Luke 8:26-39
The Second Sunday after Pentecost | 22 June 2025 | Luke 8:26-39 | Samuel David Zumwalt |
Luke 8:26-39 Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved
26 Then they sailed to the country of the Gadarenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 And when He stepped out on the land, there met Him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time. And he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before Him, and with a loud voice said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me!” 29 For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had often seized him, and he was kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles; and he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the wilderness. 30 Jesus asked him, saying, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” because many demons had entered him. 31 And they begged Him that He would not command them to go out into the abyss. 32 Now a herd of many swine was feeding there on the mountain. So they begged Him that He would permit them to enter them. And He permitted them. 33 Then the demons went out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the lake and drowned. 34 When those who fed them saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then they went out to see what had happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. 36 They also who had seen it told them by what means he who had been demon-possessed was healed. 37 Then the whole multitude of the surrounding region of the Gadarenes asked Him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. And He got into the boat and returned. 38 Now the man from whom the demons had departed begged Him that he might be with Him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you.” And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.
[Tuesday, June 24, is the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. He is referenced today.]
PRAISE THE MOST HIGH!
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Oppressed and Possessed
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” This poor naked man was oppressed and possessed by many demons. He was so far gone that he lived among the tombs. Could Jesus help?
Now, first, let’s admit this about ourselves. We like to be in control of every situation and want to be able to label everything rationally. Reaching into the familiar and comfortable places in our memories, we want to define this man as a crazy street person. Which label shall we put on him? Is he schizophrenic? Is he a man with multiple personalities? Is he a disabled war veteran? Is he a man whom drugs and alcohol have all but stolen his personality? What can we say about him that will not leave us fearful and uneasy?
Wouldn’t it be easier if we could put the man into a treatment program? Get him bathed, dressed, fed, and medicated? Wouldn’t we feel more comfortable if we could just demythologize this event like a German forensic pathologist of the Bible, put a medical label on this guy, and work up a treatment plan for him?
Luke the Physician invites us 21st century rationalists into a very strange and different world in which there is actually such a thing as demon oppression and demon possession. Luke invites us to see that there actually is an old evil one whose intent is to bring chaos out of order, ugliness out of beauty, and nothingness out of God’s good creation. The devil is not a god of evil. He is the first rebellious angel. It was his pride, his wanting to be what he couldn’t be, namely God, that was his downfall. He hates God!
Now, let’s pause for a moment to think about John the Baptist. He was a PK, a priest’s kid, and so John already knew what he was going to be when he was a little boy. Every priest’s boy would grow up to be a priest, whether he wanted to be or not. I knew guys like him at seminary. They were there, because it was expected that they would follow in their fathers’ footsteps, whether they wanted to or not. In John’s day, the fisherman’s kid became a fisherman. The taxman’s kid became a taxman. The carpenter’s kid became a carpenter. Daughters became wives and mothers. It was all clearly defined. On the 8th day after his birth, John received the mark of God’s covenant with Abraham. He was circumcised and named. John was set apart. He was made holy. Now, he was a child of God, his life was not his own.
So, then, back to the man who was oppressed and possessed by the old enemy and his demons. How did he get that way? If we gave him a psychiatric disorder, we might talk about a chemical imbalance or about terrible acts of abuse done to him when he was young or about his having witnessed and even participated in acts of horror and violence. But what if it’s far worse than that? What if evil is real?
If we are not properly formed in the Christian faith and if we are not thoroughly prepared for real and palpable evil in the world, we may well become oppressed and possessed by the demonic precisely because all of us are susceptible to that since we are born in bondage to sin, are death-bound, and are, in this life, relentlessly and mercilessly attacked by the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh.
A pastor friend told me this week about a once beautiful young woman who was never properly formed in the Christian faith, never thoroughly prepared for real and palpable evil in the world. At college, she fell in with an artsy crowd who resented her beauty and set out to destroy her fragile psyche. Today, the woman has become obese, shaved her head, and has declared she is no longer a woman. When speaking of herself, she uses the plural “we” and “they.” Doesn’t that sound familiar? Legion has possessed her.
If you do not know who and Whose you are, there will always be those who will be glad to tell you who you are. That’s how the demonic works. “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10).
