Tell them how much the Lord has done for you

They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake.

The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighbourhood. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

- Mark 5:1-20

Jesus meets a man who is afflicted with the persecution of many demons possessing him. I won't go into what one may speculate on the nature of demon possession or its resemblance to mental illness. But instead I'd like to focus on the story. We're all familiar with the phrase "My name is Legion." Suffice it to say that this is a man beyond the pale, someone considered irredeemable, unsalvageable. He is cast out into the most forlorn place of all, he lives among the tombs. Not only is this the forlorn land of the unclean, but also of the dead. He cannot even be restrained by chains anymore, so he's relegated to a place where he cannot live among his fellow human beings, but only among the dead. Figuratively, we could view this as a statement that this man is numbered among the dead, among those without hope of life whatsoever.

And so, Jesus arrives. And the spirits know him. "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?" There is a recognition in this spirit world, and the story - as a piece of literature - is setting us into a place where we must understand there is a spiritual battle going on, and those who are players in a world beyond our sight and beyond this 3-dimensional scene of the wild man among the tombs know one another already and recognize each other. This is not an early believer at this stage, recognizing Jesus for who he is. This is the realm of the dead among those tombs, the land of that which is beyond death, the "underworld" as it would have been understood in the Decapolis.

The demons, legion though they may be, are cast out, they are immediately subject to Jesus. They beg him for some form of mercy, not to be sent out of the country, and so they are sent into the swine who immediately run and plunge to their deaths. The man is saved, and begs to follow Jesus. But instead he's told that he must go and proclaim his thanks to God, and share his good news of healing and redemption with others. This demoniac, among the most profoundly lost and disturbed, relegated only to the dead and not the living, has become an evangelist. Jesus' redemption makes of him one of the first sent out into the world to declare the good news, and to bear witness.

I find many metaphors in this story of life and death, of what is and what isn't. Particularly of note is the idea that he lived among the dead, in this underworld of the tombs, and yet he is sent out as among the first evangelists, to those in the Decapolis, a Greek-speaking region, fortified by Rome and Roman rule, for whom the underworld of Hades - reflected in life among the tombs for this man - would have signified in the story of the one who has returned from that life to proclaim the healing by Jesus Christ. So this unclean man, possessed by a legion of demons fit only through mercy to enter a herd of swine (unclean animals for the Jews), goes on to become among the first to proclaim the good news. And in this story we have absolutes as deep as death and life and rebirth, in the ultimate unclean outsider who becomes appointed by Jesus himself an evangelist, a witness to represent news of Jesus to the world and a proclamation of what the Lord can do. I take it to say that there are no limits to redemption, that the power of the Lord knows no bounds and no problem impossible to solve. There is no one beyond hope, and no life beyond redeeming in this power.