Stories of Jesus: Luke 8:26-39: The Story of Legion

Some parts of the Bible are really difficult to understand. Some parts we will never understand, at least, not while we are on this earth. But sometimes, if we are patient and diligent, we will find something important for our lives in the most difficult parts.

LUKE 8.26-39: THE STORY OF A MAN CALLED “LEGION”:
OR HOW A MADMAN BECAME A MESSENGER

INTRODUCTION

In his great book, In the Beginning, Chaim Potok tells the story of David, a young Jewish boy in New York who is hungry for knowledge.
He is studying the Hebrew Bible with a wise man named Mr. Bader.
At one point in the story David becomes very troubled by a passage in Genesis that he doesn’t understand. It is something in the story of Noah. David has read the commentaries ad the scholars disagree violently.
David is tells his father of his frustration. His father then shares something he learned long ago. The father says, “It is as important to learn the important questions as it is the important answers. It is especially important to learn the questions to which there may not be good answers. We have to learn to live with questions….I am glad that Mr. Bader is a good teacher, and I am glad that he tells you truthfully that he does not have answers to all our questions.”

The story we are going to talk about today is one that I have always wondered about because there are things in it that I don’t understand at all.
But sometimes the most difficult parts of the Bible are the ones from which we can learn the most if we are just patient and willing to learn even from stories we don’t understand completely.

It is the story of the man Jesus met who said that he had within him a whole mob of demons.

Read: Luke 8:26-39

I. First, let’s think about the sad predicament of the poor mad man who rushed to Jesus, just as he got off the boat.

A. Picture the scene: The man was naked. He was crazy. He was dangerous. He was dirty and disheveled. He lived by himself in a graveyard. According to Mark’s version of the story he was “always howling and bruising himself with stones.”

The man fell down before Jesus and cried out: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.”

“For Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.”

The man has named Jesus; now Jesus asks him for his name.
“Legion!” he screams. He believes he is possessed by thousands of demons.

B. A little background…

The man was what we would call a maniac.
He lives among the tombs.
Graves were considered “unclean” by the Jews. They whitewashed their sepulchers so that no one would accidentally touch one because if you did, you would become unclean too
The man is violent. The authorities have arrested him, put him under guard, bound him with chains, but he has always escaped and been driven into the deserted area by his demons.
There he lives, naked, by himself, feared by all.
He is so tormented that he thinks that he has thousands of demons inside him. (A legion is 5-6000 Roman soldiers. His country was occupied and controlled by hated Roman legions. In the eyes of the conquered people they were evil. It’s like he has an army of these monsters inside him making him crazy.)

C. Now my mind is filled with questions:

1. Were there really demons inside this man, or did he have what we call schizophrenia?

2. Why did the man rush at Jesus and fall at his feet? He acts like he wants Jesus to go away and yet he comes to him and falls to the ground before him.

3. Did the demons really go into the pigs? And did the demons really drown themselves?

4. Why did Jesus send the man away after he had begged to follow him? Remember, he told the leper, “Don’t tell anyone.” But he told this man to go home and tell what had happened to him.

II. So how can we understand the story?

A. If we saw this man in Cedar Rapids today we would say he was mentally ill. He had delusions. His mind was unhinged from reality.

Charlotte and I worked in a mental hospital. We saw many patients who in Jesus’s time would have been considered “demon-possessed.”
They were violent. Sometimes they had to be restrained to keep them from hurting themselves or others.
With the proper medications they would become calm, and often the symptoms of the disease would disappear.
Once, on the theory that a patient was demon-possessed, I remember that once some church people came into the hospital to get the demon out by prayer. I don’t think they had any success.

But people who visit other cultures tell convincing stories about possession and cures through prayer.

