Matthew 8:28-34 and Mark 5:1-20
Demon possession… A scary thought!! I had one encounter with (what I thought was) demon possession. Before we were married Carol and I lived in households a few blocks from each other. Somehow a pair of alcoholics came into our lives – a young man, Bobby, 20’ish, and his female companion, 30’ish. One evening Bobby came to our house, very drunk. My roommates and I had leftovers from our meal together and we set them out on the table for him to eat. Bobby was standing in a corner near our dining table, making strange, unintelligible “gurgling” sounds. I went over to him and put my hand on his shoulder to get him to sit down and eat. He immediately shouted “Thou shalt not touch the son of man!”, and knocked me with his arm into a wall. Once in my construction days my dad had hit me with a backhoe bucket and knocked me into a building about a foot away. Bobby’s arm was less than that force, but it was still a powerful thrust! We immediately called our Bible Study leader (now a well-known “Emerging Church” Christian author) and he came to take Bobby away. I hope I never run into demon-possession again! It’s scary!!
See also: April 22 / Matt. 8:28-34; April 23 / Mark 5:1-10; April 24 / Mark 5:11-20
That’s a big group, Legion (3,000-5,000)!
Apparently, they were in the Decapolis, gentile territory and the one with demons was living in a cemetery. Unclean by three counts! But Jesus cared about him. Do we care that much about people we consider unclean or sinful (prostitutes, drug addicts, transgender, etc.) that we would reach out to them and love them, or are we too busy hating the sin?
In the longer retelling, the man wants to follow Jesus, but He tells him to go tell his friends what God has done for him. And he obeys. A critical piece of casting out demons is that the empty space must be replaced or they come back worse than ever. Jesus filled his heart with the Holy Spirit for witnessing. Wow! Same for Mary Magdalene and others.