mark goes on in detail to describe the chaos inhabiting this man.  

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!”  The demons cry out on a terrible cacophony of voices: shrieks, howls, whistles, and bellowing.  Given his violent nature, we can think of the man convulsing, crawling, leaping, crouching all around the Lord, while he remained calm and still, just as he had stood at the moment he calmed the fury of the storm on the sea.  The address to Jesus as “Son of God” does not identify him as divine, but was a title sometimes used for prophets, kings, or angels.  “Legion is my name. There are many of us.”  Cases of possession often involve multiple demons, each one of whom must be cast out individually, a process which takes some time.  “Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.”  The demons feel the power of Christ compelling them out of the man and they dread returning to hell and the mockery of their fellow demons.  In their panic, entering the swine seems preferable to them.  But for the swine, death is preferable to possession.  For the Jew, this is quite a frightening lesson: the pig was regarded as most vile and unclean.  During the days of the Greek occupation, Jews preferred to be killed by the Greeks rather than eat pork as they were commanded to do.  It was, of all things, the most unholy.  And yet the demons are more unholy than they.  As an aside, when a pig is angry or very afraid, it screams at a very high pitch and a very high decibel.  A hillside full of screaming, stampeding, pigs must have reduced the bystanders to shaking like wheat stalks caught in a high wind.

The abrupt departure from the land of the Gerasenes might not catch our attention after Mark’s description of the scene and because the people begged him to go, but Jesus had nothing else to do there.  During his time on earth he did not preach to the Gentiles and he counseled his Apostles, while he was alive, to preach only to the people of Israel.  It would seem that he came to this coast only to perform this exorcism, and now he would return.  But the Lord did not mean his actions to have only an immediate effect.  His actions, as well as his words, had meaning.  They were signs.  This sign can at least be partially understood as that his power was not limited to Israel.  Also, the sign assured his Apostles of the greatness of his power over the supernatural just as his calming of the storm had assured them of his power over the natural world.  This is the Creator who restores creation to its original state, the earlier miracle says.  This is the Ruler of heaven and earth who conquers the devil, this exorcism says.  

We might wonder why the Lord went to a Gentile land to perform an exorcism of this magnitude.  The fact is that possession cases involving a “legion” of demons probably did not arise in Israel.  In all the cases of possession we read of in the New Testament, this is the only one in which multiple demons are involved.  This is because of the extreme depravity of the Gentiles, who fling open the doors of their souls to demonic infestation through their debauchery and godless living.  The Jews, by contrast, at least attempted to live up to the Covenant they had with God.

When we examine the next two miracles in Mark’s Gospel, we will see how the Lord Jesus is also the Lord of life and death.