Luke 8.35:Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. (ESV)
The man in the verse above is one of my favorite people in the New Testament. The second song that is tied to this post, “Liberty From Legion”, is a synopsis of this important event in the gospel accounts. In the future I plan to explore the synoptic gospel accounts of Jesus meeting this man. This man was exceedingly strong and violent. He was feared by the people living in the area, and he was virtually uncontrollable. A raging lunatic who would cut himself with rocks.
But this man was drawn to Jesus. Certainly the demon named Legion didn’t want to engage Jesus in any type of spiritual contest or war, even though the name “Legion” would mean in this case a military unit of 6,000 soldiers or more. The fact that Legion was so seemingly docile and well behaved in the presence of Jesus should not fool us into thinking things were not so severe. Legion was a savage, tormenting group of demons. But that was until Jesus came. And there was no contest about who had the real strength in this situation. Jesus triumphed over Legion just with His spoken word of authority.