Mark 5.1-20
In an essay from 1995 entitled “Hermeneutics and the Life of the Church,” the theologian Robert Jenson recalls his PhD work in Germany during the 1950’s.
He writes:
“When I was a student at Heidelberg, the great scholars of the theological faculty there took turns preaching in the university church. It was in its fashion splendid. But every sermon began more or less the same way. After rereading the text, the eminent scholar would say, sometimes using the very same words as his predecessor, “Now—whatever are we to make of this uncanny ancient story, from a world so different from ours?”
It was presumed, you see, that we do not live in the biblical world, that its features and habits are strange to us. On that presumption, the Bible first had to be explained as an alien artifact from another world—which was always brilliantly done —and then enormous ingenuity expended to bridge the gap between the text so explained and our contemporary apprehensions—which did not always succeed so well.”
According to Jenson, there can be no such distinction between the strange world of of the Bible and the so-called real world exactly because, unlike in the religion of Plato, the God of the Bible— the God of Israel and Mary’s boy— is a God who enters into time and acts within the history he creates with us. As we profess at the font, baptism incorporates us into the mighty acts of God, present-tense.
Water, word, wine and bread make us no different than the apostles.
There is no distinction between the world of the Bible and the real world. Our world is the same world as the world of the Bible. This assertion imposes two correlative affirmations. One, Jesus works miracles today no less than he did on the far side of the Sea of Galilee. Two, we may still know the Devil and his demons by their detriments.
We can still identify the suffering ones in need of Christ’s exorcizing power.
Derek Huffman is a forty-six year old husband and father of three elementary-aged daughters. A construction worker, Huffman was also an extremely online, anti-woke, culture warrior. Both he and his wife DeAnna aspired to become social media influencers. Rapidly far right ideology and fame envy sunk their claws into Derek Huffman and his wife. In 2022, the Huffmans moved their family from Arizona to Texas. All he wanted, he declared on YouTube, was to be left alone by the LGBTQs. But Woke apparently possessed the Lone Star State too. As Derek Huffman recalled in an interview with Russia Today news, ““The pivotal moment for us was when we learned that my daughter Sophia had heard about lesbians from a classmate on the school playground. That was the last straw. Even though she didn’t fully grasp the concept, it was enough for us to realize that we needed a change.”
Derek and DeAnna Huffman responded to their daughter hearing an adult word on the playground by relocating their family to the former Soviet Union.
They did not transfer their children to a Catholic school.
They did not enroll their daughters in a Home Schooling program.
They moved to an authoritarian regime that runs rape, torture, and murder rooms in the civilian areas it captures, has kidnapped twenty thousand Ukrainian children, and routinely has political opponents fall to their deaths from open windows.
Derek Huffman scouted the possibilities ahead of his family, documenting it all on his YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. “The city was cleaner, safer, and more organized than we had anticipated,” he testified, “Most importantly, we found a place where our values were honored, and we felt at home.”
Did the Huffmans have any personal relationships in Russia?
No.
Did Derek or DeAnna have any job prospects in Russia?
No.
Does anyone in their family speak Russian?
Again no.
Such common sense considerations were overpowered by their anti-woke dogma and their desire to become social media superstars. The family emigrated to Russia last year with their husky through Russia’s “shared values” visa scheme, aimed at attracting foreigners who reject what Vladimir Putin calls “destructive neoliberal ideology.”
In order to prove himself to his new nation of choice, Derek Huffman— who, again, is forty-six years old with no prior military experience— volunteered for the Russian Army’s invasion of Ukraine.
On his YouTube channel, he said:
“The point of this act for me is to earn a place here in Russia. If I risk myself for our new country, no one will say that I am not a part of it. Unlike migrants in America who come there just like that, do not assimilate, and at the same time want free handouts.”
And to his wife via video message, Derek Huffman explained his decision thus:
“I believe in the Russian cause. . . . I won’t sit here and act like I’m the know-it-all on the whole situation, but I know enough to know that Russia is just in their cause and they’re doing the right thing.”
After matriculating through a brief basic training conducted in a language he could not understand, Derek Huffman was made a happy participant in Russia’s war crimes. Initially promised by Russian officials that his duty would be limited to welding or perhaps journalism, the army immediately sent Derek Huffman to the front lines in Ukraine.
His wife DeAnna streamed her worries to her YouTube channel:
“Unfortunately, when you’re taught in a different language, and you don’t understand the language, how are you really getting taught? You’re not. So, unfortunately, he feels like he’s being thrown to the wolves right now, and he’s kind of having to lean on faith, and that’s what we’re all doing.”
