When reading Scripture, we often seek personal inspiration or moral guidance. Elaine Pagels' Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus poses her hypothesis that the Gospels were written during a time of Roman occupation and oppression. The Gospels are spiritual reflections. At the same time, they contain important stories of their society's dissent and resistance during Jesus' ministry.
Today’s story, from Luke 8:26–39, where Jesus casts out demons from a man and sends them into a herd of pigs, is more than a dramatic exorcism. Pagels proposes that the New Testament can often be best understood as wartime literature. Or, as we might alternately label this, liberation literature. Written as a declaration of divine confrontation against powers that enslave and dehumanize. It calls us to continue to struggle for freedom in this time of the U.S. administration's aggressive, internationally illegal, and unconstitutional war against Iran.
In this Luke passage, Jesus has just crossed the Sea of Galilee into Gentile territory. This is a land where Jewish expectations and Roman realities collide. He meets a man who has no name, no home, no clothes, and is living among the dead. A man who is chained by society and tormented by something deeper. Upon seeing Jesus, the man cries out, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torment me."
When Jesus asks the man, “What is your name?” The man replies, “Legion, for we are many.”
This suddenly becomes more than a simple, spiritual metaphor. In Jesus' time, a Roman legion was a military unit of up to 6,000 soldiers. They were an occupying force and enforcers of the empire. To call the demons “Legion” was to name the system that destroys identity, family, and community. This man is a symbol of an entire people oppressed, silenced, and stripped of dignity.
Luke’s first readers would have recognized the region's plight at the time Jesus encountered this individual. They had seen Roman soldiers march through their towns. They had felt the boot of empire on their necks. This man’s torment was their torment. This is not just about the healing of one man possessed by demons. This is about an entire oppressed people in need of liberation. The problem becomes how they can hear stories of hope while they are suffering enslavement and political oppression. How can they hear when merely telling tales of that suffering and domination threatens retribution from those holding power?
The Gospels' answer was to tell a good news message full of associations that only those familiar with Jewish scriptures could completely understand. The Roman Tenth Legion, locally garrisoned in the Gerasenes region, had, for its emblem, a wild boar, which in their minds symbolized Roman power to subdue the Jews. Simultaneously, there is the story the Jewish community knew about Moses, and how God delivered their ancestors by drowning the enemies who were enslaving them.
What happens next in this Luke text is bold: Jesus does not flee from the unclean man in Gentile territory. He doesn’t avoid him. He liberates him. The demons beg Jesus not to send them into the abyss. Instead, Jesus allows them to enter a herd of pigs, which are unclean animals to the Jewish people, and an important food source for Roman soldiers.
The pigs rush down the hill and drown. This is no accident. It is satire. A Roman legion is destroyed by pigs. This echoes the Moses and Exodus story for many in the region. It’s a God story of holy reversal. Let's think about holy reversals of the past and what might happen after today.
In Europe during World War II, resistance movements often worked in darkness. They used secret symbols. They worshiped quietly. They risked their lives to tell the truth. Today, we may need to become that kind of church again. Not just opposing the war in Iran, but standing for life in a culture of death. Not just speaking truth to power, but walking with the broken, the disillusioned, and the wounded, both here and abroad.
We do not follow a Messiah of missiles. We follow a Savior who set his face to Jerusalem and died on a Roman cross rather than raise a Roman sword. Luke described the people watching as terrified, not just because of the miracle, but because Jesus is disrupting the economic and political status quo.
Fearing Roman retribution or fearful of what they can't immediately explain, they beg him to leave. The man, once bound and broken, is now “clothed and in his right mind.” He wants to follow Jesus. Jesus sends him back to testify. And so the first missionary in this Gentile territory is not a disciple, not a priest, and definitely not a soldier. Rather, it is a formerly tormented man who now proclaims freedom.
Jesus doesn’t just free individuals; he destabilizes oppressive systems. This is the Gospel. This is a kind of wartime literature, written to inspire hope and action in times of fear. Today, we may not face Roman legions as enemies, but we know and face many forces that dehumanize. Addiction, people profiting from pain, together with silencing the voices of the suffering, while also criminalizing the poor. We should not be intimidated. Luke calls all these forces Legion and reminds us that Jesus still stands against them.
The question for us constantly is: Will we face them? Will the stories dominating the current headlines become hopeful, liberating ones? Didn't we just make a proclamation against this administration's political overreach of military power on Saturday? What will be our national response to yesterday's bombing? Isn't this all about a God who crosses boundaries, confronts the empire, and dares us to live free and help others do the same?
The man once called Legion became a witness. Let's continue to be witnesses as well, just like we did when protesting this last weekend. Our collective spirit momentarily brightened, and people simply outshone the Saturday's overreach of political and military will, not with spectacle or threat, but by peacefully affirming the power of a God who sets the captives free, not only in spirit, but in society.
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