Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The demons acknowledge the eternal, almighty Son of God, even though He was hidden in our frail human flesh. They acknowledge Him, as the Apostle James tells us, and they shudder. They shudder not at the mere threat of divine punishment at the hand of Christ, they cringe and backpedal because that judgment is absolutely certain. Everlasting torment and hellfire is all too real, and it is about to be unleashed on all enemies of the Lord God, including all unbelievers, as their inevitable end. That is what Legion fully realized. Those demons who possessed the man and made him live among the tombs saw Jesus and immediately they saw their almighty Judge.

But that final judgment will come only in the Lord’s good time. As Jesus Himself said to Nicodemus, God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. The mission of Jesus in His first coming was not the same as it will be in His Final Coming. Jesus is demonstrating to these people in the Gerasenes, the region on the other side of the lake, just as He is speaking to you today: He is here to have mercy on all, and to save those in the world who believe in Him. Even when that means having temporary mercy on demons.

Can you believe your ears? Jesus is taking the time to hear what devils are saying through a possessed man! What a twisted conversation is taking place—those demons wouldn’t have had a chance if they were actually to approach God in His absolute majesty and glory to say the same thing. That legion of evil spirits would have been immediately destroyed. Probably because they already know this, they are making a begging request, not to mention something so pitiful as “Don’t send us to the abyss!” And what is more, Jesus is here granting that request! What is going on here?

Let it never be said that the Lord does not give everyone, and I mean everyone, a fair hearing. Rather, it must be perfectly clear that Christ the Son of God who made everything in the beginning, wants nothing to perish. He takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner, nor apparently in making demons suffer before their appointed time. It is true from the rest of the Bible’s witness that there is no promise of salvation for the devil and his angels; they have permanently rejected God as committed enemies, and on Judgment Day they will ultimately suffer the fate that they were pleading with Jesus to hold back. As they enter the pigs, they even forecast for the people nearby to see a picture of what that latter-day condemnation will look like—those demons send unclean animals into an unclean mode of death—by drowning in the sea-depths. But what your Savior is making clear to you today in this strange, other-worldly conversation that the Bible records, He makes this central point: you can count on Jesus to have mercy upon you, a sinner.

And yet, how many times have you followed your sinful, inner human nature like some demon-possessed pig and responded like the people of that country where Jesus preached? They responded to the fearful things concerning Judgment that they saw, rather than the words of grace they were hearing or had the chance to hear from Jesus’ mouth. Remember how they responded? They begged the Lord to leave them. Now, it is true you may not at the moment be frightened with future doom and gloom scenarios; you may not overtly ask Jesus to leave you as those people did, but look closely. Examine your heart, as Martin Luther says, in comparison with what God requires in the Ten Commandments.

Do you take offense at the mercy God has toward miserable sinners? Is the life under suffering and the cross just too much to handle? You get frustrated with all the negative things that happen around you, yet when it comes to the time to make a difference about it, you find yourself sitting on your hands, paralyzed with the false notion that you have nothing to offer. Fathers, you’ve now had your day—but it’s time to be honest—have you or your wife exasperated your children or used harsh and unloving words, perhaps convincing yourselves that your kids deserved such sins that you commit against them? There are times when all of you have blamed others, or you have even blamed God in your heart, when all along the person who needs forgiveness and renewal is the one who looks at you every day in the mirror.

You have tried to “chain up” these sins when you try to put your best face forward. You have let those pious and wonderful things that happen to come through in your life endear you to others and they seem to be successful at covering up your miserable inner condition. There are chains of God’s Law that you may like to use, that if only you made more sincere commitments to the Lord in certain areas, then your problems with sin will go away. Another popular man-made chain is to let issues go unresolved and replace the true mutual reconciliation that you need with tense silence, drastic and immature action, or just avoiding the issue altogether. But as you can see with the actual chains that were put on that demon-possessed man, your variety of chains that you use are no match for the struggle you have going on within you as a baptized Christian. Your sinful nature and the devil who constantly attacks you are driving you out to death and self-destruction, just like that man had broken himself free from his chains, yet he was a prisoner still —a prisoner to Legion, and was dragged out to the tombs and the wilderness in all his naked shame.

But remember, Christ is here to have mercy on all, including you. His almighty power that He demonstrates in driving out demons and healing the sick and lame, all of this miraculous power comes with the flip side, too. That flip side is this: every sin He forgives, every spiritual and physical illness He takes away, doesn’t just disappear in mid-air. Your Lord and Savior chooses to absorb all this evil into His own flesh, just like He took your sin when He was baptized and carried it as His burden. It would be a burden that actually became heavier on His shoulders with each healing He performed and every absolution He would speak. Finally, He bore the burden of the world’s sin up until the last burden was added to it, and that was the cross itself. On that cross He would be nailed, on that cross He would suffer even more and die a cursed, shameful, even unclean death. And that death would be the end of the power of Satan and his demons. It would mean forgiveness and life to you, just as the Risen Savior spoke peace to His forgiven disciples before His ascension.

The Jesus who had momentary mercy on the demons, speaks His permanent forgiving Word of healing to you today in the liturgy. Your sins, your infirmities, your complacent attitude, your shortcomings are absorbed into His flesh. Another way to say it is the way St. Paul the Apostle talks about it: that you have been, and are being crucified with Christ—drowned in your own baptismal water—but you are risen again with your Lord and His free forgiveness. Like the demon possessed man, your life was wrapped up in death and the devil, formerly chained up with all the false remedies of the law, and you only appeared to have broken yourself free. In Jesus Christ, however, you truly are free, not naked in shame but clothed in His perfect righteousness, and God has done great things for you. When the man was rescued and back in his right mind, there was nothing he would rather do more than talk about what Jesus had done. It’s precisely the same for you in your daily life and calling.

The Judgment Day that the demons fear will instead bring to you the full salvation that you taste at this altar. Though all the legions of Satan will be commanded to be tormented eternally in hell’s abyss, you will be invited by Jesus Himself to come and partake of the loving richness of the Heavenly Father above all fathers. For He was the one who brought you out of the tombs and wilderness of sin and death to live in the house of the Lord forever. And all your loved ones and the saints who have already departed this fallen world are cheering you on as you run the race, as you fight those difficult battles with your own sinful flesh. Just as all of us here, seen and unseen, are looking forward to the day when we will finally receive the crown of eternal glory that will never pass away.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Green Altar Parament

Readings:
Is. 65:1–9 I was found by those who did not seek Me
Psalm 3 You, oh LORD, are a shield for me
Gal. 3:23—4:7 when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son
Luke 8:26–39 Gadarene demoniac