“I want to be hero,” Derek Huffman volunteered in one of his final live streams to social media, “To prove I belong to my new country, I want to be a hero.”
Make no mistake.
This just is what the scriptures name as demonic possession.
The real world and the world of the Bible are the same world.
Ideology and antagonism, greed and envy, twisted Derek Huffman into a wolf on the front lines of a war crime. Though he donned camouflage rather than chains, he is no less bound than the Gerasene who lives among the tombs beside the Sea of Galilee. The One whose names are many bound both of them.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke alike, Christ’s encounter with the Gerasene Demoniac contains more lavish detail and rhetorical flair than any other single episode in the Gospels. This does not mean, however, that the exorcism is an aberration in his ministry. As Peter preaches in the Book of Acts, exorcism is a summating term for his entire work: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” The novelist Flannery O’Connor famously characterized the subject of her fiction as “the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.” The New Testament understands the incarnation of the Son of God likewise. As much as he is a Teacher, Prophet, or Redeemer, Jesus is an Exorcist; or rather, exorcism is a critical and necessary component to his work of redemption.
In the Gospel of Mark, immediately before this passage, Jesus has just rebuked the wind and calmed the storm at sea, saying, “Peace, be still!” Astounded more so than relieved, the disciples ask themselves, "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?” When they arrive on the other side of the Sea of Galilee they at once encounter One— or Many— who knows the answer to their question. Gentile territory, Gerasa lay on the edge of the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire.
Gerasa is forbidden territory; for a Jew like Mary’s boy and Pilate’s victim everything here is taboo. The presence of a herd of pigs, the litter of tombs where they land their boat, the possessed man in chains: all of it is unclean and therefore out of bounds. Two chapters earlier Jesus had taught a parable in order to explain his contending against the Devil’s work. “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods,” Jesus said, "unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house.” Now on the shore in Gerasa, Jesus encounters such a strong man.
Mark reports that the Gerasene man:
“…lived among the tombs; and no one could bind him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been bound with fetters and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out, and bruising himself with stones.
As soon as Jesus sets foot on shore, the man rushes to meet him and makes himself prostrate before Christ. This is only one of two occasions when Jesus converses with a demon. The parasitic power oppressing this Gerasene man knows the identity of Jesus and thus fears him for it knows Jesus possesses the power to drive it out. Just as they are in Gentile territory, the demon greets Jesus not with a Hebrew or Greek salutation but with a Latin one— a Roman one, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” Similarly, when Christ compels the demon to give his name, he proffers a Latin word with only a single association for Jews, “My name is Legion; for we are many.”
Comprising approximately five thousand infantrymen, a legion was the largest permanent organization in the armies of Rome. Their standards bore the image of wild boar— swine. Just as a legion occupied and oppressed this Gerasene man, Israel itself was possessed by legions sent by Caesar. This is not a clever narrative detail on the part of Mark the Evangelist. This is Satan revealing what Christ’s Passion soon will confirm, that the alliance between Religion and Politics is not simply sinister but demonic.
The man living among the tombs is the world in nuce.
Note the language of invasion.
The demon begs Jesus not to expel him out of the country, not from the man’s body but out of the country. Knowing resistance to the Word of God is futile, Legion pleads with Jesus to send them into the swine who root among the tombs— about two thousand pigs, Mark reports. Jesus submits to their plea. Straightaway, the herd of occupied swine “rushed down the steep bank and were drowned in the sea.”
As my teacher Donald Juel wryly comments on this passage, while our sentimental, Gentile minds may ponder the enormous cost of lost livestock, for the restoration of one suffering man’s humanity Jesus considers the price “worth it.”
In recent social media missives, DeAnna Huffman has lamented that her husband had been misled in the military recruiting process.
She said, “When he signed up and had all of that done, he was told he would not be training for two weeks and going straight to the front lines,” she said. “But it seems as though he is getting one more week of training, closer to the front lines, and then they are going to put him on the front lines.” She added that the deployment has also created financial strain for her family. Derek and his unit members were reportedly required to “donate” ten thousand rubles for their own supplies, eating up a large chunk of his paycheck. DeAnna reported receiving no pay or bonus after one month of Derek’s service.
She concluded her live stream on social media with a plea for prayers.
For deliverance.
Here is my question.
If the LORD Jesus delivers Derek from the dangers of the front lines, if Christ does indeed free him and his family from the oppressor who occupies them and redeems them back to a life in America, how do you think Derek and DeAnna would respond?
