Context No. 3850 of 4322 · Mark

Mark 5:9-14: in context

9He asked him, “What is your name?” He said to him, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10He begged him much that he would not send them away out of the country. 11Now on the mountainside there was a great herd of pigs feeding. 12All the demons begged him, saying, “Send us into the pigs, that we may enter into them.” 13At once Jesus gave them permission. The unclean spirits came out and entered into the pigs. The herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and they were drowned in the sea. 14Those who fed the pigs fled, and told it in the city and in the country. The people came to see what it was that had happened.

Confronted by a man possessed by a whole legion of unclean spirits, Jesus speaks with an authority that even these massed powers of evil cannot resist. They do not fight him; they beg him. Name yourself, he says, and the answer comes, Legion, for we are many, a host of tormenting spirits in one wretched man.

Yet for all their number, they can only plead; they must go where Jesus permits, and at his word they come out. What stands out is the sheer authority of Jesus. Here is a concentration of evil so great it had made a man uncontrollable, breaking every chain, and it is helpless before the Son of God. The forces of darkness, however many and however strong, do not stand against a single word of his command. There is deep comfort in this for anyone who fears the forces of evil at work in the world or in a life. However great the darkness seems, it is not a match for Jesus; the same authority that freed the man of Legion still reigns, and no force of evil can resist his word.

Do I trust the authority of Jesus over every force of darkness, however great it seems, resting in the truth that no massed power of evil can resist a single word of his command?

Sources

Mark 5:9: "He asked him, What is your name? He said to him, My name is Legion, for we are many."
Mark 5:12-13: "All the demons begged him... At once Jesus gave them permission. The unclean spirits came out and entered into the pigs."
Mark 5:8: "For he said to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!"