Let me share with you an account that came in a letter the just two days ago from a mission that works with the Dimasa tribe in North India.
The gospel has only recently come to these people.
New Christians in that tribe are now translating a primer for teaching their people to read.
One of the translators is Gbisni.
Gbisni’s sister was possessed with 12 evil spirits.
The Hindu priests wouldn’t help. They were using her as a medium to communicate with these spirits.
Gbsini’s parents took her to an Imam at a mosque to see if he could help their daughter, but the evil spirits were too powerful: the girl ended up biting the Imam who then freed himself with a cutting tool, injuring her badly.
Finally, Gbisni took his sister to some Christians nearby. He informed the Hindu priests that if the God of the Christians could free his sister, he would convert to Christianity and would take baptism.
He also told the Hindu priests that he would remain a Hindu forever if they could free his sister.
The God of the Christians freed his sister from the evil spirits and Gbisni became a faithful follower of Jesus.

Jesus saw the powers of evil behind all sorts of physical and mental suffering. We are so used to looking for natural causes that we are usually unaware of the role Satan plays in the troubles of the world.
This story is a powerful parable of how Jesus battles back the forces of evil to bring about peace and goodness in a world of suffering and sin.

People in ancient times lived in a dangerous world. Besides earthquakes, floods, famines, disease, and war, they had the fear that the world around them was thickly populated with demonic powers. They were convinced that the demons could enter ones body through his ears, nose or mouth. They used amulets, magic, sacrifices, and rituals to appease or escape these spiritual powers.
This story would assure the early Christian believers that Jesus was more powerful than these horrible powers. It was a comfort to know that Jesus Christ had conquered the “principalities and powers.”

B. And why did the man rush up to Jesus, and yet cry out as if he wanted Jesus to go away?

I believe that the man rushed up to Jesus and threw himself down because he wanted deliverance, but at the same time the evil spirit inside him cried out against Jesus.
But notice that his cry came after Jesus had ordered the demons to be gone.
I believe that Jesus was responding to the man’s need and even the shred of faith that the man possessed.

Pigs were, to Jews, unclean, filthy beasts. They help us see the horribleness of the scene: the violent, naked man, living among unclean tombs, tormented by an army or horrible evil spirits, and an enormous herd of filthy pigs. The whole picture is depressing, and as such it is an environment in which Jesus can impressively show his power and goodness.
Some people—trying to read between the lines—say that maybe the man, in his violence hurled himself against the pigs and set them into the stampede. If this is so, it served God’s purpose in assuring the man that his filthy tormentors were indeed gone forever and would never come back.

III. As you can see, we don’t have answers to all my questions, but what is the point of the story? What is in it that is important for you and me?

A. Every one of Jesus’s miracles was a “sign.” Jesus didn’t just do impossible things to amaze people, or even just to prove that he was God.

Jesus opened the eyes of the blind to show that he is the light of the world.
Jesus unstopped the ears of the deaf to show how he opens our ears to hear God’s truth.
Jesus makes the lame to walk to show how he gives us wisdom to walk in the paths of righteousness.
Jesus cleansed the leper to show how he cleanses us from the uncleanness of sin.
Jesus raised the dead to show that he is the Resurrection and the Life.
Jesus stilled storms at sea to show how he calms the storms in our lives.
Jesus fed the multitudes with miraculously-produced bread to illustrate that he is the “Bread of Life.”
So the expelling of the demons afflicting poor Legion shows that Jesus is even more powerful than the evil that infects and afflicts the world.
So each of these miracles was an act of compassion and also a sign of God’s kingdom breaking into the world.
Each miracle was also a parable of how Christ works in your life and mine.

B. It might surprise us to see that the townspeople were afraid, when they came and saw the man they had feared, now clothed and in his right mind. They were probably glad that the poor crazy man was healed, but the didn’t approve of the destruction of all those pigs. So they begged Jesus to please go away.

But Jesus teaches us the relative value of money and lives. Jesus says, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits his soul?”
Someone said, “All down through the ages the world has been refusing Jesus because the world prefers pigs.”

C. But I think the most interesting part of the story, and the most instructive part is the ending.

See the man sitting at the feet of Jesus (v35). He has become a disciple. He is now in the learner’s pose. Sitting there listening and learning.
And he had a lot to learn in a short time because although he begged to go with Jesus, Jesus has something more important for him to do. He’s going to be Jesus’s first missionary to the Gentile world!

“Return to your home,” he says, “and declare how much God has done for you.”

Maybe Legion didn’t know much, but he had a great story. And sometimes the most effective evangelist is not the one who has the most theology but the one who has the best story.