John the Baptist saw how corrupt the culture of Jerusalem had become that he left behind the defined priestly role for which he had been prepared. The Word of God inhabited him. The Spirit of God drove him to declare judgment on his fellow Jews. Turn around. Repent. Have a change of heart. The Kingdom of God is at hand. The King is on His way. There is hope for the hopeless. There is rescue for the bound.
Repossessed
God did not send His Son to this hostile world because it was filled with good and godly people. When the very place where forgiveness of sins has become big business and has become an exclusive club for the few and not the many, the Kingdom of God has to break in and break up such spirit-killing routines.
John the Baptist did not go to the Sanhedrin, the religious and political rulers, and lobby them to change their ways. He stood across the Jordan, on the edge of the wilderness, where Moses had once given a powerful warning of the dangers of forgetting who and Whose they were, God’s servant people. There, John said that it was not just Gentiles who needed to convert. God’s people needed a change of heart.
At the right time, God sent His Son Jesus, the long-promised King from David’s family, the long-awaited prophet like Moses to rescue the whole world (and not just God’s chosen) from its bondage to sin, death, and the old evil one. Instead of telling Israel in Egypt to sacrifice a lamb and to spread with hyssop the lamb’s blood over the doorposts of their houses so that the angel of death would pass over; God sent His only-begotten Son to be the Lamb of God, sacrificed on the cross, that the whole world that God made might be repossessed by the Blood of the Lamb. When you are baptized, whether on the eighth day or the eightieth year of your life in this world, God repossesses you by joining you to the death and resurrection of His Beloved Son. In Baptism, you are washed in the Blood of the Lamb. In Baptism, you are claimed for God’s Kingdom. In Baptism, you are marked with Christ’s cross and sealed with the Holy Spirit!
If you have not been baptized with water in the name of the one true God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), then ask, because your Father in heaven wants no one to be lost, none to be left oppressed and possessed.
No matter where you have been, what you have done, how far you have sunk, how loudly the demons scream in your ears that there is no hope for you, it is not too late. Turn around. Your heavenly Father wants to embrace you in His mighty arms and to hold you in His grace and mercy forever. Turn around.
Once the Lord Jesus had driven the demons away from the young man, he was clothed in the Lord Jesus’ own righteousness. The young man was in his right mind, because Christ Jesus had repossessed him!
Express!
There are far too many churches today that are dead. Please don’t misunderstand. A church can have thousands of people rocking back and forth on their feet and be filled with an unholy spirit, a spirit of selfishness, a spirit of self-absorption, a spirit of self-possession, a spirit of self-righteousness. And, as John the Baptist pointed out, it begins with those who are leading the people away from the Living God.
Repentance is a way of life. It is daily returning to our Baptism to remember that it is only by God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ that we have hope for a future beyond this present darkness. Here we are the Church militant, the Church at war against sin, death, and the old evil one. Here we are called to do what the Lord Jesus told the man to do: “Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you!”
Our neighbors don’t need a church that looks no different than the world around them. Our neighbors don’t need a church that talks about membership as if this were not a hospital for sinners; not a bathhouse for the naked, filthy, and almost dead; and not a place where the possessed can be reclaimed by God. How will our neighbors know what God in Christ can do if we don’t express what He has done for us?
You don’t have to go into breathless detail about every stupid thing you have done in your life. The world doesn’t need more of so-called reality TV where everyone revels in her pathology. Some things just don’t need to be said in public. You tell some things in private confession and not on social media. Everybody doesn’t need to know how low you can go. The world needs to hear about the Most High and His mercy!
If you are baptized, you have been made holy by the Blood of Jesus shed for you on the cross. If you are baptized, the Lord Jesus wants you to have His Body and Blood within you, so that you will remember who and Whose you are. Your life is no longer your own. Your body is no longer your own. Your identity is no longer your own. Your things and your desires are no longer your own. Like John the Baptist, you are called to proclaim passionately and fearlessly the One who has suffered and died, risen and ascended, and poured out the Holy Spirit so that none may be lost and all may be found. Like the man fully clothed and in his right mind at last, you are called to express – to declare how much God has done for you!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
©Samuel David Zumwalt
St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church + Wilmington, North Carolina USA