Scripture Reading: Luke 8:26-39
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he 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 beg you, do not torment me.” For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him..
The Battle Against Demons: Jesus' Power Over Spiritual Forces (Luke 8:26-39)
A Sermon on Luke 8:26-39
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today, we have a really weird story, right? The Gospel reading is just odd, and it raises a whole bunch of question marks. Jesus comes up to the guy and casts out the demon. And they're like, "Hold on a second." And then they say, "Put us into the pigs." And he says, "Okay," which is kind of weird. And then all of them go, then they run off into the lake and drown. What a weird story. And when we read it, it seems pretty confusing.
So it's an interesting story to go through and look at and see what's going on here. I think at the heart of this story, though, is the reality of the battle that is going on between Jesus—between our God—and Satan and his forces. That is really the key thing that we see.
The Reality of Demonic Possession
There is a man who is filled with demons. Now sometimes people look at the Bible, and they look at the demons and the stories of that, and they want to turn that into a metaphor. In fact, when we say someone has a troubled past that they're still dealing with, we say that they are "battling with their demons." And so sometimes people look at what the Bible says with Jesus casting out demons, and they say that's got to be something else. Maybe it was epilepsy, maybe it was schizophrenia, maybe it was something else.
But if you pay attention to this story, it really can't be that, because the demons make the man do things that he couldn't do otherwise.
The first thing is, they know who Jesus is right away. What do they say? "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me." Now, if you follow the Gospel of Luke, Jesus doesn't walk around going to everybody saying, "Hi, my name is Jesus, Son of the Most High God." He refers to himself as the Son of Man, not Son of the Most High God. So these demons have knowledge that the man couldn't have had on his own, especially since Jesus is getting out of the boat into a new area, a Gentile area, an area where he has not yet been preaching and doing miracles.
The second thing that shows us that these demons are real spiritual beings is they give the man super powers. If you look at the story, there's this little aside where it says, "For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles. But he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert." He could break chains. I don't know about you, but I can't do that.
And so these demons, they have real existence. They are real spiritual forces, and they really fill this man.
The Work of Unclean Spirits
And what do they do? Luke calls them an "unclean spirit," because they make the man do unclean things. They drive him out of town, out into the wilderness. And where does he live? In the tombs. That is where unclean people are—in an unclean place with the dead. And so this man is out amongst the dead, where Jewish readers would go, "Whoa, that is unclean."
Spiritually, they also make him live naked. Not so much fun, right? Living amongst the tombs might make the Jews pretty upset, but I think the naked thing would make all of us be like, "Whoa, dude. Get out of here."
And then it would always drive him away from people, into the desert, into the wilderness. This man would appear cursed, taken over by the power of the devil, cursed in some special way. And these demons are showing their power by taking this man and pulling him out of society and making him completely rejected.
That is, until Jesus shows up.
Demons Today
Now, demons today, they are still at work. They are still all around us and still spiritual forces, but they don't, typically—at least here amongst us—show up in the same way that they did with this man. And I think there's a reason behind it, because if they did, we might believe that they were real and actually start worrying about them.
Most of us, when we think about demons, if we think about them at all, we kind of push it off as these old tales and don't really think about their real activity. But they are still actual spiritual forces, forces used by the devil with real intelligence, and they are maliciously out to get you. They want to pull you away from Christ and away from salvation. And in fact, they are working harder on you than people outside of the church, because the people outside of the church don't need to be worked on. Satan wants you, and he will send them after you.
The demons in the man were there to show their power and their might and to get him to go out into the wilderness. The demons for us, well, they want to tempt us. They want us to believe false things. They want to turn us from the true gospel and away from God's Word into great shame and vice and awful living.
Martin Luther writes in when he explains the petition of the Lord's Prayer "lead us not into temptation." He says, "We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory."
We need to remember that the Christian life is not just us holding on to an idea. It is a war. Satan is sending his forces at you every day to turn you from Christ. And we have one and only one defense: the gospel of Jesus Christ and his means of grace, the power of Christ coming to us to defend us and keep us on the right track.
