Please read today's Scripture here: Luke 8:22-39
In all three synoptic gospels these two episodes are successive, indicating that they are to be studied together. Whether readers were supposed to understand the first in the light of the second or the second in the light of the first, the gospel writers knew that each had light to shed upon the other.
The Storm at Sea Luke 8:22-25
Therefore it probably isn’t a stretch to understand Jesus’ words to his disciples “Let’s go across to the other side of the lake” as anticipating the need of the demon-possessed man from Gerasa.
While they sailed, Jesus fell asleep. When a sudden storm arose with winds and waves that threatened to scuttle the boat, the disciples wakened him in terror. At this, Jesus rebuked both the wind and waves and the disciples.
What questions does this raise in your mind? If Jesus was really the Son of God, should he have not known what was coming? Why then did he allow himself to fall asleep? In Psalm 121:3-8—which these sailors may have often needed to recall and depend upon— it says of God:
“God will not allow your foot to slip; your guardian does not sleep. 4 Truly, he who watches over Israel never slumbers nor sleeps. 5 The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. 6 By day the sun cannot harm you, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will guard you from all evil, will always guard your life. 8 The LORD will guard your coming and going both now and forever.”The Scripture says God “never slumbers or sleeps”, but “watches over Israel” to keep her safe. Should Jesus not have done the same for his disciples?
As Christians we believe Jesus was both divine and human. As a human being, Jesus was subject to fatigue, hunger and the need for periodic sleep. As we saw in the episode of choosing the Twelve, he sometimes spent the entire night in prayer, without any sleep. And the toll of ministering to the large crowds certainly must have left him physically exhausted at times. Humanly speaking, Jesus fell asleep because he was exhausted from his ministry. Humanly speaking, there were many eight-hour periods in which at least he had to appear to be “off duty”.
But God as a Triune Being—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is never “off duty”. When Jesus, therefore, chided his disciples for their lack of faith, he was not necessarily scolding them for doubting his own ability to save them: he was challenging them to always trust in the watchful care of their Father in Heaven, about whom Psalm 121 speaks.
When Jesus allowed himself to fall asleep in a boat crossing a lake, he had to commit his own safety during sleep to his Heavenly Father. Perhaps as a child at Mary’s side, as he prepared for sleep, he had learned Psalm 121 and used it as a prayer. Now he wanted his disciples to learn the same lesson. If they only trusted in a humanly present Jesus in the years to come after his resurrection and ascension, they would be a sorry lot indeed! Part of learning to be a follower of Jesus was to learn to trust his Father in Heaven, as he did himself.
The effect of this experience on his disciples (v. 25) was fear and amazement, that this Jesus, whom they had already seen raise the dead, could also make the winds and waves obey him. The fact that they were amazed after the storm had ceased might indicate that, when they sought to awaken him, they did not expect that he would be able to still the storm, but that they wanted him to have a chance to save himself by swimming. To us, the readers, that might seem strange, since one who could raise the dead ought to be able to save himself in a supernatural way, not a natural one. But in times of sudden danger very few people think clearly and logically. The disciples' first reaction was to awaken the one whom they most trusted in times of danger.
In many ways this is a perplexing story. Even at the end we are left wondering: In time of danger is a believer to have such faith that he does not call upon Jesus also? No, it was not the rousing of Jesus that showed their lack of faith: it was their fear and unbelief that God would save their lives, even with Jesus awake, that Jesus saw in them. True disciples of Jesus in all times must avail themselves of whatever natural resources they can in times of danger, while at the same time calling upon God in prayer and believing that he will protect them. We can and should pray for God to heal us from our injuries and illnesses, but not neglect to go to the doctor!
Many commentators have suggested that this episode was also intended by the gospel writers as a metaphor—a picture of the life of the Christian Church through the ages until Jesus returns. In fact, the figure of a boat in a storm-tossed sea with Jesus in it occurs often as a symbol in altarpieces and stained glass windows of churches. It is a good visual reminder to Christians of all ages that, although we may expect the Church to have many adversaries and to experience times of persecution so strong as to seem to threaten its very existence, Jesus is the unseen Presence in the boat, and he will not allow his Church to perish.
