Jesus Casts out Demons / Luke 8:26–39 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday June 22nd 2025 / Season of Pentecost / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday June 22nd 2025: Season of Pentecost / Luke 8:26–39 “Jesus Casts out Demons”

Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met Him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before Him and said with a loud voice, “What have You to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me.” For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged Him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged Him to let them enter these. So He gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. 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. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So He got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with Him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Good Christian Friends, Saint Paul confesses that “we [as Christians] do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”[1] In one way this is easy to understand because we know it from personal experience yet in another way it is a challenge to understand because the World works to convince us that such spiritual forces do not exist. However we know that as Christians “we walk by faith, not by sight.”[2] For as Jesus said to Thomas after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, “have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”[3]

You’ve heard it said, maybe you’ve said it yourself, “seeing is believing” but do you know where this quote comes from? It can be traced back to a 17th century English clergyman Rev. Thomas Fuller. But “seeing is believing” is only half of the statement, the whole thing goes, “Seeing is believing, but feeling is truth.” Rev. Fuller spoke these words in a religious context originally but nowadays the shortened version has become common with people who have a hard time believing something or maybe even believing anything that is un-measurable by science or your basic five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The implied assumption is that we need to at least be able to see something before we can accept that it really exists. With your basic five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch have you ever perceived or witnessed a demon or a devil or an evil spirit of some kind? You will either say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this, or perhaps you will say, ‘maybe, I’m not sure … I’ve had a couple experiences I’m not able to make sense of.’ 

Alright, regardless of whether you have or have not, or are not sure does that change whether or not demons exist? ‘Do you need to hear the voice of a demon to know that they exist? Do you need to see a devil with your own two eyes to know they exist? Do you need to smell them in the room with you to know they exist? Do you need to feel them brush past you to know they exist?’ … now let me ask you, “If you can’t smell a radon gas leak in your house can it still harm you? If you cannot see bacteria or a virus can they still harm you if you come in contact with them? If you can’t taste the ultraviolet and infrared radiation of the sun will that keep you from getting sunburnt if you are out all day unprotected? Can a person die of exposure, or disease or a gas leak beyond the natural perception of humanities five senses?” Yes. You understand that unseen forces and conditions can be hazardous to your health within the natural world so why would it not be the same within the supernatural world especially when it comes to the spiritual forces of evil that stalk you day and night.  

The demonic take advantage of the fallen nature of mankind and our general inability to recognize them as they work, for while we can set up a radon gas detector and can study bacteria and viruses under powerful microscopes and utilize UV radiation detectors we don’t have effective and reliable ways to measure or detect the spiritual forces of evil directly.[4] That doesn’t mean they aren’t there it just means we can’t detect them by those means. Few people will see or hear anything when it comes to these things but they are around us and Scripture warns us of the things that put us in contact with them, “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD.”[5] In fact the Bible teaches that the sorcerers are numbered with “the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”[6] When it comes to the occult we are warned to “not turn to [such practitioners, to] not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them”[7] for they are seeking to tap into, communicate with and or control spiritual forces in which the demons are numbered. The none-Christian, the unbeliever, therefore is in real danger if they involve themselves in such things and so is the Christian if they don’t take them seriously. Notice I’m not explaining any of this away.  

Now you may say, ‘Pastor I don’t go to mediums, I don’t have my fortune read! I’m not going to have my tea leaves read or anything like that!’ Good, even still those who are baptized and believe in Jesus who avoid such things still require warning and Scripture tells us plainly that the “adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”[8] Jesus too warns of how the devil acts like the birds of the air seeking constantly to devour the seed of God’s Word right out of the hearts of those who hear it, like seagulls in a parking lot fighting over an abandoned french-fry.[9]

This morning in our 11am Divine Service we asked little Jesse three questions. “Do you renounce the Devil?” “Do you renounce all his works?” “Do you renounce all his ways?” Did we do that for fun? Did we do it for no reason? Are we only doing it because, ‘well that’s what we’ve always done in the past. Do we do it with our fingers crossed behind our back as though the devil isn’t real or because we like to tell ourselves he’s not real, ‘those people back then didn’t know any better, but now we know so much more?’ Are they just empty words? Because we didn’t see black forces fleeing away when they were spoken, because we didn’t hear demonic shrieks or smell or taste sulfur in the air does that mean nothing happened? We trust that in Baptism the demonic is sent packing and we become a temple of the Holy Spirit,[10] Christ Jesus promises to live in us[11] that we become a child of our heavenly Father and an heir of His eternal kingdom.[12] We become one under His protection so Saint Paul teaches, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”[13]

The unbelieving, the un-baptized, do not have the same promised defence against demonic attacks, yet be warned the one who is baptized but then abandons their faith for what the World offers likewise is in grave danger. And so Jesus says, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” And then Jesus adds, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons.”[14] Remember the demonic and the evil can be driven out of a person but if that person doesn’t have Christ Jesus right there in their heart to replace the evil driven out thing may only get even worse. Now because of the fallen nature of our World it is possible that someone may receive the gift of faith and before they come to the waters of Baptism they may suffer death. Dear ones, this can cause great concern and worry for the Christians in their life, listen carefully Jesus says “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved,” the one doesn’t cancel the other out. Belief and baptism both save and under the best of circumstances we want to have both as Christians. At the point of baptism we can rest assured that the one baptised has faith, yet they may also have believed in the Good News of Jesus before the water and the word sealed them into Christ Jesus. Once you’re baptised if you willingly take the hard bristled broom of your reason, thoughts and mind and use that broom to sweep Jesus out of your heart, sweep the Holy Spirit out of your heart, sweep your heavenly Father out of your heart then you are in danger of being condemned in your unbelief. This is very hazardous, and may even be spiritual fatal.   