You don’t need to know much theology to “declare how much God has done for you.”

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of our story I told you that I didn’t have all the answers.
And now you know that that’s true.
But, you see, we don’t have to have all the answers to hear God talking to us.
And I hear God telling us in this story that Jesus can heal, and he can deliver us from all those things that torment us.

And I hear God telling us: “Declare how much God has done for you.”

I’ll leave you with these words from 1 Peter 2:9:

“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, God’s own people,
in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts
of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Stories of Jesus: Luke 7:1-10: The Man Who Astonished Jesus

Probably we all have disappointed Jesus, maybe many times. But do you know that it’s also possible to pleasantly surprise Jesus too? In Luke we have the story of a man who astonished Jesus, and that man is an example for all of us.

LUKE 7:1-10: THE MAN WHO ASTONISHED JESUS

INTRODUCTION

When I was in Korea serving in the artillery during the Korean War, the captain of our battery was a man we called “The Hook.” I don’t remember his real name, but we always called him “The Hook,” because he was so mean. Of course, he never knew we called him that; if we ever had occasion to address him, it was always “Sir” or “Captain.” But we hardly ever had occasion to speak to him because we avoided him whenever possible. If we saw the captain approaching we would walk behind a tent or change our direction to avoid him.
Maybe our captain believed he was obliged to behave in this harsh, abusive way because we were a bunch of draftees who hated the army and all it stood for and only longed to go home and be away from the war and the army.
I should add that not all battery commanders were cruel. We had another one who was considerate, and we appreciated him. But he was unusual.
In the story from the gospel that I am going to read to you the hero is a Roman centurion. A centurion was the commander of 100 troops. He had the same responsibility as our battery commander or a captain in the infantry.

Read Luke 7:1-10

I. Notice how unusual this centurion was.

A. The first thing we notice about the centurion is that he was kind. He loved his slave.

My version says he “had a slave who was dear to him.”
Some translations read he “had a slave who was valuable to him.”
The Greek word can mean “honored” or “respected,” or it can mean “precious” or “valuable.”
We might suppose that this slave had some special skill that made his master prize him. Maybe he was good at keeping accounts or repairing armor.
But I think my translation is the right one. I believe that the centurion loved his slave.
Everything we read about this military man is positive, and the fact that Jesus responded to him so warmly convinces me that he was the kind of master who loved his servants.
And the slave evidently loved his master, and that made him valuable to him.

B. The second thing we notice is that he is God-fearing.

Most Gentiles didn’t like Jews. They considered Jews “different.” I don’t know just why Jews were disliked; maybe it was because they were so different.
They had odd customs. They ate different food. They refused to take part in the pagan festivals. They were clannish. They tried to avoid having anything to do with Gentiles unless it was absolutely necessary.
There were certain foods the Jews were forbidden to eat. The effect of their dietary laws was to keep the Jews separate from the Gentiles. They couldn’t eat with Gentiles because then they would have been obliged them to eat pork or other foods that were forbidden. Jews didn’t even enter the homes of Gentiles.

But some Greeks and Romans were attracted to Jewish ways. They were disgusted with the vice and immorality of their pagan society. They understood the beauty of holy living as taught in the Old Testament.
Without becoming Jews themselves, these Romans or Greeks would go to the synagogues and learn about the God of Israel and try to follow the Jewish way of life that was so much superior to the idolatrous ways of their own people.
They were called “God fearers.” We meet some of these God fearers in the book of Acts. Cornelius was one. Lydia was another. Often the most eager converts to Christianity in those early days were these God fearing Gentiles. They already knew the Old Testament stories and they were ready to believe that Jesus was the Promised Savior.

C. The third thing we notice about this man is that he was loved by the people of the city.

This was unusual for a Roman military man to be loved by Jews in a land the Romans were occupying. Jews generally hated the Roman conquerors. When a Jew came upon a Roman in the street, he might spit on the ground to show his contempt.
Jewish terrorists would murder Roman soldiers if they could get away with it.
But when this centurion’s servant was dying, the Jewish elders of the city went to Jesus to intercede for the centurion.

