Those Poor Pigs! Jesus and the Gerasene Demoniac
Last Sunday's sermon included the narrative of Jesus's incredible display of authority over demons as he cast out Legion in Mark 5.
In my study of the passage, I was faced with having to think through a moral dilemma that has always concerned me. The destruction of 2000 pigs has always seemed to me to be a huge waste of both living animals (those poor piggies!), and of economic assets. Well, as I related in my sermon (listen to the audio here) I discovered that my question has always been wrong-headed. While there may be some usefulness in discussing the various questions related to this economic loss, the reality is that such questions miss the mark.
First, such questions fail to exalt the stunning authority of the man Christ Jesus, which is truly the focus of the narrative anyway.
Second, they fail to praise the merciful God who would love a person enough to free him from the demonic slavery in which he had existed for some time. He lived in torment! He lived in anguish! He was known for going about, crying out and cutting himself with stones. As I realized this, I was convicted of my lack of love and concern for others. Clearly, I still have a long way to go in learning how to love like Jesus. I'm thankful that he is merciful to me, too, and that he has given me his Holy Spirit to empower me to do just that: love like Jesus.
One more thing. In the sermon I quoted a lengthy section from Robert Stein's excellent commentary on Mark, which I've reproduced below:
In my study of the passage, I was faced with having to think through a moral dilemma that has always concerned me. The destruction of 2000 pigs has always seemed to me to be a huge waste of both living animals (those poor piggies!), and of economic assets. Well, as I related in my sermon (listen to the audio here) I discovered that my question has always been wrong-headed. While there may be some usefulness in discussing the various questions related to this economic loss, the reality is that such questions miss the mark.
First, such questions fail to exalt the stunning authority of the man Christ Jesus, which is truly the focus of the narrative anyway.
Second, they fail to praise the merciful God who would love a person enough to free him from the demonic slavery in which he had existed for some time. He lived in torment! He lived in anguish! He was known for going about, crying out and cutting himself with stones. As I realized this, I was convicted of my lack of love and concern for others. Clearly, I still have a long way to go in learning how to love like Jesus. I'm thankful that he is merciful to me, too, and that he has given me his Holy Spirit to empower me to do just that: love like Jesus.
One more thing. In the sermon I quoted a lengthy section from Robert Stein's excellent commentary on Mark, which I've reproduced below:
“Questions of morality are often raised with respect to this exorcism. Does Jesus show indifference to the property value of the swine owners in this exorcism? Can the blame for this economic loss simply be shifted to the demons, or is Jesus in some way responsible for what happened? It may be helpful to think of how Mark’s readers would have responded to the story. Would they have focused on the ‘crash of the stock market,’ or would they rather have thought more in line with such teachings of Jesus as, ‘For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and the gospel will save it. For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and to suffer the loss of his life?’…Such a concern would far outweigh the issue of the economic value of the swine. A man had been saved from demonic slavery. The economic value of the swine pales in comparison.” (256-257, emphasis added).
Comments