Mark is a notoriously pithy writer who gets straight to the point and doesn’t mince words. And yet he devotes twenty verses to this interesting encounter between Jesus and a violent, demon-possessed man that ends up with pigs diving into the sea. That makes us think that Mark thinks there’s something important for us to see here.

And there is. It’s a story about demon possession, of course, but it’s more than that. It serves as an illustration of how evil functions in the world, especially how it hurts those who succumb to it. Evil is incredibly powerful . . . notice the language that Mark uses here: “. . . no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, . . . No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.” In our increasingly secular world, we’re more likely to attribute everything to physiological or psychological causes. The presence of violence and suffering in the world has natural explanations, we’re told, so it can be fixed through natural means.

But it doesn’t seem to be working. We understand more about the human body, the human mind, and the natural world than we ever have, and yet world problems persist. Why is that?

Perhaps it’s because we’re largely ignoring transcendent causes and solutions that are an essential part of the human experience.

We’ll work our way through this story tomorrow, and we’ll reflect on some lessons that Jesus teaches us about the nature of evil in the world–and its presence in our own lives.

Most of us appreciate power . . . geopolitically, we want our country to be strong; in our work life, we want our opinions and decisions to matter; even in something as trivial as sports, we want our team to dominate others–usually through some combination of strength, speed, and agility. In other words, we like power, because power gets things done.

Israel, as you know, was looking for a powerful Messiah, a Davidic King who would follow in the footsteps of his namesake by leading a victorious army over “thousands and ten thousands.”

Near the beginning of John’s apocalyptic visions–as he was concerned that there was no one worthy to break the seals and open the book–God showed him that the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” would open it. It seems fitting for Jesus to be represented by the powerful lion.

But when John looked, he saw not a Lion but a Lamb–one “as though it had been slain.” And it was the Lamb who was able to break the seals and open the scroll.

The image is striking and incredibly important. The lamb, especially when set in contrast to the lion, is the epitome of weakness. It has no power, no strength.

And yet through the Lamb God conquers.

Tomorrow we’ll reflect on this text and what it teaches us. God wanted to show us that it was through the “weakness” of the Lamb and not the “strength” of the Lion that he would conquer the world. This principle is far-reaching for us as well . . . God’s “power is made perfect in weakness,” and it points to a dynamic that speaks to our own desires to make a difference in the world.

When we suffer, we’re tempted to question God’s presence and sovereignty, even more so when the suffering is directly tied to our following Christ.

Where is God? Does he know? Does he care? Why isn’t he doing anything?

Peter’s response–as it so often is for him and other biblical writers–is to go to Jesus, specifically to his death, resurrection, and exaltation.

There’s a significant interpretive difficulty in this passage, and we’ll spend a little time with it Sunday, but even if we don’t understand the particulars of Peter’s statement here, we can understand these truths:

Peter’s point is this: sometimes it might look and feel like evil is winning; we can imagine how the Christians during the dark days of the Roman Empire found themselves doubting their future. But because of what Jesus did for us, we know that all evil will ultimately be defeated. In fact, Jesus has already proclaimed victory over all demonic powers and now reigns as King.

As Christians, we trust in that fact, even when the world makes it difficult for us. We anticipate with great hope the day when the Lord’s reign will be realized throughout the world.

Mark begins his gospel by making it clear who the subject of his narrative is: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). Near the end he includes this confession–from the mouth of a calloused, pagan centurion: “And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!'” (15:39).

And in all the chapters in between, he’s concerned about this one question: Who is Jesus?

More specifically, who is Jesus to you?

Tomorrow we’ll trace this theme through Mark and focus on the famous story of Jesus’ confronting his apostles with that very question: “But who do you say that I am?” (8:29).

In these troubling times, it’s more important than ever for Christians in our culture to know who Jesus is. Is he merely a good man? Is he just an incredible teacher? Is he the inventor of a new religion?

Or is he more?

How we answer those questions changes everything about the way we view life . . . how we navigate turbulent moments, the attitudes we display when we face uncertainty, where we put our trust and hope.

Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus to you?

Next week our theme in our One Word devotional readings is Grief, so Sunday we’re going to study the story about Jesus’ weeping near the grave of his friend Lazarus.

Grief touches us all sooner or later, so there’s a good chance you’ve felt its burden. It’s real, it hurts, and to some extent it’s inevitable.

But it doesn’t have to be debilitating. One aspect of the Lord’s incarnation is that he experienced fully what it means to be human. While fully God, he was also fully man. He hurt, he got tired, thirsty, and hungry. And he grieved.

It’s hard to know everything that Jesus was feeling when he saw Mary and Martha and sensed their tremendous grief over losing their brother. The text simply says that Jesus cried. Maybe it was because he saw pain in the eyes of these two women, his good friends. Maybe it was because he felt the terrible burden of sin’s damaging influence in the world . . . after all, death wasn’t supposed to be part of the human experience.

Whatever the cause, Jesus experienced grief. Just as you have when you stood heartbroken at the grave of a mom or dad or spouse or child. Jesus cried.

Sunday we’ll explore what John 11 teaches us about grief. He doesn’t remove it entirely from our earthly experience, of course, but he changes the way we see it. He removes some of its sting.