10.29.2025

Well. . . it’s Halloween week,  so I’ll start with a story. A ghost story – a true ghost story. February 2010 was one of the worst periods of my life. My allergies had gone nuts and I couldn’t sleep lying down, so I slept in my recliner. But this particular night I couldn’t sleep at all. You know those times . . . you’re afraid you’ve made some huge mistake; you feel hopeless; you feel trapped; you can’t turn your mind off. 

And, so I’m struggling to go to sleep. . . struggling to breathe . . . too anxious to rest. . . Suddenly, I felt a strong presence in the room, next to me . . . it moved up my body. I could feel hands on my arms, and I felt an embrace – even the hair on my beard was displaced as if some unseen face brushed up against it . . . but instead of freaking out, I was suddenly calm . . . and went to sleep. 

The next morning I freaked out! 

A few days later, Nathan Rodriguez was at my house and said, “I smell gas.” I couldn’t smell anything because my allergies were off the charts. A couple of days after that, my neighbor stopped me and said, “You need to get your heating unit checked. I keep smelling raw gas around it.” So I did! A hole had rusted through the heat exchange and carbon monoxide was pouring into my house! That explained my anxiety, my memory issues, my allergies – it even causes vivid hallucinations! 

My ghost was gas! 

I could have called an exorcist; I could have burned white sage; I could have had the house blessed – and I still would have died because the real enemy was what? The gas! 

You have to know your enemy. 

Tonight at Bible study, we’re reading a perfect passage for “spooky season,” Mark 5:1-20. It’s the story of a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit. He lived on the “other side” of the sea of Galilee, an area where non-Jews lived. Mark writes:

“He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones.”

And then Jesus shows up. 

When the demon possessed man sees Jesus, he runs toward Jesus. Jesus commands, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”

Ironically, this demon knows who Jesus is!  “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me” (said by the demon who was tormenting the man).

Then Jesus asks it its name: “My name is Legion, for we are many.” This is REALLY because what is a Legion? 6,000 Roman troops! 

In this man, everything the Jews feared was gathered together. He represented everything the Jews feared – and hated. The Jewish people feared many things. They feared uncleanness because it could drive out the presence of God. They feared paganism, because paganism, like a disease, could infect the people and bring down God‘s wrath. They feared “the other” which was anyone who was different than they were – especially the Gentiles. And they feared Rome. The Roman legions were a constant presence and a constant threat to their lives.

But the ghost is gas! Rome is not the real enemy, the “other side” is not the real enemy – the real enemy is Satan and his hordes who are deceiving Israel into thinking that Rome is the real enemy so that Israel will not figure out what the real enemy is. Jesus is going to what they thought of as enemy territory, taking on what the Jews thought of as the  enemy of uncleanness  and hostile paganism – but Jesus cuts through all the “thought of” and goes for the real enemy.  

The ghost is gas! 

What we have in this passage is a war, a clash of kingdoms that began in ch. 1, when Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. In Luke 11:20, Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees, “If I by the finger of God cast out demons, and then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” And every time Jesus cast out a demon, it was a sign that the Kingdom was breaking through, and that he was winning the war – a war that would come to its climax at the crucifixion. 

All throughout Jesus' ministry, by his goodness, Jesus lured evil out into the open: the shrieking demoniacs, the conspiring Herodians, the hypocritical Pharisees, the plotting chief priests, the brutality of Rome – even the betrayer among his own disciples. At the cross,  all this evil gathered together in one great title wave that would crash over Jesus. But behind all this evil, there was just one enemy – one puppet master that was behind it all. 

And through his death and resurrection, Jesus defeated Satan! 

We live in a time of great anxiety. Every day there seems to be some new insanity, some fresh hell, that comes against us. 

But no matter what comes against us, never forget that “the ghost is gas.” Behind what we fear is the real enemy, but it is an enemy that was decisively defeated by Christ. There’s no need to be afraid! Even in “spooky season.”

Blessings,
Pastor Terry