In Mark Chapter 5, the ministry of Jesus continues, with varying reactions to Him and His work. Jesus and His disciples had just crossed the Sea of Galilee, after Jesus had calmed a great storm on the Sea and called His disciples to greater faith in Him (Mark 4:35-41). They arrived at an area to the East of the Jordan River, known as the Decapolis (10 cities) (Mark 5:20), where there were more Greek people and fewer Jews.
Immediately they were met by a man possessed by an evil spirit. He lived in tombs in a mountainous area. He had great power, because of the power of evil within him, and no one could control or subdue him. Day and night he was crying out and cutting himself (Mark 5:1-5).
As soon as the man saw Jesus, the unclean spirit in him forced him to go to and fall down before Jesus and admit who Jesus was: the Son of the Most High God. Evil spirits are only evil angels and are not God. They must ultimately do what Jesus, the Son of God said to do: to come out of the man and leave him alone. The unclean spirit tried to get Jesus to swear that He would not “torment” him. Jesus could not make that promise and made the unclean spirit admit that there were actually many evil spirits within the man - a “Legion” of them. The Roman Army was organized into “legions” of 4,000 to 6,000 men, and the term “legion” then came to mean any large number of people. This unclean spirit, then, speaking for a large number of other evil spirits within the man, begged Jesus not to send them far away but to let them go into a large herd of pigs nearby. Jesus allowed that, and as soon as these evil spirits entered the pigs, the pigs ran down a steep bank into the Sea of Galilee and were drowned (Mark 5:6-13).
The herdsmen caring for the pigs quickly went and told the owners of the pigs and others what had happened, and many people came out to see what the situation was. They saw Jesus and the formerly demon-possessed man, now clothed and in his right mind and back to normal again. They seemed to have no sympathy for the man and for the help and freedom Jesus had given him. Their focus seemed to be on the economic impact of the loss of the pigs and “they were afraid” - maybe of Jesus Himself and His power and what he might do next. They begged Jesus to leave the Decapolis area.
Why did Jesus allow all this? We do not know for sure. This Scripture does not tell us. Clearly, though, the true intent of the devil and all his evil angels was revealed. The temptations of the devil can seem good and appealing at times. We are free to do whatever we want, he tells us. That “freedom” leads only to other kinds of slavery, though; for Satan comes “only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). The evil spirits wanted only to trouble and torment the man they possessed; and they were the ones who caused all the pigs to go crazy and to die by drowning, when they went into them.
Jesus, on the other hand, came to bring life, new and abundant life, to people (John 10:10). The formerly demon-possessed man knew that and wanted to go away with Jesus as His disciple. Jesus instead sent the man back to his friends to tell them of the Lord’s mercy and what He had done for the man. The man did just that, with his focus on “how much Jesus had done for him” and everyone he spoke with in the Decapolis “marveled.” This man was a great witness for Jesus (Mark 5:18-20).
One more thought about this story. It is not clear from this passage, but some think that maybe the owner of the pigs was actually Jewish himself. He was therefore violating Jewish law of the Old Testament by what he did, since pigs were “unclean” animals themselves, and Jews were not to eat or touch or have anything to do with pigs, or they would become “unclean” too. (See Leviticus 11:7-8, for example.) A Jewish man should not have a business involving pigs, then, but he could get away with it more easily in a largely non-Jewish area, as the Decapolis was. Maybe the death of the pigs was a stern reminder to him and other Jews not to violate Old Testament law.
See Isaiah 65:2-7, where God warned His people not to be rebellious and worship false gods and do other things we hear about in Mark 5 - being involved with pigs and eating pig’s flesh and spending time in tombs and other secret places, influenced by the Satanic, and yet claiming to be holier than others. (We will see later in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus freed the Jews and us from many of these ceremonial laws; but it had not yet all happened at this point.)
When Jesus and His disciples returned to the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee, where He was more well-known, crowds quickly gathered around Him again, and a Jewish leader of a synagogue, Jairus, came, begging Jesus for His help, because his little daughter was very ill and near death. Jesus was very willing to go with him (Mark 5:24).
