January 31, 2014: Mark Chapter 5

 The Gospel According to Mark Chapter 5

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 

General Comment: Immediately - to use one of Mark's favorite words, we notice that Mark's original of the first story is almost three times longer than Matthew's. Matthew has moved the scene from Gerasa, 37 miles inland, to Gadara which has territory near the seacoast. Matthew has doubled the number of demon possessed men and has taken out most of the verses describing the man and his conversation with Jesus. Therefore, we do not get the sense of this man's fear, agony and feeling of sheer helplessness and the despondency of being in the grip of so many demons. If this were a novel, we would call that character development.

Jesus and his disciples are in Gentile territory near the southeast shore of the Sea of Galilee. Gerasa was one of the 10 cities of the Decapolis (deca = 10; polis = city), settled mostly by Greeks but under Roman control. The Roman Tenth Legion, whose Standard symbol was the boar (wild male swine), was stationed in this area.  A typical Legion would be 6,000 men at arms plus cavalry and auxiliaries. The designation as Legion can also be used for a battalion of 2048 soldiers, a number close to the 2,000 swine in this story. The name of the city, Gerasa, is from the word meaning "to banish" which was used to describe the exorcism of demons.

Mark Chapter 5:1-20 The Gerasene Demoniac [MT 8:28-34]

Imagine being with Jesus and his disciples as they leave the boat and make their way to Gerasa. You are in Gentile territory; there will be the occasional Roman patrol from the Tenth Legion on the road; Greek traders and their wagons will be hauling goods to and from the shore. You will be eyed suspiciously as a foreigner from the other side of the sea. As you approach the city there will be cemeteries outside the city on either side of the road. Large tombs are cut into the rock, some of them with open fronts, high enough to walk into and stand erect. As you pass by one of the cemeteries, you hear loud howling like a wounded dog. You don't want to look at the cemetery, afraid that its uncleanness will send its evil air toward you. But the sound is so frightening yet pitiful that you have to look. There he is, coming toward you, this hideous looking man with a face twisted, mouth drooling, his body bruised, wrists and ankles showing the cuts from the remnants of chains and shackles. 

The mad man sees Jesus and runs toward him as if to leap upon him like a lion on its prey. But he stops just short of Jesus who is standing still with his eyes intently fixed upon this spectacle whose humanity has been stripped from him by what gnawed on his soul. The man bows before Jesus and in a barely understandable voice screams out Jesus name. Whatever evil holds him senses something, some holy presence in Jesus. He calls him Son of the Most High God, as if he were the son of the god Zeus. The man is overcome with the fear of his own destruction.  He begs Jesus not to torment him, as if he could possibly be any more tormented than he is.

Jesus commands the demon to come out of the man. He asks him his name. It is Legion, as if he can feel the oppression and hear the shouting of an entire Legion of occupiers within his screaming mind. The man's lips move but the demons' collective voice begs Jesus not to send them away from their familiar haunts. Send them to that herd of swine on the hillside, they beg. Jesus did as they wished and so this collective force, born of all the many tentacles of crushing hopelessness, fear, depression and the sense of worthlessness that can assail the human psyche, flees the man. The chaos that once reigned finds its own ruin in the chaos of the sea.

The man has been made whole. Townspeople come from the towns and villages to see him. He is washed, clothed, sitting quietly and in his own right mind. No inner voices. No self mutilation. No thrashing about. Quiet. The people are afraid of Jesus. What manner of god is this, they wonder. Is he an evil power that has destroyed a lesser evil? In their fear of the unknown they beg Jesus to leave and to take all his friends with him. Jesus does not stay where he is not wanted. He returns to the shore, followed by the man who asks him if he may go with him. He has made a discovery in his wholeness. His mind had been torn to shreds by the demonic experience. Now his mind is whole once more and with the first chance he has to make a clear decision it is to follow this man from across the sea who has put him back together again. But Jesus sees a better possibility and tells him to go to his house, to his family and to his friends. Let them see what  God has done for him and what mercy God has shown him. And the man does this and more, proclaiming throughout the Gentile Decapolis what Jesus has done for him.

