Luke 8:26-39, Galatians 3:23-29, Psalm 22:19-29

The man was recognisable as a human being but could not function normally
because he had been overrun by many demons. All the things that make life meaningful had been broken up by the presence of the unclean spirits: his sense of self, his ability to live with other people, to feed and clothe himself, to act responsibly and contribute to the life of the local community. All this taken from him by the legion within. A most unhappy and unsatisfactory situation. However, Jesus was able to change all that!

It was spiritual power that distorted who the man really was
Let’s just do a quick recap of cosmology.
Everything originates from God. God is a spirit. God created spiritual beings and physical beings. Humans are spiritual beings that have a physical life. For us humans our physical life is limited but our spiritual life is continuous. The purpose of humans is to love God expressing that love both directly and through loving other human beings.

The other spiritual beings God created are ministering spirits which we call angels. Their job is to minster to God and to minster to humans as God directs them. Some of the angels rebelled against God and we call them demons or evil spirits. All the ministering spirits are capable of influencing humans as well as ministering to them. Angels influence us to love God and their ministry builds us up. Demons influence us to go away from God and they are seeking to destroy us.

Do you believe in angels? Yes, they are real. Met any? Been ministered to by an angel?
Do you believe in demons? Not met any? They too are real. Take it from me for I have encountered a few over the while.

There was an evil power that gripped the man, distorted him in every way and was slowly destroying him. Gollom, in Lord of the Rings, was distorted in just this kind of way. It was possessed by a strong power. No human is able to break metal chains unaided. It seems that quite a number of demons had ganged up on this unfortunate man. The man met Jesus as he got out of the boat and immediately Jesus told the demons to get out of him. In response he shouted “Jesus, … don’t punish me!” This might have been the man shouting but I suspect it was the demons. They knew they would have to go so they negotiated terms and Jesus let them!

There are plenty of people in western society who will try to tell you that demons don’t exist. There are even Christian preachers who will try to explain this sort of thing in purely psychological terms. They do still talk about demons but these days ‘confronting our demons’ means facing up to and dealing with the things we find most difficult to overcome. This too is real because even though Christians are protected against demons we can still get tied up and distorted by things that stop us from being true to what God wants for us. So often the demons don’t have to do anything – we do it ourselves.

What are some things that stop us from being true to what God wants for us?
It might be things like misuse of power we have over other people,
or the distorting effect money can have (whether we have money or not it can still distort us).
People might feel constrained in some way by their circumstances.
It might also be things like self-loathing or lack of self-worth,
or on the other hand, smugness or arrogance.
Then there’s the power of the bully or fear of failure.

As I say, some of the things mentioned may not necessarily find their source in what is evil, but the result of them could well be described as evil and not of God, and people subject to these things are not free.

After Jesus restored him, the man experienced freedom in several ways
In what ways could the man be seen as free?
He was freed from whatever was binding and destroying him as a person;
he was free from fear;
he was free to respond to Jesus;
he was free to be the person God made him to be;
he was free to return to his community.

A word of warning: freedom can be quite scary! The people in Gerasa were totally freaked out by what had happened. Jesus would not let this man go with him; he had to stay with the people who knew him as a madman. They all had to get used to the huge change that had come about in their community. They were scared enough to send Jesus away, but they couldn’t deny the man and his testimony.

When Jesus arrived at Gerasa he and his disciples had just sailed through a storm that had freaked out the disciples but which Jesus had stopped in an instant. In doing so Jesus showed his authority over the natural world. In healing the demon-possessed man Jesus showed the extent of his power in human life, and its effect. This is not just that the unnamed man is free of the demons that tormented him, it is that he is completely restored and made whole. That restoration is accomplished by the Holy Spirit.

In the power struggle between Jesus and the demons we see the importance of being able to name the opponent. This means accurately identifying that it is a demon but then to get the demon’s name so that this particular demon can be given its marching orders. And just as accurately to identify when it is not a demon – for this is mostly the case for us – not with a general term like ‘sin’ but with a specific name like greed or lying or jealousy or fear. Being specific really helps to put the things that threaten us into perspective, point us to the solution and bring us to freedom.

 What’s this about freedom being scary? It can be. Even things that restrict our freedom can be comfortable and breaking out may seem to take us into unknown territory. Adapting to a new way of being can be hard for all those concerned. The most important thing when a demon has been sent out is to fill the space – fill the person – with the Holy Spirit of God. Because evil cannot exist where God is that person is then safe from demons. This applies to everything that would tie us up and prevent us being fully the person God would have us be. Replace it. Replace that which is not of God with that which is of God. This may be done quickly or progressively depending on what it is and Jesus’ programme, but this is how Jesus sets us free: by replacing bad with good.

 I’ll take questions – use the form below and send them in.