They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him, and he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain; because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones. Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him; and shouting with a loud voice, he said, "What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not torment me!" For He had been saying to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" And He was asking him, "What is your name?" And he said to Him, "My name is Legion; for we are many." And he began to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. The demons implored Him, saying, "Send us into the swine so that we may enter them." Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they were drowned in the sea. Their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country. And the people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demonized sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the "legion"; and they became frightened. Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man, and all about the swine. And they began to implore Him to leave their region. As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been demonized was imploring Him that he might accompany Him. And He did not let him, but He said to him, "Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you." And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.
The region of the Gerasenes was in the country of Decapolis (“ten cities”), which was literally made up of ten Greek cities, mostly inhabited by non-worshippers of Yahweh. The first person Jesus meets there who is a worshipper of Yahweh is attacked by an unclean spirit. Jesus is rebuking the spirit, but unsuccessfully until he finds that it was not just one spirit, but a whole crowd of them. A “legion” is a garrison of soldiers of three to six thousand, but could also just mean a very large crowd. The spirits approached Jesus first, giving him the honor of a ruler—bowing before him and calling him the slave of the Most High God, which is an exalted rank. They recognize they Jesus has the authority to command them to go wherever he wants, and so they request that he send them, the unclean spirits, into unclean animals, pigs (Deuteronomy 14:8). Jesus agrees, and so they depart from the man into the crowd of pigs, which then go mad and run over a cliff. The man is no longer mentally ill. The inhabitants of the region—especially the ones who owned the pigs—were not impressed, however, and they asked Jesus to leave their area. Jesus, seeing that he was dealing with non-believers in Yahweh, agreed. The man wanted to depart with him. In only this place, however, Jesus commands the man to not follow him. Rather, he told him to stay in his own town and to give honor to Yahweh in the region, which was greatly lacking in the word of Yahweh. The man went further than Jesus’ command—he traveled through the whole larger region and spoke of Yahweh’s greatness in his life.
In the story just before, Jesus has shown his authority over a very powerful spirit-- the spirit of the Sea. Here, Jesus shows that his single authority can overcome literally thousands of spirits. Jesus is trying to show his disciples not just how powerful He is, but what kind of power he is granting to them.
There is no limit to God's power, nothing is too big. Isaiah 40 claims, "If you put all the governments of the world together, compared to God all their power amount to nothing-- they are the dust on a scale that you need not brush off to get an accurate measurement."
If we are dependent on God's power, we lack nothing except our own faith and obedience.
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