(Text and Audio)
Title: The Incident at Gergesenes (When Pigs Fly)
Today’s passage is one that most of us are familiar with. It is a sensational, detailed story of Jesus driving demons and the people’s response to these events. If we take the time to look closely, I’m confident that some details will present themselves that will make for some very interesting insights to this passage.
This story appears in all 3 of the synoptic gospels, and we will take some time to look at the passage in both Luke and Mark, to flesh out the study of how Matthew records these events.
When I was in middle school, I had one of those read the Bible in a year bibles, and each night had a reading from Psalms and Proverbs, and O.T. reading, and a New testament reading. Generally, it took about 20 minutes a night to work through. I clearly remember the night in February of 1992, (almost 20 years ago) when I first read this account and it shook me to the core. Rarely does Scripture speak in such specific, violent terms. I remember thinking after first reading this account, “Demons are real, and they are violent.”
Now, 20 years later, my opinion on demons hasn’t changed, but now what really gets to me in this passage isn’t the demons, it’s the people. Let’s read our passage and hopefully I’ll be able to explain what I mean.
read/pray
5 Observations
- Where did this happen?
Some of you may notice that in the Matthew passage the location is called “Gergesenes” yet in both Luke and Matthew this location is referred to as “Gadarenes”. I’d love to be able to tell you that it’s just a different spelling and regional pronunciation for the same place, but simply isn’t true.
“Gergesenes” as it is referred to in Matthew is a reference to the Greek town of Garasa. Down the road about 20 miles was a town called Gadara, and that’s most likely what the word “Gadarenes” is pointing to.
So, either we are talking about two separate locations with the exact same story (highly unlikely) or there has always existed some debate as to where, exactly, this story took place.
Now, I like to think of myself as a decent teacher. So I’m going to make this debate very easy on you, and give you the main point.
POINT: It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that BOTH Gadara and Garasa were GREEK towns. The main point of this story is that it is a ministry of Jesus to the Gentiles. (More on that in a bit…)
- Two Men or One?
Something else that you may have picked up on over the years with these parallel accounts in the Gospels is that only Matthew’s account says there are two men, whereas Luke and Mark say there is one.
Fortunately, this is fairly easily reconciled. Packer comments on the discrepancy this way: Probably only one of these two demoniacs was exceedingly violent, and so Mark and Luke only mention that one. Matthew is more concerned about the double witness of the testimony.
- The Demons have a legitimate complaint, and Jesus knows it.
Look at the what the demons are upset about in verse 29: “Have you come here to torment us before the time?” This is like having a bar-be-cue with friends over and your neighbor calls the cops complaining of the music being too loud, and it’s only 7PM on a Saturday night.
College students, this is like being told to keep quiet two hours before quiet hours even begins.
The Demons know there time is coming. They know what we struggle to know: that trying to avoid God’s will is as effective as trying to steer a train. Their complaint is about the timing. The Day of Judgement is not yet upon them, they want more time to do what their natures desire, to wreak havoc. And so, they make an agreement with Jesus, they ask him permission to do something. They can do nothing without the Lord’s permission.
This is quite a study on sovereignty. Not only are the demons bound by the master’s will, but they also must serve a purpose, or else Jesus would have outright destroyed them. Does God allow evil to exist? For a time. Does God allow bad things to happen? You betcha…for a time.
Why for a time? Why not just end all evil now? A good question, but as we ask it, we’d do well to remember a few things:
- God is much smarter than us.
- God does what he does to maximize the amplification of his Glory.
- Sin and evil have a role to play, but they do not direct the play.
- An Odd Ending
(read 31-34)
The story as Matthew records it, has an odd ending to be sure. The keepers of the pigs, who saw the entire incident, report back to town, the “whole city” came out to meet Jesus, and then you’d think they’d praise Jesus. They’d thank him for delivering these two men, they’d beg him to do miracles and stay for some time, they’d ask if he was a sorcerer, or a God, they’d get to know him.
But Matthew only tells us that they begged him do depart from their region.
Huh?
Did Jesus do something wrong in these people’s eyes?
It is here that we can be thankful for the parallel accounts of Luke and Mark.
This is an interesting story from Matthew in this regard: Mark is regarded as the earliest of the Gospels, in part because it is so short that we see Matthew and Luke expanding upon the stories in Mark and adding in more detail. But here we have a rare case where the story in Mark is actually longer than the story in Matthew.
Why? I can only propose one idea.
How many of you think this, even by Biblical standards, is a pretty amazing, detailed story? Yeah, me too, and I have since I was 15. I’d be willing to bet that most of Matthew’s audience has heard of this account, either from Mark’s gospel, or by word of mouth, perhaps even from Luke’s gospel. The point is Matthew may be assuming his audience’s knowledge of the events, that they knew why these townspeople begged Jesus to leave their region.
I, on the other hand, am very thankful for the Mark and Luke explanation. Luke’s account is particularly vivid.
(Read Luke 8:34-38)
What do we see here? Sadly, we see the state of mankind.
- They were upset about losing their pigs.
- They show no excitement of the freeing of these men from bondage.
- In other words, things were better for them before Jesus arrived, when men were possessed by demons in chains and pigs were farmed for food and profit.
- They were seized with great fear…they wanted Jesus to leave, lest he command demons to go into them, or their pigs.
I’d like to believe this was just a great misunderstanding, but my instincts tell me otherwise. We, as a species, are so inherently fearful of change, even good change, that we let evil persist in our lives.
- Foreshadowing the Kingdom
The last thing we must consider this morning is the audience. Definitely Greek. The geographical names of the locations are Greek, and Jews didn’t raise pigs, that was a big no no. And yet, the reaction of these Greeks to Jesus’ miracles isn’t all that different, they reject him, just like the Jews.
Sometimes I think we see Jesus’ ministry as him trying and trying and trying to convince the Jews and they just keep rejecting him, so he goes to the gentiles and they accept him with loving arms. This simply wasn’t the case, and today’s story illustrates that.
I think it would be better, healthier, for us to consider that most people, whether Jew or Greek, or Roman, or Samaritan, outrightly rejected Jesus. Only the select few were truly believers, were truly his disciples.