He Crossed the Sea for Me
October 26, 2026
Mark 5:1–20
Picture the shore near Capernaum. Green hillsides roll down to the water, and waves lap gently against the rocks. I have stood on those shores, and they are every bit as beautiful as you imagine. Crowds press in while Jesus teaches parables of the Kingdom. It is a perfect day for a Bible study.
Then Jesus abruptly ends class. He turns to His disciples and says, “Let us pass over unto the other side” (Mark 4:35). They push off into the evening, ride out a violent storm, and land on a heathen shore in the country of the Gadarenes. One tormented man waits there in a graveyard. Jesus crossed the sea for him.
Jesus crossed the sea for one man nobody else would touch, and He crossed the gulf between heaven and earth for you.
Mark introduces us to a man at the far end of a life disconnected from God. He followed the enemy’s path all the way down, until devils took over his very body. Jesus told us exactly where that path leads: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10).
This man made his home among the tombs, and his surroundings mirrored his condition. Where was his family? Where were his friends? He had both, because Jesus later sends him “home to thy friends.” Yet here he roams the graves naked and alone. The enemy stripped away his home, his family, and his friendships.
He lost more than relationships. “Always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones” (Mark 5:5). The devil does not stop at wrecking your world. He wants to wreck you: your body, your mind, your sense of worth. This man carried so much anguish that it showed up as wounds on his own skin. That impulse never comes from God. You bear His image, made to reflect His beauty, not your shame. Jesus carried that shame to the cross so you would never have to.
Back on the Capernaum shore, the crowd is enjoying the lesson. That sounds a lot like church. We easily settle into the warmth of His presence and the sweet fellowship of the saints. All the while, just across the water, people live among the tombs, crying out in torment.
We might forget them. Jesus never does.
So He dismisses the class. Get in the boat, He says. We have work to do. Jesus never meant to confine the Kingdom of God to a classroom. Six miles across the open water, in the Gentile region of the Decapolis, a man at the end of his rope desperately needed the very light Jesus had been teaching about. His deliverance could not wait, and Jesus arrived right on time. Just when you think you are through, when you see no way out, Jesus walks into your situation.
Most of us relate more to the man in the graveyard than to the crowd on the seashore. I thank God Jesus did not stay inside four walls when He came looking for me.
This man did not need to make some long spiritual pilgrimage to find God. Jesus came to him. Right to the graveyard. Right in among the tombs.
That is how Jesus works. You do not have to get your life in order before He comes. He is the One, and the only One, who can fix you. The Pharisees criticized Him for eating with publicans and sinners, but Jesus answered, “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick” (Mark 2:17).
I am so glad He came where I was. When I did not even know I needed Him, He came to me.
Jesus came even though everyone else had quit on this man. The people of Gadara bound him with fetters and chains, and every time he tore the chains apart. “Neither could any man tame him” (Mark 5:4). They tried, they failed, and they walked away. When Jesus stepped off the boat, nobody else stood on that shore. The doctor may say there is no hope, and even family and friends may write you off. Jesus has not given up on you.
He came even though this man had made his share of mistakes. Nobody ends up in the tombs overnight. He likely made choice after choice against God and opened door after door. Jesus came anyway. “His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).
Here is the most amazing detail in the story: “When he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him” (Mark 5:6). In the final stages of degradation, possessed by a legion of devils, this man still wanted to worship. The enemy could not take that from him.
No matter how far a person drifts, something deep inside still reaches for God. They may curse everything holy, but in the quiet of the night the innermost being longs for its Creator, because God made every one of us for Himself. You may be far from God, but He is not far from you.
A legion of devils could not keep this man from running to Jesus. They cried out through him, “Torment me not,” but his feet kept moving. If you feel resistance when you reach toward God, that struggle does not disqualify you. When you determine to run to Jesus, all the devils in hell cannot stop you.
Jesus spoke one command: “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.” The devils were no match for the Lord who created them. The enemy has never made a lock that Jesus does not hold the key to.
The next time we see this man, he is “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind” (Mark 5:15). The one who ran wild now sits still. Jesus clothed him in far more than garments: forgiveness, righteousness, and dignity. The tormented mind finally rests.
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
John 8:36
This story reaches far beyond a man from Gadara two thousand years ago. You do not have to be demon-possessed to need a Savior.
Maybe you know the tombs. You have buried a marriage, a friendship, or your sense of worth, and you live among the ruins of what used to be. Maybe you know the chains: addiction, depression, fear, anger, sexual sin. You have tried resolutions, counselors, programs, and willpower, and you reached the same conclusion as the people of Gadara. No one can tame this. Maybe you know the pain of wounds nobody sees and shame worn so long it feels like part of you.
Here is the good news. Jesus knows the way to the tombs. Where you have been running, He will seat you. Where you have felt exposed, He will clothe you. Where torment has ruled, He will give you peace and a right mind.
Jesus dismissed the multitudes and crossed the Sea of Galilee for one man. For you, He crossed a far greater distance, all the way from the splendor of heaven to a rugged cross.
Remember what happened on that crossing. A storm met them on the water. Scripture does not say where it came from, but I believe the enemy stirred it up to keep that man bound. The storm did not turn Jesus around. He rebuked the wind and kept coming for one desperate man. Whatever opposition the enemy has thrown in your path, it will not deter the Lord.
So run to Him. Jesus came to the man, but the man still had to run. He could not run toward Jesus without turning his back on what he had been. By running, he confessed that nobody else could free him: not the chains, not the people, not himself.
And worship Him just as you are. Too many people wait to worship until they get everything straightened out. You never will without Him. This man worshipped while naked, filthy, and living in a graveyard. In the worship, you find the victory.
Now free, the man begged to get in the boat with Jesus. Jesus told him no. “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee” (Mark 5:19). He obeyed and began to publish throughout the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him, “and all men did marvel.”
In Mark 7, Jesus returns to the Decapolis, and this time people bring a deaf man to Him for healing. The crowd walks away “beyond measure astonished” (Mark 7:37). Jesus left that region with one convert. When He came back, a whole region was waiting. The most likely reason is one man who went home and told people. A man like that will never stay a secret disciple.
The man wanted to follow Jesus across the sea. Jesus showed him that following Him starts right where you live.
He crossed the sea for that man. He crossed the sea for me.
Jesus crossed the sea for you. Will you run to Him?
Pastor Matthew Ball serves as lead pastor of Faith Apostolic Church in Carmel, Indiana. This post is adapted from his message “He Crossed the Sea for Me,” preached October 25, 2026.
