God’s Word for You
Mark 5:3-5 Breaking, crying, and cutting
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, September 17, 2022
3 He lived in the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound, chained and shackled, but he tore the chains apart, and he broke the shackles on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 He was always crying out night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, and he would cut himself with stones.
“Breaking…, crying…, cutting.” These are not words that describe a happy man. He was in agony, tormented by the demon that possessed him. In fact, it was not one demon, but many, as we will hear about later. Where was his family? Where were his friends? Matthew says there was another man there who was also possessed—had the two of them gotten into this together, dabbling in witchcraft or something else forbidden by the First and Second Commandments? Of course, if he hurt himself, cutting and bruising his flesh with sharp, jagged stones, he might also be a danger to everyone around him. His family would surely try to stop him, and Mark tells us that nobody at all could stop him.
Superhuman strength is a sign of true demon possession, but it is not always the case. In this case the man was so violent that he was driven to living out in the tombs, empty quarries on the hillside above the steep slopes down to the Sea of Galilee.
This scene is one of the Bible’s preludes to the torments of hell. Paul told the Thessalonians: “God deems it just to repay with affliction those who afflict the godly in this life” (2 Thessalonians 1:6). This justice, God’s justice, requires the ungodly to pay the penalties that are due for their sins. Gerhard says that “because this does not always happen in this life, it most surely is going to happen in the life to come” (On Hell, par. 21). Of course, Professor Gerhard is understating things, since even soldiers, victims of war, and victims of terrible crimes and disasters who undergo the most agonizing punishment in their flesh and minds still have an eternity of suffering waiting as the penalty for sin. Only faith in Christ can rescue anyone from that penalty.
This man, on account of the demons within him, was experiencing the agony of hell. There are perhaps hundreds of passages that illustrate just how serious, how real, how inevitable, and how terrible that suffering will be. Just a few:
“Just as drought and heat snatch away the snowy waters, so also hell snatches away those who have sinned” (Job 24:19).
“It is a fire which devours all the way to destruction; it burns down to the root” (Job 31:12).
“If man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow. He has also prepared for him the instruments of death, and he has made ready his flaming arrows” (Psalm 7:12-13).
“On the wicked the Lord will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur, and a scorching wind will be their lot” (Psalm 11:6).
Those suffering in hell do not escape God’s personal wrath in any way: “Hell and destruction are before the Lord” (Proverbs 15:11). And again: “Hell and destruction are never satisfied” (Proverbs 27:20; cp. 30:16). And we have not even touched on passages from Moses, the prophets, the Gospels, the Epistles, or from Revelation.
We must not take this poor man’s cries, sobs, and slashings as some modern psychiatric or psychotic episode. We must never set aside the knowledge that this was a man experiencing bodily possession by demons. And since all that the demons know is the agony of hell (which is not their kingdom, but their prison), he also experienced some of that agony, sensing through them what it is to be separated from God and from God’s love. He still knew God. We will see that he or the demons within him even recognized Jesus as the Son of God. But there was no grace; no comfort in that knowledge.
You have that knowledge, which is trust and faith in Jesus. If the terrible sufferings and cries of this pitiful demon-possessed man in the tombs of the Decapolis trouble you, then take pity on the people around you; the people you love. Make certain that they know about Jesus, and speak his name out loud with brave confidence. Jesus said, “In my name, Christians will drive out demons” (Mark 16:17). This is a sign that will accompany those who believe. We pray that we would be brave enough to take pity on such a man, breaking, crying, cutting. Don’t be afraid of him. Have mercy on him.
Broken, crying; wounded. The sins of your whole life were removed by the punishment Jesus endured. He paid the price for your sin with his body, his mind, his spirit. His innocent flesh untouched by sin, his pure mind unstained at all by guilt, and his spirit, holy, pure and divine, bore the penalty for all of your sin. You will be spared the pain of hell because Jesus has loved you. Trust in that; trust in him. He has your mansion prepared for you in Paradise—as far away from hell as the east is from the west, as light is from dark. As far away as broken and crying are from being comforted and healed.
“He sent forth his word and healed them,” the Psalm says. “He rescued them from the grave.” (Psalm 107:20)
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.