D. The fourth thing we notice about the centurion is his generosity.

So this Centurion’s generosity combined with his piety to led him to use his own funds to build a meeting house—a synagogue—in the important city where he and his soldiers were stationed, Capernaum.

The elders tell Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he built us our synagogue.”
Love and generosity always go together. You can’t love without being generous if it is in your power to do something for the one you love.

This centurion reminds me of a story Viktor Frankl tells in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a Jew and was an inmate in a concentration camp during World War 2.
The camp was a cruel place and most of the prisoners died. But Frankl survived.
Frankl tells about the SS commander of the camp he was in just before the liberation.
This man was a Nazi, but unknown to all of the camp inmates except the Jewish doctor, this Nazi had been using his own money to buy medicine for the treatment of sick prisoners.
At the end of the war the prisoners learned of his kindness, and three Hungarian Jews hid the Nazi in the Bavarian woods. Then they went to the American commander, who was very anxious to capture the man. The Hungarian Jews told the American general that they would tell where this Nazi was, but only if he would promise that absolutely no harm would come to the man.
After a while, the general promised the young Jews that the SS commander would be kept safe from harm. And he kept his word.
A surprising story? Not more surprising than the story of a Roman centurion who loved and helped the conquered people his army was there to subdue.

II. Two other things stand out about this Roman that make him unique in the stories of Jesus. And these are the point of the story.

A. First of all, his humility. Military commanders are not noted for their humility. It isn’t a trait that helps they get ahead.

The Jewish elders told Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue.”

But when Jesus set out to come to him, the centurion sent this message to Jesus: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof…”

Did you know that in the time of Jesus pagans didn’t think of humility as a virtue?
One of the things the pagan philosophers held against Christianity was that it welcomed slaves and poor people and uneducated and uncultured people. They thought that these humble Christians must have no self-respect.
Celsus was a second century pagan who wrote books attacking the Christians. To him the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet was utterly blasphemous. It was one of the things he held against Christians that they were so low minded as to picture God, not only as crucified, but also washing people’s dirty feet.

But the centurion had learned from the Hebrew scriptures that he was unworthy of God’s mercy.

There was another reason why the centurion discouraged Jesus from coming to his house.
The Jews believed that it was offensive to enter a Gentile house, just as it would have been offensive to invite a Gentile into one of their houses.
The centurion knew that if Jesus entered his house, Jesus would have been criticized.
It was his sensitivity and his courtesy to Jesus that led him to send his friends to urge Jesus just to say the word of healing and not come into his house.

B. But what really surprised and amazed and pleased Jesus was the man’s faith.

We read of only one other time that Jesus was amazed. It was when he visited his hometown of Nazareth, and, we read, “he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-6). If anyone should have been able to believe in Jesus, it seems that it would be those who knew him best.

This godly centurion had a deep insight into the ways of God that Jesus’s Jewish listeners lacked.
He said, “Say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ’Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’”

He had figured out that God was Lord of heaven and earth. And he had figured out that in this man Jesus, God was personally present and active.
So he drew the connection between the delegated authority he exercised in commanding his soldiers and the authority God had given Jesus to do these wonderful works.
And that was the faith that amazed Jesus.

Jesus was used to rewarding the faith of people who had a very low-grade kind of faith. Remember the woman who crept up behind Jesus because she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Her faith was a sort of superstitious faith, but Jesus honored it. In that case, Jesus singled her out and made sure that she understood that it was her faith that healed her and not some kind of magic that came from his clothes.
He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34).

But the centurion had the most shining, splendid faith; he invited Jesus to cure his slave at a distance.
And Jesus marveled. He said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”

CONCLUSION

This centurion is an example to us.
He was humble. He knew he didn’t deserve anything.
He was loving and generous—beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected of him.
And especially he believed.

Faith is not optimism. Faith is not hoping hard. Faith is believing God.

I can’t tell you how to get faith.
The only thing I know is that the more I pray, and reflect on God’s Word, and the more I try to please God in what I do, the stronger my faith becomes.

My prayer for myself and for you is that God will give us strong faith, faith so strong and real that God is as real to us as the person sitting beside us.

I doubt that we will ever amaze God with our faith, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did?