The Gerasene man was so grateful he wanted to get in the boat and go away with Jesus, hoping to become a disciple; so, no doubt Derek— now in his right mind— likewise would be overwhelmed with indebtedness. But what about the thousands upon thousands of social media followers who lauded and shared the aspiring influencers’ foolish attempts at fame and “owning the libs?” Would the hundreds of thousands who liked and followed and retweeted their misadventures express gratitude and joy over their deliverance?
The Bible tells me no.
When the citizens of Gerasa— those in the city and the country— learn what Jesus has done for this man living among the tombs, they do not want anything to do with Jesus. In fact— pay attention— they use the same language Legion had used when the man ran to the beach to meet Jesus. They beg Jesus to leave.
Why?
Again, this is the most detailed episode in the Gospels; thus, the details are all here for a purpose. When the former demoniac begs Jesus to take him with the twelve into the boat, Jesus refuses and commands the man, "Go home.”
He has a home!
“Go home and to your friends.”
He has a home and friends!
And yet, whoever is at home, whoever are his friends, have let this man live among the tombs. They abandoned him. What could lead them to view their family member and their friend as disposable? Or rather, who could so lead them?
Legion’s possessive power extends beyond those who are obviously afflicted. Don’t you see what the details want us to see: the man among the tombs who could not be chained or fettered is not the only person bound by the Enemy in Gerasa.
“Go home and to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”
How excited do you think the other demons would be to hear that their Adversary has just freed a man from their ally’s grip?
They begged Jesus to leave their country.
What’s more—
Do not miss what Mark discloses in the initial details of this story. The possessed man apparently poses no danger to anyone else. He is a strong man but he is safe. His constant wailing is a nuisance not a threat, yet they have treated him like a prisoner, fettering him (unnecessarily) again and again. And they have exiled him to live in a place unclean even for a Gentile— out of sight, out of mind.
They begged Jesus to leave them. The possession is more pervasive than a one man on the beach. The real world and the world of the Bible are one and the same world; that which is truly demonic does not look like a scene from The Exorcist.
In his forthcoming book God’s Adversary and Ours, the theologian Phillip Ziegler draws attention to the nature of Christ’s exorcisms as social reintegrations.
He writes:
“Divine rescue and liberation from diabolical oppression: this is the exclusive focus of evangelical interest in exorcisms….The possessed are regularly socially excluded, hidden away, lurking in cemeteries, or in the wilderness, or outside the gates, their suffering thus amplified by social exclusion. Jesus’ exorcisms— like his healings more generally— also repeatedly make for social reintegration. The casting out of demons brings with it the casting out of the victim’s casting out from the community, as it were.”
In other words, Jesus’ work of exorcism will not be complete until this Gerasene man is returned to his home. This man returning home, answering to his name again and not to Legion, is the only way his family and friends will be set free from the demons that so possessed them that they chained him and cast him out from them. That is, Jesus refuses this man’s request to get into the boat because Jesus needs this man to be his emissary in Gerasa. Jesus needs this man to finish his work. Now that this freed man knows who is stronger than the Strong Man, he can set loose his friends and family with the mighty name of Jesus.
DeAnna Huffman and her three daughters have not heard from Derek since Father’s Day though DeAnna recently posted on social media a denial of reports that her husband had been killed in action.
I have repeatedly doom-scrolled stories about the Huffman family since I first learned about them earlier this summer. When I think of that mother and father, I am filled with rage and contempt and scorn, haughtiness and schadenfreude and malicious glee.
I do not know how to interpret emigration to Russia as anything other than endorsement of lies and evil. I cannot understand how volunteering for Putin’s army could be anything other than support for the rape and torture of civilians and the kidnapping of children. And I cannot stop thinking about what their dreadful— abusive— decisions mean for their three daughters. It is terribly easy to imagine what the future holds for three young girls trapped in a despotic foreign country with no education, support network, financial resources, or even the ability to speak the language. They will be vulnerable to the worst sorts of predation.
Whenever I think of Derek and DeAnna Huffman, I am filled with rage and contempt and scorn, haughtiness and malicious glee.
But seldom do I express pity.
I’ve got chains on me I cannot see.
Not only is pity what my baptism demands of me.
My righteous anger, if directed at Derek and DeAnna, is misplaced.
Because our world and the world of the Bible are the same world.
And in the Bible, the possessed themselves are never construed as enemies of the LORD.
