"Surprise! You Belong" - Preaching at Harderwyk - Mark 5:1-20 - January 10, 2021

Resources For "Surprise! You Belong!" Series From Each Harderwyk Preacher 

Pastor Bill Lindner - Celebration & Fusion Preacher

Our City Is Dying - Youtube - CLICK HERE

OK - so the city in this video is Seattle.  As I said though, I suspect it could be produced from any significant urban American city.  And my point was not so much the situation, as the visual of the sufferer in the text, as well as those in the video.

A Prayer of Lament, Repentance, and Hope by Scotty Smith - CLICK HERE

This is Scotty's prayer from Thursday, January 7 that I used in the Celebration Service this morning.  Note the "Subscribe to Scotty's Blog" box on the right of the page,  This lets you receive his daily prayer email which I highly recommend.  CLICK HERE for instructions for this process and for adding the PrayerMate app for your smartphone or tablet.

Pastor Aaron VanDerVeen - Watershed Preacher

From NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible:

5:13 into the lake. Mark does not clarify the spirits’ fate, but presumably, they were at least somehow immobilized. drowned. Pigs may swim, but not indefinitely, probably especially after plunging over a steep bank. In some Jewish traditions demons could be destroyed (e.g., Abot de Rabbi Nathan 37A) or could be bound in an abyss (1 Enoch 88:1–3) or under the earth (Jubilees 5:6; 1 Enoch 10:12; 14:5) or bodies of water (Testament of Solomon 5:11; 25:7).

From NIV First-Century Study Bible:

5:9 My name is Legion. This name has obvious Roman overtones. A Roman legion had about 5,000 soldiers. Rome’s Tenth Legion, which eventually swept into Israel during the great Jewish revolt, had the boar as its symbol. Pigs were also associated with emperor worship, which was probably practiced in the Hellenistic cities of the Decapolis. Such a large number of pigs (see v. 13 ) certainly suggests the pigs were destined for cultic purposes or belonged to an important Greek institution and were not someone’s private herd. The pig became particularly offensive and political from the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, who tried to ban Judaism and offered pig sacrifices on the altar in the temple in Jerusalem. His actions led to the Maccabean revolt in 167 BC . The scene in verse 13 of drowning pigs made symbolic sense to the Jewish audience, but the potential consequences would have been disastrous for Jesus’ movement if the pigs belonged to the powerful Greek establishment. 

From IVP New Testament Bible Background Commentary: 

Mark 5:3–13 (IVPBBCNT): 5:3–5. Some pagan worship had involved cutting oneself with stones (1 Kings 18:28), and both self-mortification and supernatural strength occur in conjunction with spirit possession in many cultures today.

5:6–8. In ancient magic, higher spirits would be invoked to drive out lower spirits, and the demons here appeal to the only one higher than Jesus to keep Jesus from driving them out: “I adjure you by God” (not “Swear to God”—NIV). This language invokes a curse on Jesus if he does not comply. (Phrases like “I adjure you” and “I know you”—Mk 1:23—appear in ancient magical exorcism texts as self-protective invocations to bind the spiritual opponent.) The attempt at magical self-protection proves powerless against Jesus. Not only Jews but also Gentiles sometimes called Israel’s God “the Most High.”

5:9. Identification of spirits’ names or the names by which those spirits could be subdued was standard in ancient exorcism texts (see ancient magical texts and the Testament of Solomon); but this case, where many demons are present, is the only recorded example of Jesus seeking a name, and here he does not seem to use it in the exorcism.

A legion included four thousand to six thousand troops. This man is therefore hosting a large number of demons; they probably outnumber the pigs (5:13).

5:10. Ancients were familiar with demons pleading for mercy or other concessions when they were about to be defeated (e.g., 1 Enoch 12–14; Testament of Solomon 2:6). Perhaps they wish to stay in the area only because of the tombs, but in ancient lore spirits were often associated with particular local areas.

5:11–12. Only Gentiles (or very nonobservant Jews) raised pigs, and Jewish readers would think of pigs as among the most unclean animals and rightful hosts of evil spirits. Ancient exorcists found that demons often asked for concessions if the pressure for them to evacuate their host was becoming too great for them to stay.

5:13. Jewish tradition often taught that demons could die, so many ancient readers would assume that the demons had been destroyed (or at least disabled) with their hosts. (Some traditions also portrayed at least some demons as fearing water—Testament of Solomon 5:11–12; but in other traditions, certain demons lived in water. What is significant in the Gospel accounts is the much greater dependence of demons on their hosts than in most other sources from the period.)