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The Whole Town!

                                                     The Whole Town*

 

The hope was to change the world!  And the leader that was expected to accomplish that seemed to be coming into his own.  And now it was starting to look like it all could hit the big time. A whole town was coming out to meet the leader and maybe the opportunity to share the message of change could be multiplied. But (there always seems to be a “but”), the outcome ended up being shaped by what had happened earlier.

What happened earlier was mostly centered around a not so ordinary man.  In fact, this man scared the daylights out of people.  At night, he roamed naked among the tombs, screaming and yelling at the top of his lungs.  He frequently cut himself so that his blood flowed freely.  The townspeople had tried to bind him with chains but he just tore them off like they were made of paper.  The reality was that he was demon possessed.  But were not talking just one demon, but multiple ones so that the demons even called themselves “Legion”. 

And the leader, he did what no one else could do, he healed the man.  Now, rather than roaming the tombs naked, he was sitting there fully clothed.  Now, rather than screaming and yelling and cutting himself, he was in his right mind.  It was nothing short of miraculous!

News of what had happened was spreading and the whole town was coming out to meet the leader.  What an opportunity, a whole town!  Maybe this healing thing would stir many to follow him and be a part of changing the world.  But (there it is again), another part of what had previously happened needs to be mentioned.

This part was that the demons knew who they were up against as soon as they saw the leader.  And knowing that they were already basically doomed, they pleaded with the leader to cast them out of the man and into a herd of pigs.  He granted their request and they entered the pigs and the whole heard of pigs, about two thousand of them, rushed down into the sea.

When the people of the town arrived after the pigs had rushed into the sea, they didn’t even give the man who had been healed the time of day.  And instead of marveling at this great miracle, they demanded that the leader leave.  It turned out that they hadn’t really come to meet him, as in get to know him; they just wanted to know who exactly it was that had caused such a mess so that they could ask him, not so nicely, to leave.   But (yep, another one), the outcome was further shaped by what drove the economy of the town. 

The pigs!  The pigs were the townspeople’s livelihood.  And the pigs, when they rushed down into the sea, they drowned, every single one of them.  So it sort of made sense that they would ask him to leave.  With the livelihood of the people floating in the sea, they probably weren’t so willing to be ingratiated to the one who had destroyed it.  So much for winning friends and influencing people! 

And so the leader, the one known as Jesus, just left.  The man who had been healed wanted to follow Him.  But (last one here), the leader told the man to stay and go tell others what had happened.  While winning over the whole town didn’t happen, he did dramatically change one man’s life.  And that one man became a witness who would tell others about how he was healed by Jesus.  And while the people of the town were probably not all that receptive to that message, others were.  In fact, when the man went and told others in another place, they marveled at what had occurred.

  

This is just an attempt to look at an event from what might have been the disciples’ perspective as they followed Jesus. I’m guessing that they had expectations that many others would follow Him and the prospects of a whole town coming out to meet Jesus probably would have been seen as a great opportunity to extend the influence that Jesus was having.  From that perspective, it failed.  But the account is for us that we might marvel at the one who had the power to cast out a multitude of demons and heal a man. (see Matt 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39)

 

* ”And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, the begged him to leave their region.”  (Matt 8:34)

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