As Phillip Ziegler writes:
“Crucially, we note that across gospel testimonies to Jesus’ exorcisms those possessed are themselves never construed as the enemies of the Lord; they are rather the children of God, sons and daughters of Israel. The enemy of the exorcist is someone, something, other; namely, that uncanny power that has usurped their lives. Jesus and the possessed have a common adversary: the diabolical purveyor of misery…these episodes of exorcism forcefully remind us that not only human malfeasance but also human misery are the object of Christ’s saving work…Jesus’ practice of exorcism is the merciful movement of God against that afflicting power which dissolves creaturely life and estranges us from our neighbors…victims of which we ought to pity and not cast away.”
According to DeAnna Huffman’s social media appeals, she has been petitioning Vladimir Putin’s administration to get Derek reassigned to a non-combat role.
When I read that news, I was finally free to pity her.
The effects of the Devil’s possessing power are everywhere.
There is as much misery as there is malfeasance in the world.
Like the Gerasene man, we can go home armed with the name of Jesus but how much can we truly do? The headlines are overwhelming. The scale and scope of the misery is crushing. I am not an effective exorcist. Are you? Let’s be honest—to speak life in such a world can feel as hopeless and futile as DeAnna Huffman attempting to navigate unnamed, uncaring bureaucrats in the Russian regime.
If the message of the gospel is that it is up to us to continue the movement begun by the dead Jesus, then we are the ones to be pitied.
But thank God the world of the Bible is our world.
Because notice in our passage.
As he rushes to the beach, the demoniac cries out to Jesus, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” And see how Mark puts the next verse, “For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”
But Jesus has not yet spoken!
According to the narrative, the first time Jesus speaks audibly is verse nine, “And Jesus[ asked him, “What is your name?”
Jesus can speak without speaking.
Jesus can speak without opening his mouth.
Luke recounts the encounter in this same odd way.
“When the man saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.”
Next verse, “For Jesus had been commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man.”
Once again, as in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus does not audibly speak until the following verse. Jesus has been speaking to this man long before Jesus opened his mouth on the beach. And the man has heard the Word’s words.
Hear the good news:
In this world of misery and malfeasance, there is (nevertheless!) more being spoken and heard than you can see. And he who speaks just is the Word whose words give life to the dead and call into existence the things that do not exist.
There is nowhere the Adversary is not.
But there is nowhere— no time— Jesus is not speaking.
And one little word from him can fell the devil himself.
Hear the good news:
The strange world of the Bible is our world.
Just so, he is speaking life into it.
Before the Gerasene’s ears even heard a sound—Jesus was already speaking.
While Derek and DeAnna were still bound by the allure and antagonism that had ensnared them, the Word had already taken pity on them and was at work to loose them.
Jesus means freedom.
Not just from sin but from suffering.
And I suspect you have more familiarity with the former than the latter.
One of you is miserable, overwhelmed by the heartache of an estranged son and his family. Another of you could not bury a loved one this summer without the undertaking devolving into the addiction-fueled acrimonies of old. Someone here is bound in bitterness for the wife who left him while still another bears the misery of a wife he loved who was lost.
Jesus means freedom.
From misery as much as from malfeasance.
And whether your ears have heard a word from the Lord, it does not matter. Because the world of the Bible is this world and, therefore, Jesus has already been speaking his exorcizing word against the powers that bind you.
Before you even feel the weight of your misery, before you know to name your demons, before you can even string together words to beg for help—Jesus is always already speaking.
In this world, in your world, in the mess of your life and in the mess that is mine, the Word is speaking. He is speaking into every hospital room and rehab facility, into every war zone and into marriage that is like a war zone, into every lonely bedroom and into every doomscrolling night. Whether you hear him audibly or not, he is speaking into your shame. He is speaking into your fear. He is speaking into your sin.
And when Jesus speaks, demons tremble.
When Jesus speaks, chains shatter.
When Jesus speaks, tombs turn into turning points.
And the promise of the gospel is that he will speak his freeing word until every misery that binds you has to pack its bags and rush headlong into the sea.
So be not discouraged!
You are not left to fight on your own.
You are not abandoned to your misery.
The Lord Jesus Christ is already speaking, already commanding, already making the unclean clean, already calling you by your name and not by your chains. And take this passage as proof— there is no taboo he won’t cross, no place he won’t venture to find you and free you.
And if you doubt that Jesus can speak without speaking, hear the good news.
It is odd of God, but he can also speak through a sinner like me.
And here and now, he says to you, “This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, poured out for you.”
Some come to the table.
The fetters that bind you are easily broken.
Come, taste and see that loaf and cup are tokens of his promise.
His promise that when he speaks, even the most absurd captors must surrender. When he speaks, even misery must listen. When Jesus speaks, even your demons must go for a final swim.
Share this post