After Pentecost Devotional - Day 66

“Everyone who had seen what had happened told about the man and the pigs. Then the people started begging Jesus to leave their part of the country.” Mark 5:16-17

Ever had too much of a good thing? Ever had something good make you uncomfortable? That is kind of the way the people in Gadara were looking at Jesus. He had worked a miracle among them, but with that one action, they had had enough. They weren't sure what to do with him, and they wanted him to keep walking so as not to interfere with life as they knew it.

Sure, Jesus had done something good for the man who had been demon-possessed. Sure, that man had been freed from his plight and brought back into contact with his society and restored to humanity. He had been released from whatever had been holding him back. At the end of the day, however, the people were more concerned about what had happened with the pigs and figuring out how safe it would be to have Jesus remain among them.

Jesus was an unknown quantity. If our current financial markets do not like uncertainty, the people of this agricultural subsistence society did not like uncertainty, either. They were not sure what to do with Jesus. They were unsure what Jesus would do next in their midst. While they were not necessarily against what Jesus had done in releasing this man from his demons, their greater concern was an economic one. Would Jesus' presence mean some other loss beyond the herd of swine?

Two thousand pigs leaping to their deaths off a precipice was a significant economic loss for the community. No doubt this was a communal heard of swine that belonged to many people, rather than to an individual farmer. This was a big loss for a large number of people dependent upon that herd of swine for their sustenance and survival. They were aware that the Jews did not like pigs, considering them as unclean due to their relationship with fertility cult practices.

They were concerned about what Jesus' presence would do to the relative stability of their lives. They were afraid that he would introduce some kind of reality that would disrupt what they knew, forcing them to change their way of living. They were disturbed by events they could not understand, and they did not want the hard work of reassessing their lives, priorities, habits, and relationships.

Their status quo was comfortable. It was a known quantity. Jesus' presence brought an unknown variable into their lives. He was a challenge to all they knew. That made him a threat. Instead of taking up the challenge of getting to know Jesus and assess any more changes as they came, they opted for the easy answer. They simply asked him to pick up and leave them alone.

It was the more polite way to silence Jesus. If he were no longer present, they would not have to respond to him. They could simply ignore him and whatever impact he would have had on their lives. Then they could just continue with life as before, regardless of what Jesus had done for the man whose life he had transformed.

Reflect on ways in which you may be working to silence Jesus in your own life.


"Lord, help me to be sensitive to your leadership, that I might hear you clearly."

—©Copyright 2016, Christopher B. Harbin

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