Legion Crusher

The awesome power of the Lord once again provokes fear as He shows His dominion over
demons in this week’s passage. Mark’s point in presenting this passage right after 4:35-41 is to
demonstrate the divinity of Jesus, and record the understandable response to Him displaying His
might. No evil or chaos - no matter how deeply embedded, long-lasting, and violent - can
withstand the presence of the Son of God.
Picture the scene - it’s probably nighttime (see 4:35), and Jesus has just calmed chaos with a few
words. As He reaches Gentile shores, He is immediately confronted by a presumably dirty, lonely,
outcast who is suffering under the severe oppression of demons that both gave him supernatural
strength and kept him in mental chaos. This is a man you’d cross the street to avoid, and yet the
Lord meets him with mercy. God will not ultimately let the destruction of human beings go
unhealed or unavenged. The demons who have so destroyed a man made in God’s image are
then destroyed, and Jesus leaves, for He will not remain where people want nothing to do with
Him. The man whom Jesus healed remains as the Lord’s ambassador, tasked with telling
everyone about the mercy of God-in-the-flesh.