So many ways we could choose to begin. So I just put two sets of things up on the board in terms of getting your juices flowing. So we’re in Mark, we’re in the early part of Mark, in and around Nazareth Capernaum area, and we’re building a picture of Jesus.
He’s done a lot of healings and a lot of miracles in various settings. He’s been preaching. And then in Chapter 4, he does all this teaching of the parables of the kingdom.
And then when we get to the end of Chapter 4, we get this building picture of the fullness of who Jesus is. You have the stilling of the storm, the garrisoned demoniac at the beginning of Chapter 5, and then at the end of Chapter 5, you get this very interesting double dynamic. It’s two stories, but they’re woven into one, because Jairus’ daughter is sick, and he comes, he sent, people come to Jesus and say, Jairus’ daughter is sick.”
“And then while he’s on the way to Jairus’ house, this woman who has this issue of blood touches his garment. And then while he’s doing that, Jairus’ daughter dies. So at the end of the chapter, he raises Jairus’ daughter.
So if you’re following, this is stilling the storm, Lord of the deep. This is the Gerstein demoniac, Lord of demons. This is the woman with the issue of blood, Lord of disease. And this is finally Jairus’ daughter, Lord of death. And this is all very deliberate on Mark’s part. He’s trying to give you a sense of the greatness of the one with whom he had to do….”
“So we have a problem, which is we can’t conceive of what a perfect person would be like. But when you meet a perfect person, which is what Jesus actually is, and he’s the only one that ever is, no surprise, they don’t fit neatly into any box that you try to put them in. It’s not what you expect.
It’s not the way that you would think it would go. There’s all sorts of aspects of Christ’s character that are always bursting the bubble of the people that are around him. He’s full of wonder.
He’s full of power. He’s full of compassion. He’s got all these characteristics.
But the one thing that you have to say is this is not a made up story. You could never imagine anybody like this. And I’ve given you this before, but Mark 7 is one of my favorites, which is he has done all things well, which is what you would expect to be said about a perfect person.But you have to think about the magnitude of what that actually means when you’re talking about Jesus, because he’s got three years of public ministry. And think about all the things that he’s done in every situation. That means when he’s in front of Caiaphas, he does that well.When he’s in front of Pilate, he does that well. When he’s feeding to 5,000, he does that well. So here he is with the Gerasene Demoniac.
We’re in the second of these four incidents, which are really manifestations of the power of Christ. So this is all about Christ’s power. Power over nature, power over the demonic, power over sickness, and therefore the Lord of Health, and power over death.”
“And Jesus’s power is getting bigger and bigger as the passage is moving on. Now, what we, so I want you to turn to the actual Gerasene Demoniac, which is what we had last time. So the first thing is just to get back into the story and remind ourselves of the degree of the transformation that we’re dealing with.
So what I want you to do, you already know the story because we dealt with it in some detail last time, but I want you to remember that this guy is described as a raving lunatic, somebody who’s gashing himself, somebody who has supernatural power, somebody that nobody in the town wants anything to do with. He’s like a giant dark ogre that kind of lives in the spectral world of this horrible graveyard. And you start to add up all the things that you know about this guy.
He’s writhing, he’s got supernatural strength, he cries out day and night, he lives in a graveyard. If you had any one of those characteristics true of you, we’d probably think of sending you for mental help at a minimum, possibly to a mental hospital very quickly….
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