DAY THIRTEEN – Wednesday, March 16, 2022
MATTHEW 8:28-34
This passage is one of the most bizarre and difficult to understand in Jesus' whole ministry.
I found very little in terms of explanation when I looked for commentary, other than a simple recapitulation of the events recorded in the Gospel. Therefore, what follows is mostly my own conjecture, although I have done extensive scripture and theology study.
In this story, Jesus here makes one of his rare visits to a location populated by Gentiles. He encounters two men who are depicted as being possessed by demons, demons who know who Jesus is and who communicate with him.
In the Gospels, illnesses are often portrayed as being caused by demons. The people of Jesus’ time believed that sickness frequently had a spiritual component. Indeed, even when the symptoms described enable us to know what the illness actually is, still the presence of evil is usually ascribed.
Actually, demonic possession is very infrequent, but it can occur. Indeed, every Roman Catholic and Anglican diocese has a trained exorcist and one may remember how their work was related in the movie 'The Exorcist' in the 1970s.
So here we have a situation where Jesus is confronted by demons who ask if he has come to torture them ‘before the time.’ This is a reference to the fact that they will be confined to hell at the end of the world, as depicted in Revelation.
And this is where the story really takes an odd twist. The demons ask Jesus to send them into a nearby herd of pigs, if he wishes them to leave the two men whom they currently possess. Then, Jesus does so. At this point, the pigs immediately rush over a cliff into a body of water, where they are drowned.
We are not told why the demons wish to be sent into the pigs, why the pigs are then drowned, or why the demons appear not to have been able to go into the pigs of their own volition. However, it should be remembered that pigs were considered to be unclean animals by the Jews – which is why this incident could only have happened in a Gentile area.
By demonstrating his authority over the demons, Jesus clearly shows that good will eventually triumph over evil. So, when we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God’s kingdom will eventually come to be on earth, we are expressing our confidence that good will win in the end. This is important to keep in mind, when we are constantly bombarded by bad news from various media every day.
Sean Madsen
MATTHEW 8:28-34
This passage is one of the most bizarre and difficult to understand in Jesus' whole ministry.
I found very little in terms of explanation when I looked for commentary, other than a simple recapitulation of the events recorded in the Gospel. Therefore, what follows is mostly my own conjecture, although I have done extensive scripture and theology study.
In this story, Jesus here makes one of his rare visits to a location populated by Gentiles. He encounters two men who are depicted as being possessed by demons, demons who know who Jesus is and who communicate with him.
In the Gospels, illnesses are often portrayed as being caused by demons. The people of Jesus’ time believed that sickness frequently had a spiritual component. Indeed, even when the symptoms described enable us to know what the illness actually is, still the presence of evil is usually ascribed.
Actually, demonic possession is very infrequent, but it can occur. Indeed, every Roman Catholic and Anglican diocese has a trained exorcist and one may remember how their work was related in the movie 'The Exorcist' in the 1970s.
So here we have a situation where Jesus is confronted by demons who ask if he has come to torture them ‘before the time.’ This is a reference to the fact that they will be confined to hell at the end of the world, as depicted in Revelation.
And this is where the story really takes an odd twist. The demons ask Jesus to send them into a nearby herd of pigs, if he wishes them to leave the two men whom they currently possess. Then, Jesus does so. At this point, the pigs immediately rush over a cliff into a body of water, where they are drowned.
We are not told why the demons wish to be sent into the pigs, why the pigs are then drowned, or why the demons appear not to have been able to go into the pigs of their own volition. However, it should be remembered that pigs were considered to be unclean animals by the Jews – which is why this incident could only have happened in a Gentile area.
By demonstrating his authority over the demons, Jesus clearly shows that good will eventually triumph over evil. So, when we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God’s kingdom will eventually come to be on earth, we are expressing our confidence that good will win in the end. This is important to keep in mind, when we are constantly bombarded by bad news from various media every day.
Sean Madsen
