(As I read Mark 5:1-20 last week, it struck me that the story called for a testimony. That is, after all, what Jesus asked from the man who’d been healed. “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” I began asking why the man was living at a cemetery; and in that question I imagined some overlap with my own story.)
The Ex-Demoniac’s Testimony
Most people can’t imagine moving to a cemetery. But I didn’t move there. Not really. I migrated there. I guess I just found myself there more and more. At first when my daughter died, I just visited there. But over time, my life back in Damascus seemed futile. People wanted me to get on with my life. “You’ll have other children,” they assured me. They told me that people have to get over their grief and press ahead, letting time do its work. And then that tomb on the eastern bank of the Sea of Galilee – well, that seemed real. It felt like I was guarding my little girl, like I was refusing to leave her in her suffering. I didn’t WANT my grief to end because that felt like the end of memories of her laughter. And her crying.
So at some point, I just left home. The Gerasenes cemetery became my new home. And there, in the vast expanse of my grief, the door to my soul was left ajar.
And like the legion of Roman solders that kept marching unwanted into our region, another Legion entered my heart. To put it bluntly, hell came goosestepping into my life.
Almost immediately, I couldn’t tell where I ended and the demons began. They tormented me. They deluded me. They drove me to despair.
I became an animal, prowling around the nooks and crannies of those hills. I’ve heard tales since then of how I frightened all the mothers of the Ten Cities. They warned their children to never stray near the Gerasenes.
They warned about a bedeviled lunatic who was naked, who cut himself with stones and who would cry out day and night. It sounded like urban legend; but this one checked out. It was true. I was your worst nightmare.
A few times, the mothers shoved the fathers out the door with their weapons and their chains to come bind me to protect their families. But nothing that could chain me was as powerful as the evil that was in me.
I came to these tombs to lament my daughter’s death. Now I couldn’t wait for my own death. I begged these unclean spirits to let me pass.
And then one day . . . I looked out on the lake and a boat was coming. They apparently didn’t know about the madman that you were supposed to avoid.
When they saw me, I expected to see the quickest about-face in history. But one of the Jews got out of the boat and began walking toward me. I’m still astounded. He was a Jewish teacher; I was an unclean man in an unclean place with an unclean crowd of demons stirring inside.
When I saw him, I ran, I sprinted, and then I fell, pleading with him to remove my suffering. That voice that bellowed from inside me screamed: “WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME, JESUS, SON OF THE MOST HIGH GOD? IN GOD’S NAME DON’T TORTURE ME!”
This Jesus looked at me – without fear and without repulsion – and he asked, “What is your name?”
That voice that overwhelmed me answered, “MY NAME IS LEGION. FOR WE ARE MANY.” Then that voice – the voice of these unclean spirits – began begging him not to send them out of the area. “SEND US AMONG THE PIGS. ALLOW US TO GO INTO THEM.”
Then, in an instant, hell’s demons fled. I watched in amazement as two thousand pigs stampeded off a steep bank into the lake.
The last thing I saw was the people who tended the pigs running in all directions, undoubtedly to tell people what had happened. No doubt they were frightened – and a bit upset about their livelihood.
While they were running, while chaos was breaking out all around . . . I was sane. For the first time in a long time. “So this is what sanity feels like,” I thought to myself. I’d pretty much forgotten. I did the one thing that made the most sense. I got dressed. With each garment of clothing I slipped on over my scar-ridden body, I realized how naked my life had been.
I couldn’t wait to see some of the people who’d known me as a scary mad-man. They’d be overjoyed to see my good fortune.
Or so I thought. Because when they came back, there were the same, familiar looks etched on their faces. Sheer fear. I guess anything they couldn’t explain frightened them. As a man who couldn’t get past his grief, I frightened them. As a Legion-possessed, self-mutilating naked lunatic, I frightened them. And now, as a man who’d been healed, I scared them as well.
They begged Jesus to leave. And I begged him to go with him. “This will be wonderful,” I thought. I’ll follow him wherever he goes. He’ll never leave my sight.
And then perhaps the most perplexing part of all. He told me I wasn’t going with him. “GO HOME TO YOUR OWN PEOPLE,” he said. “GO BACK AND TELL THEM HOW MUCH THE LORD HAS DONE FOR YOU.”
He didn’t tell me to enter the priesthood. He didn’t tell me to preach the good news around the world. He simply asked me to go home, to return to the Decapolis and to report on what had happened to me.
Which is just what I’ve been doing. No big fanfare. No book deals. No TV appearances. I’m just telling people what the Lord has done for me.
Let the weak say I am strong.
Let the poor say I am rich.
Let the blind say I can see.
It’s what the Lord has done in me.
- 10/19/08, Mike Cope
. Much more later about this moving novel.
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