Imagine that you live in a rural area that, among it's other products, is known for raising pigs. It's an idyllic life. Fresh air, the simple life of farmers, craftsmen, and herders. It would be the perfect place to live except for one small problem.
Your hometown is besieged by a demon-possessed man.
You'd seen him once, out in the countryside, when his tortured and anguished screams had been stilled and you came upon him unexpectedly. He looked half-starved from living among the tombs and running through the hills. His eyes were red and sunken from lack of sleep, their depths filled with the unsteady horror of a man whose very soul had been lost. Naked, covered in dirt and dried blood, his body was marred with jagged, infected wounds from where he had torn his flesh and cut himself with stones.
As your eyes met, he raised his head to the heavens and screamed, a twisted cry of madness and rage and you had ran as fast as your legs could carry you until you were safe inside your home, the door closed behind you, your heart pounding in your chest.
You'd had so much hope the day that the men of the town had gathered together to hunt the creature. They'd caught him with some difficulty - the wild man seemed to have no fear of anything, except whatever it was that loomed inside him. They had chained him and placed iron manacles around his ankles, but with a unholy scream, the slender man had shattered the chains with a demonic strength, ripping apart even the irons that had bound his feet before he ran back to the hills, his tortured cries once more echoing over the town day and night.
One of your friends had interrupted you at your work with a simple yet urgent plea of, "Come on! You have to see this!" Setting down the tools of your trade, you'd hurried after him, amazed to find the rest of the town gathering as well. Pushing your way through the crowd, you found thirteen strangers standing in the midst of your fellow villagers and a fourteenth stranger sitting at the feet of one of the men. The man who was sitting looked strangely familiar. He was dressed in simple clothes, waiting quietly while the townsfolk murmured in excited whispers. It wasn't until he met your eyes that you realized why he seemed familiar to you. It was the demon possessed man, "sitting there dressed and in his right mind." (Mark 5:15)
And suddenly, like the rest of your neighbors, you were afraid, not of the demons that had lurked inside the man, but of the power of the stranger at whose feet the man sat, a power that even unholy monsters were forced to obey.
The story referenced above comes from Mark 5:1-20. Jesus and his companions had crossed the Sea of Galilee by boat (after Jesus had calmed the storm). There He encountered the demon possessed man, allowed the demons to escape into a herd of pigs, and the pigs rushed into the Sea of Galilee where they drowned. We'll do an in-depth look at the remainder of chapter five at a later date (once we've gone through the entire Gospel of Mark) as it holds a great deal of spiritual significance, but for now we'll simply focus on the story of the demon possessed man.
The first thing that stands out in this passage is that the man went to meet Jesus. This wouldn't be so monumental (many people approached Jesus) except that it is clearly inferred that this man was fully controlled by demons. Not only did they fill him with enough unholy strength that the man could break chains and the irons that were placed around his feet, but he cut himself with stones and lived among the tombs and in the hills. In fact, it was the demons in this passage, not the man, who spoke to Jesus. In other words, the demons were in control when he approached Christ, not the man who was possessed by them. What's more, the demon possessed man didn't just walk up to Jesus, "he ran and fell on his knees in front of Him." (Mark 5:6)
Christ had commanded, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!" (Mark 5:8) and the demon responded with, "Swear to God that you won't torture me!" (Mark 5:7) and "he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area." (Mark 5:10)
What is monumental in this passage is not that Christ cast the demons out of the man or that the demons went into a herd of approximately 2,000 pigs and the whole herd rushed off into the water and drowned. What is simply amazing is that Jesus had mercy on the demons.
The demons fully expected to be tortured for what they had done. Even so, they begged Jesus not to send them out of the area, strongly insinuating that Christ had the power to send them wherever He chose to send them. "The demons begged Jesus, 'Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.' He gave them permission and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs." (Mark 5:12-13)
In other words, Jesus was such an embodiment of love that he even had mercy on evil spirits.
The only other demon that has spoken to this point in the Gospel of Mark used similar words, saying, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?" (Mark 1:24) One set of demons was afraid that Christ would destroy them; the other group feared they would be tortured by Jesus.
This brings us back to the point we explored last week in "Cultivating Our Hearts," that there are only two forces in this world, love and fear. If this was not the case, if the demons would have been simply evil, if they would have been simply hateful, at some point they would have cursed Christ or shown some measure of defiance. They didn't blindly accept their fate out of bitterness. It is made clear in both passages that the demons were afraid.
What we need to understand is how controlling fear can be. We rarely decided not to engage in an action or activity because we're angry or bitter. The one thing that usually stops us is fear. Fear is a tremendously powerful force, so powerful that there is only one thing more powerful than fear.
And that is love.
What we see here is an incredibly powerful evil spirit. It had the strength to shatter chains; to tear iron manacles apart; so much physical strength that, "No one was strong enough to subdue him." (Mark 5:4)
It could be easily argued that the demon cowered in the face of God's power as embodied through His Son, Jesus Christ. The demon makes clear that it was aware of Christ's divinity when it says, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?" (Mark 5:7) But I don't believe this is the reason why the demon cowered before Christ.
What we see in this passage in Mark is a confrontation not between good and evil, but between love and fear. The demons were terrified. The man "fell on his knees" in front of Jesus and "begged Jesus again and again." The demons were afraid that Christ would torture them. Not only are the demons creatures of fear, but they most reflect what they represent - they were engulfed with fear themselves.
If we revisit 1 Corinthians 13:4, we're reminded that "love is kind." Because Jesus was the embodiment of love, He, against all earthly logic, was kind to the demons and granted them their request. We may ask ourselves, "Didn't Christ know that they would rush into the pigs? Wouldn't he assume that, given the chance, the demons would simply try to harm someone else?" The key is that Jesus is truly the manifestation of love. If we return to Corinthians 13 and look at verse five, we see that love "keeps no record of wrongs."
As unbelievable as it may seem to us with our limited understanding, being love itself, Christ also loved the demons. When, trapped in their own fear, they were terrified that He would torture them, when they begged Him to let them go into the herd of pigs, Jesus did the only thing that love can do. He was kind. He did not keep a record of their wrongs. He showed them love and granted them their request.
If Jesus would love the demons after everything that they did to the man they possessed, how much love will He show us who strive to truly seek His heart and follow His example in love?