Don’t take it from me, take it from Jesus (who on another occasion when He was again exorcising a demon, this time out of a mute man, just a little bit later in the Gospel of Saint Luke,) provides this warning, “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”[15] What Jesus is saying is that if you have a property and vagrants, squatters and destructive vandals have taken it over, if you’ve removed them by force from the house but failed to change the locks, or increase the security, or have someone stronger live there to guard it the vagrants, squatters and destructive vandals will only return with more of their friends and it will only end up worse than before. So following a person coming to faith in Jesus, following baptism it is best to be part of a Christian community, to be encouraged and strengthened, to be taught and built up in the faith and not be left alone, to hold fast to God and the faith you’ve been given. This is why we have Christian godparents for children and hopefully Christian parents also who diligently work to keep their children in the faith, even when the work is hard and challenging. God gives all of this as a gift to you in your Christian faith. And we collectively need to care for each other in this regard.

Jesus takes the demonic seriously and He personally experienced the temptations of the devil in the wilderness after His baptism[16] so why should you not personally experience the temptations of the devil in the wilderness of this World after your baptism? He takes the demonic seriously why shouldn’t you? Perhaps this is the way in which it’s easiest to understand how it is that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Now you understand this because you’ve faced temptation, as a Christian you’ve faced temptations and you’ve resisted the temptations to sin and you’ve faced temptations and you’ve failed to resist and fallen into sin. And not just with the spooky things in life but also with the common things like theft and anger and lust and gossip and coveting what isn’t yours to have.

When Jesus casts out demons, it is like when He changes water into wine, heals the sick, walks on water, or calms the storm at sea. In today’s Gospel Jesus was going to the Pagans, the Hellenists, the cultural and ethnic Greeks who lived in the Decapolis (the ten cities)[17] and as He arrives Jesus is greeted by a man possessed by demons living naked in a graveyard. Earlier in this Gospel Jesus had another encounter with a man possessed with a devil, that time it didn’t happen with Gentiles, with Pagans, with non-Jewish folk that time it happened with a Jewish man.[18]  When you put these two exorcisms together from the Gospel of Saint Luke you see that Jesus is not just going to be for the Jewish people who accept Him, Jesus doesn’t only have authority amongst the Jewish people but this Jesus also has authority amongst the Gentiles; the none-Jewish folk. Yes this is how God the Father loved the World that He sent into the World His Son Jesus not for some people but for all people Jews and non-Jews alike. This Jesus is the one who shows mercy and compassion to everyone in need, Jesus who has authority over all that is seen and unseen, even over the spiritual forces of evil. When something goes bump in the night as a Christian do you need to be afraid? No, you do not. Turn to Jesus in prayer, hold fast to Him no matter what comes at you whether seen or unseen, whether natural or supernatural. Dear ones, reach each out to your pastor and he will come with words of encouragement, and with the authority granted to him in his vocation he will come to your aid. And sometimes that help will come just as you witnessed today in the rite of Holy Baptism. And if you’ve ever found yourself mixed up with anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, one who inquires of the dead or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or tarot card reader or anything like that turn away from it back to the Lord and seek forgiveness. The one who casts out demons from the man in our Gospel reading can cast them away from you; He can cast your sin away from you. As one forgiven, made well in Christ Jesus, be like the man from our Reading today, go out and proclaim throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for you. Amen.

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Ephesians 6:12
[2] 2 Corinthians 5:7
[3] John 20:29
[4] UV radiation was discovered in 1801 when the German physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter (1776–1810).
[5] Deuteronomy 18:10–12a
[6] Revelation 22:15
[7] Leviticus 19:31
[8] 1 Peter 5:8
[9] Luke 8:5,11–12
[10] 1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Romans 8:9; John 14:26; Ephesians 4:30
[11] 2 Corinthians 13:5; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 3:17; Colossians 1:27; Romans 6:1-11
[12] Matthew 28:19; Colossians 2:12; John 3:5; Ephesians 4:4-6
[13] 1 Corinthians 3:16–17
[14] Mark 16:16–17b, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons.”
[15] Luke 11:24–26
[16] Luke 4:1–13
[17] Concordia Commentary Luke 1:1-9:50, Arthur A. Just Jr., Concordia Publishing House 1996, Pg 362
[18] Luke 4:31–37

Photo Credit: Main photo composit of The Swine Driven into the Sea (Les porcs précipités dans la mer) 1886–1896 by James Tissot from the Brooklyn Museum.