Gospel: Mark 5:1-20

 

In today’s Gospel, we meditate on a long text on the expulsion of a devil which was called Legion which oppressed and tortured a person. Mark associates the power of evil to the cemetery and to death. It is a power without any purpose, threatening, without control, and destructive, which makes everybody afraid. It deprives the person of conscience, of self control, and of freedom.

 

In his description of the first contact between Jesus and the possessed man, Mark stresses the total lack of proportion that exists! The power, which at the beginning seemed to be very strong, melts and is broken. It is fragmented before Jesus. The man falls on his knees, and the devil asks not to be expelled from that district and finally says its name is Legion. 

 

The devil has no power in its movements. He only manages to enter into the pigs with the permission of Jesus! Once he had entered into the pigs, they charged down the cliff into the sea. 

 

This episode of the pigs which threw themselves into the sea is strange and difficult to understand, but the message is sufficiently clear: before Jesus the power of evil has no autonomy nor consistency. The one who believes in Jesus has already overcome the power of evil and should not be afraid, should have no fear!