His life looked like an old Jerry Springer episode, complete with public tantrums, wild accusations, delusion, sarcasm, self-pity, and a predictable trail of broken relationships. But unlike the television show, there was no chanting audience to egg it on. Nobody thought it was entertaining.
This “John Doe” was an actual person, a wild, lost man. Nor had he planned to be that way. Most likely at some earlier time he’d begun to live a let-it-all-hang-out lifestyle. After so many years of doing whatever he wanted and daring anyone to challenge it, he couldn’t be any other way. He felt driven by forces beyond his control.
His behavior often dipped into such bizarre extremes that it must have shocked even himself. No doubt during those times John hated the things he did, and wished he could change. But just as quickly he’d wonder why everybody else had a problem with him. After all, they were the ones with the hang-ups.
You’ve seen or heard about these narratives playing out. Families plead with a person, pray for them, and in more desperate moments, threaten them. Nothing works. The exasperated relatives finally drive them away. Prodigals aren’t simply victims of their own making. They can inflict all manner of abuse.
However, this John Doe saw a family-imposed exile as a blessing, for the restraint he had hated from loved ones was now gone. He went into free-fall, refusing anything good or decent. His appearance and attitudes darkened. His bank of friends dried up. No one dared take him in. Homeless, he started living in a cemetery, where he spent his days and nights in acts of self-mutilation.
One afternoon, a stranger made his way into that cemetery. John ran out to meet him and dropped to his knees, saying, “What do I have to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”
Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
A chorus of evil spirits in John spoke up, just as they had done for years. “Legion is my name,” they said, “For we are many.”
Though foul spirits have terrorized many in film, and legend, at this point in real life, it was their turn. The demons were afraid. They had felt comfortable possessing and abusing John for a long time. Yet it was only then, as they stood before Jesus, that they felt true fear. They knew He was the Lord of all, who alone had irresistible power and authority.
The urge to flee His presence was overwhelming. “Send us to the hogs that we may enter into them,” they said, referring to a herd of swine feeding nearby. As Jesus gave them permission, the spirits deserted poor, beleaguered John, and entered into the animals. Immediately the hogs went mad and charged down a slope into the sea. They could not tolerate for two minutes what John had so long endured.
Later the liberated man sat clothed and sane, next to His Savior. His anger and irrational drives had dissolved. Freed from awful demonic darkness, he felt human again.
Jesus told him, “Go to your house, to your own people, and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you.”
John set off for those whom he had alienated. This time he would not bring them drama, or rancor. Dressed, calmed, and kind, he would truly be a sight for those who had seen him last. But even more strange, more wonderful, was the story he had to tell of a man named Jesus.
It would be a story he would tell for the rest of his life.
This narrative occurs in the Gospel of Luke 8:26-38.
