June 22, 2025 Text: Luke 8:26-39
Dear Friends in Christ,
In the book Hell from the Heavens, John Wukovits describes the epic story of the largest single-ship kamikaze attack of World War II. The date was April 16, 1945. The battle was Okinawa. The target was the USS Laffey, a battle-hardened destroyer. The ship main purpose to protect other ships from enemy submarines. The ship had been involved in other assaults in the Pacific, but nothing prepared the men for this eight-minute ordeal when the Laffey was targeted over and over by these Japanese suicide aircraft. When the attack was over, the destroyer had been hit by twenty-two kamikazes. Yet, they sustained no significant damage. They were not destroyed.
Let’s head into another battle in our text from Luke 8. Jesus enters, it is time to be . .
“DELIVERED FROM THE DESTROYER”
Jesus had just been the calming influence during the waves uproar on the Sea of Galilee. Now he is heading to the ominous place called the Garasenes. A dismal place pagan property where demons roamed. Jesus meets a man from the city with demons. This guy had it rough. He was a “streaker” who lived among the skeletons. They tried to control him but this crazy man would break free. Jesus comes face to face with this deranged demon. He has a name – Legion – a unit of the Roman army was a legion – numbering six thousand. This guy was full of demons.
Jesus is outnumbered, but not outmatched. Pay attention to the story. Jesus controls the battle. The demons are begging Jesus not to obliterate them. Jesus goes easy on them and sends them into a bunch of pigs and the herd goes down the steep bank, into the lake and they all drown. They were sunk. What the Japanese could not do to the Laffey, the demons did to the pigs. Destroyed.
Hang on to your pew, there is more to the story. Where is the demon possessed man? He was free, “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” It was the posture of a disciple. This man is sticking with Jesus. Jesus still in control tells the man to go home and share his story. I have always wondered did he get an agent and do a book tour? It would be quite a read, wouldn’t it?
Life can be a battle. Scripture talks about “spiritual forces of evil.” The devil is a destroyer. John 10:10 says he comes to “kill and destroy.” Satan and his troops want to destroy. J.I. Packer wrote, “Stan has no constructive purpose of his own; his tactics are simply to thwart God and destroy men.”
Satan is doing a bang-up job destroying marriages, destroying relationships, destroying livelihoods, destroying the lives of the unborn, destroying families, destroying vocations, destroying churches, and destroying the minds of so many. The assaults just keep coming just like the planes hitting the Laffey.
Some of you are bound to ask, are there still demons among us? While maybe not as pronounced as the man in our text, people still have the devil inside. I have seen it twice in my lifetime. Once with a close relative. They were “in my grill” as people like to say. I will never, ever forget that look.
What did I do? I stayed calm. The Lord somehow that day reminded me, like we see in the text, that He is in control. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. You and I have been delivered from the destroyer. Jesus has disarmed the powers of evil. His death and resurrection have destroyed Satan’s power.
Do you know that in our Lutheran Service Book Altar Book there is this alternate form of baptism where the baptizer says, “Depart, you unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The demons in the pigs were drowned. Luther’s catechism tells us that in our baptism our sins and evil desires are drowned and die.
Then go to the clear words of Jesus in His Word. Reminders of victory over sin and death and devil. Reminders of sins forgiven. Reminders of God’s power over the onslaughts of the destroyer.
Like the men of the Laffey, tell of your battle. Scarred but victorious. Return to your home and tell what God has done. It is an epic story – tell it well. How the Destroyer has delivered us from the destroyer.
Amen.