In the crowd with Jesus and Jairus was also a woman who had had a “discharge of blood” for 12 years. This was not the regular menstrual cycle for a woman but a more serious medical issue. The woman had visited many physicians and spent all her money, but was only getting worse, not better. This was not only a medical problem but a spiritual problem, because Jewish Law said that a flow of blood made a person unclean. See Leviticus 15:25-27, for example. Jewish leaders interpreted this to mean that this woman and others like her could not enter the temple in Jerusalem or any synagogue. Since this women was considered spiritually unclean, anyone who had contact with her would be made “unclean” also. So, this medical problem caused her also to live a very lonely, isolated life (Mark 5:25-26).
This woman had heard of Jesus and believed that He could help her. In her misery, she decided just to touch Jesus’ clothes, hoping that she could be cured in that way. She touched His garments and immediately felt that she had been healed of this 12 year long problem. This was an embarrassing problem, and she did not want to talk about it and hoped to slip away. Jesus, though, knew her situation and what she had done and wanted to talk with her, to reassure and encourage her in faith. So many people were in the crowd, though, constantly bumping into Jesus.
The woman finally came to Jesus “in fear and trembling” and admitted what she had done. Would she be in big trouble, because she had technically made Jesus unclean, too, just by touching his clothes?
Jesus simply spoke with her in care and love and said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.” Obviously, Jesus had healed her, and she received this gift by faith in Him. She received more, too. Jesus had literally said, “Your faith has saved you.” By the grace of God, she had received the gift of faith and salvation, too, and went home physically and spiritually healed (Mark 5:27-34)
The large crowd and now the interruption to help the woman in need had slowed down the trip to the home of Jairus. Just then, people came to tell Jairus that, very sadly, it was too late. His daughter had died. There was no point in troubling Jesus now. We can imagine how Jairus must have felt. Why didn’t he try to find Jesus sooner? Why did there have to be all these delays in trying to get Jesus to his daughter? So many regrets and so much shock and sorrow (Mark 5:35).
Quickly Jesus took charge of the situation. He reassured Jairus, “Do not keep being afraid; only keep believing!” Jesus then made the crowd scatter and took only Jairus and Peter, James, and John with him. At Jairus’ house there was a great commotion, with people loudly weeping and wailing at the death of the daughter. (Sometimes, professional mourners were even hired to make a big show of the sorrow at a death.) Jesus told the mourners to leave, saying to them, “The child is not dead, but sleeping.” The people knew better and laughed at Jesus, with scorn. They knew the girl was dead (Mark 5:36-40).
Jesus allowed only the father and mother and His three disciples to come to the place where the child was. The girl was dead, but Jesus took her by the hand and said in a common language of the day, Aramaic, “Little girl, arise,” and immediately she “got up and began walking, for she was 12 years of age.” Everyone was overcome with amazement at this miracle of someone being brought from death to life. Jesus told the family not to spread the news, but to make sure the girl got some food. She had been ill for a while and was surely hungry and in need of nourishment. Jesus cared about the smaller needs of people, too. (Jesus likely had three disciples with Him, as well, because among the Jews, 2 or 3 witnesses were needed to affirm the truth and reliability of something said or done. These disciples could later help affirm the truth of all that Jesus said and did.)
As Mark Chapter 6 begins, Jesus traveled back to His hometown of Nazareth with His disciples. He followed His usual pattern of worshipping on the Sabbath in the local synagogue and teaching, also, when invited to do so. Many of the people were astonished. They knew him, because he had grown up among them and was simply a carpenter, as his father, Joseph, had been. They knew all his family, too. (Joseph is not mentioned, as he had likely died already. The brothers and sisters were likely the children born in a normal way to Joseph and Mary, after the virgin birth of Jesus.)
The people could not understand how Jesus could say and do what was claimed by him. Who does Jesus think he is? They were offended by him. As Jesus said, He was a prophet not honored in his own hometown and even by his own family. It is at this point, still, as we have already heard in earlier lessons, that many in his own family were still not believing in him as the promised Lord and Savior. (That is why in this little section, I did not always capitalize the pronouns for Jesus. His claims were being rejected.) “And He marveled because of their unbelief.” As a result, Jesus did only a few healings in Nazareth. He did not give up, though, but moved on to other nearby villages, teaching them the Good News (Mark 6:1-6). His work was to continue to teach the truth and that He was the promised Savior, whether people believed in Him or rejected Him. We see both reactions in what we have read today and what we will read in weeks to follow.
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