Go Away

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

GO AWAY

Mark 5:6-13

6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. 7 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!" 8 For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!"  9 Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." 10 And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. 11 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12 The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them." 13 He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

NIV

Again, we should include the entire narrative to take in the whole of the circumstances regarding this event recorded for us here in Mark as well as what Matthew and Luke have to say about it. However, there are these truths within which draw our attention in and of themselves. First, we have to notice that even the evil spirits give homage to the Son of God. Although they were not created as evil. This brings us to the age-old debate about whether God created evil or that God would not create evil for He is pure Goodness, Holy and upright. Yet, when God created the world and the Garden of Eden, He did put within the garden a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, we are not completely privy to the timeline of Lucifer’s rebellion against God, thus being the first being to demonstrate against pure righteousness, and thus become what God defines as evil, the opposite of righteous. So then having cast Lucifer, and all the angels that Lucifer had influenced to follow his rebellion, to earth, evil existed on the earth so God wanting his creation of man to have the right to choose, gave him the opportunity to resist evil and choose righteousness, choose God. Yet all those angels who are now called demons, or evil spirits, were and are still very aware of their final fate, the lake of burning sulfur and internal damnation. Here, these demons, who called themselves legend, because there was a great number of them possessing this man, or men, as Matthew says. Luke also gives an account of one man.  It does not matter the discrepancy, in fact, it validates all the gospels as being original eyewitness accounts. If everything in the scripture was perfectly identical then it might appear it was fabricated. But this could simply show different men see or want to bring something to the forefront. The fact is Luke makes mention this man had not lived in a house for a long time, which would indicate that he once lived in the city among the people and maybe was even well known, maybe even a prominent member of the city. We just do not know much about him, except now the demons, had control of him. They knew their final fate, which is why they asked him not to torment them now but begged him to not send them out of the area, which again could be seen as sending them to hell. As far as the pigs, or swine, we are not sure as to who the owners of the herd were, for it would have been against the law for Jews to own such an unclean herd. This region did border Israel or was part of Israel at the time, there may have been a mixture of Jews and Gentiles living there, so it could have been either Jews or Gentiles who owned this herd. Nevertheless, because Jesus was a Jew and abided by the law, sending the demons into the swine and having them run down the hill to down in the sea was not against the law, for they were already unclean, not fit for Jewish consumption and if they were owned by Jews in the area, they were operating outside the law, and Jesus was just in his allowing the demons to go into the swine. The point being is that evil will always yield to the divine and we have the divine living within us. Therefore any evil that comes our way must yield to us, as we have been given the authority, we have the authority within us, to demand they go away to their destruction. Get thee behind me! Go away!