You might remember from our previous excursions in Luke’s Gospel that he enjoys presenting Jesus as the fulfilment of the role of priest. What the Levitical priests did in shadow / drama from, Jesus does for real. This week’s passage is ‘Jesus-as-Priest’ par excellence!
Leviticus is a lived-in drama. Under Moses, God has put the ancient Church into a kind of school. It’s a period of training to help the Church through all ages to understand and believe the Gospel. It’s a brilliant multi-sense, immersive vision of every aspect of life that teaches us how to live that life in light of the Gospel. Lev.11-15 deals with the question of unclean – clean – holy. This can be a difficult concept for Christians today to grasp. It isn’t about whether someone is a Christian or not (Christians can be ‘unclean’ and non-Christians can be ‘clean’). It’s about how to live in a fallen world. There is a powerful picture of the way what is unclean (death, decay, and the curse) keeps trying to break into the ‘clean’ life of the Church and to reclaim it. It is the job of the Levitical Priest to keep what is ‘unclean’ out of the ‘clean’ arena of life provided by the Church. And when it does break in, the priest is to put it back out again.
In a world interpreted through a Leviticus-lens, the situation confronting Jesus is one of compounded uncleanness. This is a man inhabited by not just one demon, but a legion of them (the ESV helpfully translates them as ‘unclean’ where NIV has ‘impure’ in 8:29). And the man’s internal condition is matched by his external surroundings. He lives amongst death. Mark tells us he cuts himself (Mk.5:5, with loss of blood symbolizing loss of life, and therefore a tending toward death); he is likely in a ‘Gentile’ area, suggested by the presence of so large a herd of pigs (likely a town-wide economy; and pigs being ‘unclean’ because they eat corpses, i.e. feed on death). And the situation has continued for a long time (8:27).
But Jesus is the Priest, charged with driving back the darkness of death and curse. He alone can make someone clean. And He does. This section of Luke’s Gospel is often presented as demonstrating the authority of Jesus over all of creation: Seen (8:22-25) and unseen (8:26f.). And it does. But it does more: it shows us what Jesus uses that authority to achieve!
Questions:
What do you believe about demons? DO such beings exist?
What would you say to someone who suggested that this whole passage is simply a first-century way of describing a phenomenon that we would now understand in medical or psychological terms?
What does it mean to talk about someone being ‘possessed’ by a demon / impure spirit in this way? Do you think demons still oppress or possess people today? What would that look like? How should the Church respond?
Why do you think the [legion of] demons are afraid Jesus would ‘torture’ them (v.28). Is that the sort of thing Jesus does? …or will do?
What (and where) is ‘the Abyss’ (v.31)? Why are the demons so fearful of being sent there?
How can we justify Jesus’ permitting the demons to enter and destroy a herd of pigs in this way? Why is Jesus willing to act in a way that results in the death of so many animals?
Why are the people afraid of Jesus (v.37)? Is this the same ‘fear’ that the disciples felt in 8:25? Should ‘fear’ be part of our response to Jesus? …and why is Jesus so willing to consent to their rejection of Him (v.37)?
Why is Jesus willing to grant every request made of Him in this passage, except that of the man who has just become a disciple?
How does Jesus’ authority over the demonic affect our experience of discipleship? What does it mean when we commit Christians in our baptism liturgy to ‘fight against…the devil’?
