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.
When reading the account of the demoniac in Luke 8, we may be tempted to read this passage and imagine ourselves as some distant observer, far removed from all that we see happening. Many of us, with our tidy, modern, respectable little lives, have never experienced demon possession in the way it’s described here. Now, I’m certain we’ve had encounters with demon possession, but our western minds have been so conditioned to dismiss these kinds of things, covering them up with acceptable scientific or medical categories like “disease” or something strictly within the realm of “mental health”. These classifications often serve only to neuter the experience, removing from our minds any possibility that it could indicate something happening on a spiritual level. It’s far more acceptable to assume that it’s a matter of chemistry, and little more. Nevertheless, rare is it that one of us encounters a person like this man we find in Luke 8. It’s easy to think this story has little bearing on our lives and, left to ourselves, we will be hard pressed to see how much this story shows us about ourselves.
I think the average person has far more in common with this demoniac than we’re willing to admit. Naturally, I think about these things from the perspective of my own life, and I’m grieved to admit that at every turn, I see far more of myself in this man than I would care to. I see the same helplessness, the same desperation, and can relate entirely to the reality of being plagued by forces beyond my control. Although by God’s grace my circumstances were very different, we were both men who shared the same fate but for the gracious intervention of Christ. That is until, like him, I experienced the healing only Jesus can provide.
The story begins in verse 26, where we’re told that at the very moment Jesus stepped out of the boat on the shore of the Gerasenes, he’s met by the man with the demon. This naked, homeless, wandering shell of a human being, whose only dwelling was among tombs, cries out, falling at Jesus’ feet. This all happens immediately after Jesus commanded the demon within him to come out. We then find that it’s not one spirit, but many spirits that have taken up residence within the man, and his violence was of such an intensity that no chain could bind him, with the demons often driving him out into the isolation of the desert. What a sad state: being so utterly at the mercy of evil that you’re completely alienated and alone. It doesn’t take demon possession to sympathize with what that might be like, and it’s probably not unlike the feeling of some of our own experiences.
After pleading with Jesus that he would not cast them into the abyss ahead of schedule, the demons were permitted to enter into a group of nearby pigs feeding on the hillside. When they entered them, the whole herd, “rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned“1. What a picture. What a reality to come to terms with. Where sin and wickedness make their home, there’s fury, and chaos, and death.
With the pigs now drowned, the herdsmen fled to the city and the surrounding country to tell others what had happened, at which point, “…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…”2
What a picture we’re given here. One day, the man is all alone, insane, and without clothes, and the next he finds himself sitting at the feet of Jesus, with new clothes, and a restored mind. Is this not a beautiful picture of Salvation? This, my friend, describes all of us, if we’re honest enough to admit it. What a love that God has for us—the same love we see here at work with the Gerasene demoniac. When we were cut off from God by the wickedness of our own hearts, Christ met us along the way. He opened our eyes, filled us with his Holy Spirit, and renewed our minds. Like Isaiah, we can now say that, “…he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.”3
After all of this, in spite of the miraculous healing the crowd of people from the surrounding country had just witnessed, they asked Jesus to depart from them. Jesus, unwilling to force himself on anyone, granted their request and gets into the boat to return. But before he leaves, the demon possessed man begs Jesus to go with him, yet Jesus won’t allow it. The verse actually reads that the man, “begged that he might be with him.“4 Isn’t that what any of us would do? Wouldn’t we all want simply to be near the man who had just healed us and changed our life forever? Jesus, who had in many other instances said, “follow me”, had a different plan for this man. He instead tells him, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”5 Jesus didn’t leave him without clear purpose or direction. No, we read that Jesus, sent him. That’s a very significant thing.
So what happens? He went. The story concludes by telling us that, “he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.”6
This, friend, is a commission, and I think this is precisely what God desires for the rest of us. Jesus wouldn’t allow the man to remain with him, not because he was being cold or unfair, but because he was giving the man a new calling. He was inviting him into ministry, and had a new purpose for his life. Jesus had been tilling the soil of this man’s life and was now sending him out to yield a hundredfold.7
Of the many things that can be taken from this story, here is the one that I think stands in the foreground: the reasonable and right response to the life changing grace of God is to go out and declare how much He has done for us. How could we do anything less if we really contemplate with any level of seriousness all that he’s done for us? If we have been saved by Jesus, if we have heard the sweet call of the Gospel and responded accordingly, then we have much to declare, because He has indeed done much for us.
I think about the experiences of my own life. I may not have been possessed by demons; but, as the psalmist wrote, I was one who regularly walked in the counsel of the wicked and who stood in the way that sinners take. I was at one time one who was caught up doing evil things, and I still carry many of those scars to this day. The magnitude of what God spared me from, I will never forget. I was on a path for hell and self-destruction–of that there is no doubt. I can still recall to this day, where I was, the window I was facing, when the weight of my own sin came crashing down on me. I remember the tears. I remember the pain. But I also remember the hope.
The Bible is in large part so extraordinary because it works within so much that is ordinary. The God of the universe meets us where we are, in the commonplace, and in our day-to-day routines. He knows us, lovingly condescends to us, and seeks us out while we were yet still in our sins. What a great God he is, and even greater still for using flawed human beings to accomplish His glorious ends. I think we should never underestimate the power of simply sharing with others what God has done for us, because I think that’s the very power he intends to display in us.