The Demon-possessed Man from Gerasa
When they beached the boat on the eastern side of the Lake, at a town called Gerasa, they were “welcomed” there, not by a delegation of town leaders, but by the town’s “monster”—a wild man who didn’t live in a house but ranged among the tombs on the outskirts of the town and wore no clothes. Mark 5:3-6 tells us that he was supernaturally strong and was able to break chains that the villagers put upon him to control him. Matthew (8:28) adds that he often blocked the way of travelers, so that they could not pass through the area. There is also a pitiful side to his possession, which only Mark tells us (5:5-6): he was constantly bruising himself with stones. A modern physician might diagnose his case as a form of mental illness, for some such people throw themselves against a wall or the ground and intentionally injure themselves. But we are not concerned here with scientific explanations. The Scripture simply attributes this man’s state to possession by a very large number of demons.
From the description of this man we would certainly conclude that he was being tormented by powers within himself. Yet when he met Jesus, a voice from within him indicated that his tormentors were now afraid of a greater torment by the Power they saw in Jesus. The cry from within him recognized Jesus as “Son of the Most High God”. Whatever else may be said about the meaning of the phrase “son of God” among Jews at the time of Jesus, the context here shows that the person so addressed had power to drive out demons and consign them to torment.
It has often been commented upon that in the gospels the demons know Jesus’ true identity, while his critics among his own people fail to do so. Evil spirits had no reason to deny his true identity when confronted by the Son of God. The voice says “me” (v. 28), indicating a singularity, yet later it identifies itself as Legion, meaning a whole host of demons comprised this singularity.
In the course of verbally expelling the demons, Jesus asked their name (v. 30). In Jesus’ time there were people who claimed to have the power to exorcise demons, and there was a kind of technique. One part of it was to learn the name of the power to be expelled. I am not saying that Jesus’ power depended upon magical tricks, merely that he followed somewhat the form that was customary. His real power came from God and from his own nature as the Son of the Most High God. The evil spirits within the man gave as their “name” the Latin word legion, because Palestinian Jews at this time knew how numerous and dangerous was a legion of Roman soldiers. Was this a kind of threat addressed to Jesus, or merely the demon's explanation to him of why the villagers had been unable to cope with the possessed man with chains? Probably the latter, since the text also tells us that the demons begged Jesus not to banish them to the Abyss, which probably means Hell.
The next sequence seems a bit strange to us. Why did Jesus not send them straight to Hell, but send them into a herd of pigs, who would immediately plunge to their deaths in the lake? Would the demons, deprived of their porcine hosts, have been free to seek out another human host? Would they have been consigned to Hell after the pigs died? The gospel writers do not answer these questions for us. We are given to understand that Jesus knew what was best under these circumstances.
But the upshot of this exchange of hosts and the consequent death of the herd of pigs was that their owners, who had been only mildly inconvenienced by the suffering of this demon-possessed man, were now enraged over their loss of revenue from the pigs! Even though they saw now that this troubled man was sitting calm and composed at the feet of Jesus, this did not mollify them. In fact, in v. 37 Luke tells us that they asked Jesus to leave their territory! By saving a tormented man and restoring him to sanity and decency, he had upset their economic applecart, and the resulting situation was—to their inverted point of view—worse than before!
The healed man, on the other hand, wanted to join Jesus’ group of disciples and travel with him. But Jesus ordered him to stay put and be a witness where he had before been a sideshow feature. A suffering, tormented and violent man provided entertainment for the people of Gerasa; a righteous man and a witness did not.
Incidentally, the fact that pig raising was a basic element of the economy of Gerasa joins other evidence from ancient sources to indicate that the east side of the Lake of Galilee was largely non-Jewish. So this trip across the Lake by Jesus was a mission to the Gentile world. In individual cases, such as with the Roman Centurion, we see that Gentiles received Jesus with faith and open minds. But this episode shows that this pattern was not always true, especially when economic motives were involved. The Gentiles could be as selfish and obtuse as Jesus’ Jewish critics.
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