Mark 5:14-20
Go Home and Tell Them
14Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.
15When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.
16Those who had seen it described what had happened to the demon-possessed man and also to the pigs.
17And the people began to beg Jesus to leave their region.
18As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by the demons begged to go with Him.
19But Jesus would not allow him. “Go home to your own people,” He said, “and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy He has shown you.”
20So the man went away and began to proclaim throughout the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed.
Berean Standard Bible
The men looking after the pigs run for the town, so the news gets there before Jesus does, and the townspeople come out to see the thing for themselves. What they find is the man they all knew, sitting still, wearing clothes, thinking clearly. Every one of those three is a reversal. He had been up in the hills without enough clothing for Mark to leave it unmentioned, and out of his mind for so long that the whole district had arranged its life around the fact.
Mark says they were afraid.
Fear is an odd response to a neighbor getting better, and it is the response Mark records. Nobody had been frightened while a violent man lived in their graveyard, because they had adjusted to that. What frightened them was the change.
The witnesses go through the whole business, the pigs included, and then the town makes its request.
And the people began to beg Jesus to leave their region.
He does not argue with them. He does not preach at them, or stand on the shore explaining what they are giving up. He gets in the boat.
Then the man asks for the one thing you would expect Jesus to say yes to. He begs to come along, and Jesus tells him no. The one person in that whole region who wanted him is the person told to stay behind. What he gets instead is an errand.
“Go home to your own people,” He said, “and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy He has shown you.”
Home. Back to the district that had written him off, and to the men who had put him in chains, and the errand is to stand in front of them and say out loud what had happened to him.
There is something else going on here, and it runs against the way this book has been going. Jesus has spent it telling people to keep quiet: unclean spirits, a healed leper, whole crowds. Say nothing, tell no one. This man he sends out to talk, and he sends him out into Gentile country.
So the man went away and began to proclaim throughout the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed.
He had no training, no scroll, and nothing to say except what had happened in his own body. It was enough to work with.
How We Know
The man is told to go home, and verse 20 says he proclaimed throughout the Decapolis. Mark drops it there and does not refer back.
The detail pays later. Mark 7:31 has Jesus traveling into the region of the Decapolis, and at 8:1-9 a crowd of four thousand gathers in that same Gentile country and stays three days.
Neither passage mentions this man, and the book does not connect them. What is left is a region where he had been proclaiming and a later crowd in the same region, set down without comment, which is consistent with material laid out in the order it happened rather than arranged for the argument.
Questions
1 Who would be the hardest person for you to go back and talk to?
AnswerWhoever that is, the man here was sent back to a whole district full of them, to the people who had chained him up and then given up on him. That was the errand Jesus handed him instead of the one he had asked for, and he took it.
2 How is the man described when the townspeople arrive?
AnswerSitting, clothed, and in his right mind. Three small details, and every one of them is the reverse of how he had been living out among the tombs.
3 The town has just seen a man completely restored. What do they do about it?
AnswerThey get frightened, and they ask Jesus to leave their region. They had lived alongside a violent man in their graveyard without asking anybody to go. What they could not live with was the change.
4 He begged to come along and Jesus said no. What did he get instead?
AnswerWork at home. Go to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy he has shown you. He is sent to the people who knew him at his worst, with one thing to tell them.
What This Means for Us
He was sent home with no training and one sentence to say: this is what God did for me. That remains the whole qualification. Not being able to argue well, not having read enough, not being impressive in a room, but being able to say honestly what God has done in your own life to people who knew you before he did it.
Which is the hard part, because strangers are easy. He was sent back to the ones who had put the chains on.
So tell one person who knew you before. One sentence about something God has actually done, and then stop talking.
Prayer
Father, thank you that you sent a man home before he knew anything, because what he had was enough. Give us the nerve to say one true sentence to somebody who knew us before. And thank you for the mercy you have shown in this house. Amen.