The Power of Jesus
Now, after I've said all this, you may be like, "Whoa, Pastor, you're kind of scaring me." I was trying to! But the power of Satan is matched, even exceeded, only by the power of Jesus Christ and his grace.
Because these demons in this man, they're really scary, aren't they? But you know what happens when Jesus shows up? All of their bluster is gone. When this man is fighting by himself, he has nothing. He is taken over by them. He lives in the tombs. He is naked, he is outcast. He is the grossest guy you have ever heard of. But the moment Jesus shows up, they are powerless. They beg, they cry, they say, "Get away from us, Jesus, what do you have to do with us?"
That's because what the devil wants is to convince us that he's in charge and too strong, and it's the opposite of the truth. Jesus is the one who has the power. He has defeated Satan forever. He has destroyed his power, and his grace extends to you to defend you against your enemies and your adversaries.
When they are in the shadows, as they are now amongst us, their primary job is temptation. And the word and sacraments are there to keep you safe as Jesus' power comes to you, so that you can be protected, guided and led by the Holy Spirit, so that you can be turned away from all of the temptations that they bring to you and defend you so that you can have grace and peace and be kept safe.
Sometimes I actually wish that those spiritual forces would come out in the open and make themselves known, because that would actually make them easier to fight against. Wouldn't it? If we actually saw demons like the man come out and say, "We are Legion, for we are many," people would be calling me all the time to bring in the incense, do the exorcism thing. You laugh. Been there. But they keep hiding for the most part, which is why we still need to remain vigilant. Gather together and hear the word, remain in Christ, and constantly know and return to the defense that Jesus gives us.
The Question of the Pigs
Because it's simply with a word that these demons are expelled. They ask, they beg, they fall on their knees, and they say, "Send us into the pigs." And he gives them permission. And that's the crazy thing, right? The question I always get when we read this story is, "What's up with the pigs? Why in the world does Jesus let them go into the pigs? Why does the story tell us that they run off into the ocean, into the lake and drown themselves?"
Well, I think there's a couple of key things here.
First, it's a large herd of pigs. So it reminds us about the number of demons that are in the man, because they go out and take over. Each demon gets a pig and the whole herd runs into the water and drowns. This means that the number of demons actually doesn't matter to Jesus. The armies of the spiritual forces, the number of attacks, the amount of power, all of the stuff that happens—none of that matters to Jesus, because he is in charge. He has defeated them.
It's not like the battle is in doubt. It's not like the movies where you watch about the angels and the demons and they fight, and everybody's like, "Oh no, we need Arnold Schwarzenegger to fix it." Jesus has already won. He defeats the demons no matter what, and when we rest in his control, when we come together in his grace and we're reminded about his law and his gospel, he protects us and keeps us safe.
The second thing about the pigs is they remind us of the uncleanliness that is leaving the man. You know, if you're a Jewish reader and you're looking at this, you're like, "Gross, a herd of pigs." Who likes pork? Well, I do, but they would think, "Look at all these unclean animals"—the unclean spirit, leaving with the unclean pigs and going off and being destroyed, sort of a symbol of the uncleanliness leaving the man.
The Man Restored
And then we see him clothed and in his right mind, sitting at Jesus' feet and listening. The power of Jesus pushes the demons away, and the man hears and learns. These many demons can no longer take control of the man. They can have no power over him. It is the word and grace of Jesus that now fills him, and it reminds us of the word and grace of Jesus that fills us, that protects us against these forces and keeps us safe.
Conclusion
And while it is wise always to remember that these demons are out there—that they constantly want to fight and turn you from the truth, that they're always there, tempting and pushing against us—it's even better to remember that we have security and safety in the protection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has defeated Satan forever. And just as he cast the demons out of this man and brought him back to his right mind, he protects us from the forces of evil.
And so we turn to him in his love and his grace, always looking for this defense in Jesus' name. Amen.
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