#WatchAndPray Lent reflections - Week 5: Thursday

Week 5: Thursday

Mark 5.1-13

They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake.

This healing miracle cannot be understood in full without paying attention to the clues in Mark’s text. The name of the man’s demons – “Legion” – is the name for the largest military unit of the Roman army. There was a Roman colonial outpost near Gerasa (or Gadara as Matthew refers to it). The shackling with iron was a particular Roman military method.

When we peel back the layers of the text we see Jesus encountering a community under occupation – from oppressive earthly and spiritual forces. Mark leaves us to discover that the society in which both the man and the community reside needs healing. The ‘demon’ here is systemic, hidden and deeply rooted.

Systemic evils such as racism, homophobia, misogyny and xenophobia often lie deep and hidden. Jesus offers the kind of healing that operates at the deepest level.

Reflect on military conflicts across our world.

for the cultures and histories of violence to cease.

Copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2024.