Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. (Mark 5:1-2). Jesus and His disciples started a trip across the sea of Galilee. On the trip, their ship came through a storm. Having come out of a stormy night, Jesus and His disciples were met by a demon-possessed man.
“A man living in the tombs.” The tomb in those days were burial places carved out of limestone hills. The man’s dwelling place is mentioned, which tells us about his condition. He lived among the dead. That is a picture of a person driven out of the living community into the place of the dead. He was a living dead man — cut off from society and isolated to his own destruction.
“A man with an unclean spirit.” The man lived in the tombs because an unclean spirit had taken hold of him. He was not in charge of himself anymore. An unclean spirit is a spirit that is unholy or evil. When it controls a person, it determines the person’s behaviour. It can make a person lustful, greedy or hateful. For this man in the tombs, the unclean spirit altered his mental state and made him behave violently. How would Jesus, Who stilled the storm on the sea, respond to the raging storm within this man? We see it in the ensuing verses.
The condition of this man mimics the internal state of many. On the outside, they seem all together, but a storm drives them into destructive behaviour on the inside. In Christ, there is hope for anyone in such a condition as there was for this troubled man.