A man once riddled with more internal anguish than we can imagine, is made whole, reconciled with family and friends. In his pain, he did not run from Jesus. With hope from outside himself, he came to him. When life itself had failed him, he found this one who just might hold life in his hand. He came to Jesus and Jesus gave him life, a new life that could not keep quiet what God had wrought this day.

Mark Chapter 5:21-43 Jarius' Daughter and a Woman's Faith  [MT 9:18-26]

When Jesus reached the western shore the crowd was waiting for him. The crowd parted as if someone important was passing through. It was Jarius', one of the rulers of the Synagogue and he was important. Jarius knelt before Jesus begging him to come with him to his home where his little daughter lay near death. If only Jesus will come, place his hands on her, she will be well. Jarius has seen it happen. Even in his own Synagogue, he had stood apart from the antagonism of the Pharisees and marveled at what he saw. He knew it was possible. His faith told him so.

Jesus was back from a long journey. He was worn out and needed rest. But how do you deny a man's faith and say no to the life of a little girl? He cannot. He will not. Jesus left the crowd and walked with Jarius toward his home. On the way, with the crowd he thought he had left behind following them, a woman reached out and pulled on the edge of his robe. It was enough of a tug that Jesus turned around and asked who had pulled on his robe, and why. He had developed a keen sense of the moment during his travels. Sometimes small things had big meanings and he had learned to pay attention to whatever sign was there to see. The disciples were in a hurry to reach Jarius' home. There was a little girl waiting there for Jesus. The woman had been ill with a hemorrhage that just wouldn't stop and she had become ritually unclean as a result. She should be at home, away from everyone else. She had suffered for twelve years now, and no matter how much money she spent no one could help her. She had heard about Jesus and thought to herself that if she could touch his robe, that would  surely be enough, and it was. But now she had been discovered and with fear she came to Jesus and admitted to him what she had done and why she had done it. With the kindest of compassion and respect, he addressed her as daughter - for she, too, was a daughter of Abraham, and he told her to go in peace for her faith had made her well.

In the midst of all this Jarius was told by some friends who had been with his daughter that she had died, that Jesus was no longer needed. Jesus heard them talking but ignored them, quietly telling Jarius not to be afraid, but to let the faith that had brought him thus far guide him further. At Jarius' home Jesus sees the commotion. He tells them that the girl has not died. She is only sleeping, and he then put everyone outside. With Jarius and his wife he took Peter, James and John (the pillars of the church as Paul called them) and went into the little girls room. She was just asleep he had said to the crowd. Jesus took the girl by the hand and spoke to her. "Little girl, to you I say, arise. Rise up." The girl, who we now know is twelve years old - born in the year when the woman with the hemorrhage became ill, got up and walked around.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________  Mark has given us three stories. A mentally ill Gentile, freed from the forces that are destroying him, is restored to his family and friends and becomes a follower of Jesus and proclaimer of the Good News among the Gentiles. A woman who has been sick for twelve years, stricken by a disease that has shut her off from family and neighbors alike because she is ritually unclean is healed and restored to her family and community. A twelve year girl is believed to be dead - the greatest  of all separations from a loving family, but Jesus speaks to her and she rises from her  bed, walks and has something to eat. For Mark there is no debate about the miraculous. There is no rationalization about psychosomatic illnesses or comas. There is Jesus, and there is restoration. This is the theme of the Kingdom of God, when all things will be made right, and all people will be made whole. The man of Gerasa, the woman with the hemorrhage, the little girl at death's door or beyond, are images of the future when God's awaited Reign begins. They are the promises to a suffering Christian community.

By the time Mark's Gospel is finished they will have lost more members to the savagery of the Roman State than we can consider. These stories, these recollections and others like them, were the seeds of hope. They would be so for generations to come. And if they are still so in our own time then Mark has served us well. Who does not need hope? Who does not need a sense of a better future, if not for one's self but for the generations to come? What stories will we leave to our children and grandchildren that will give them hope in the struggles that they will surely face?