Mark chapter 5 describes how Jesus healed a demon-possessed man. This is one of the strangest stories in the Gospels.

A poor, demented man living among the tombs in a burial place near the lake was obviously quite a well-known character locally. People had tried restraining him with chains and even irons, but such was his strength that he always broke free from them.

All day long and throughout the night he would be heard 'screaming and cutting himself with stones'. Those who work with seriously disturbed people will recognise the symptoms. As soon as this man met Jesus, he fell on his face and screamed out words of recognition - as in other stories of demonic possession in the Gospels, he knew who Jesus was and feared that he would take control over his condition. Jesus asked him his name and he answered 'Legion'... because he felt himself to be not one but many people. He recognised Jesus, but Jesus also recognised him. He saw that at the root of this man's desperate condition lay some kind of bondage to evil. It was that power of evil in the world that Jesus had come to confront. There's an earlier skirmish in this battle in chapter one of Mark: now comes a major one! The power of evil which Jesus recognised was not just an abstract 'principle', but a malign and wicked force, opposing all that he stood for.

What followed was a very dramatic exorcism, in which the demons left the man and entered into a nearby herd of 2,000 pigs, sending them rushing over a cliff into the lake to be drowned. This caused such terror that in verse 17 we read: "The crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone." But the man was healed! Instead of screaming and hurting himself, they found him 'sitting there, fully clothed and perfectly sane'. Modern readers will find the whole story rather difficult - the idea of demon possession seems to have more to do with horror movies than real life. Evil is real - we all know that. God sent Jesus into the world to confront, oppose and destroy the forces of evil wherever they were to be found.

This week's thought: A day hemmed in prayer is less likely to unravel.