Mark 5:1-10 (NIV): They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”
Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
The disciples had seen several people who were possessed by demons as they had traveled with Jesus. Often, until something triggered an “attack,” they looked and acted like normal people. Some looked ill, but they usually looked and acted like a normal ill person. But this man was something entirely different. He looked more like an animal than a human being. He had been living among the tombs for quite a while, miserable and driven from all human companionship. He had cuts all over his body in various stages of healing and infection. And he was filthy.
This man, filled with many demons (a legion was a Roman army unit composed of 3,000 to 6,000 men), was practically torn in two when Jesus walked ashore. The mass of demons wanted nothing more than to flee as fast as they could from His presence, but the human part of the man was drawn so powerfully to Jesus that he ran as fast as he could right up to Him, and fell at His feet.
The disciples weren’t sure what to do. Some of them wanted to run back to the boat when they saw this wild thing racing toward them shrieking. But Jesus just stood and waited while the man approached. They were positively stunned when this creature cried out at the top of his lungs, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” How did this man know who Jesus was? And “Son of the Most High God”? They hadn’t heard Jesus called that before!
But Jesus was firmly focused on the business at hand. He ordered the demons within the man to come out of him. That was when the man shouted, “Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” And when Jesus asked the demon his name, he screamed out, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
In those days, like today, a single demon was enough to freak out anybody. And here was a man apparently inhabited by thousands of them! But Jesus wasn’t in the least intimidated. The demons had hit the nail on the head: Jesus was no ordinary man who was going to run away from them; He really was the Son of the Most High God. And the demons weren’t even willing to put up a fight. Even though the numerical odds seemed strongly in their favor, the real power was all on Jesus’ side. They knew Who He was, and they knew that He could easily send them all reeling into the Abyss (Luke 8:31) to be imprisoned forever. Instead of one man running from thousands of demons, thousands of demons were reduced to pitiful groveling at the feet of this one man, begging for their very existence.
No one who belongs to God, no one in whom His Holy Spirit dwells, should ever be afraid of a demon – even thousands of them. When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the same presence that was in Jesus comes to reside in us. The Bible tells us over and over again that the apostles exercised the same power over the demons that they encountered every time they met one (e.g., Acts 16:16-18). There was no fear, no struggle, no ceremonies. A simple command, and the demon instantly fled from them. That is what God’s presence in each of us can do!
Father, it is amazing to realize that when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, it is more than just believing in a creed, or subscribing to a religion. When we turn to You in faith for salvation, Your Holy Spirit actually takes up residence in our hearts, purifying us, empowering us, and transforming us into Your people. It was not Peter’s size or Paul’s personality that sent the demons scurrying, but Your presence in their lives; the same power that You bring to us when we turn to You. Thank You, Lord.