The east side of the lake was inhabited largely by Gentiles, which is why a large herd of pigs was found there, pigs being an unclean food for Jews.
When Jesus got out of the boat a demon possessed man came to Him. This man lived among the tombs, he was uncontrollable, and he cried out night and day and self-harmed. The townspeople wanted nothing to do with him, and this would be our natural reaction as well. But Jesus was able to transform His life. When the Spirit of God is truly active in a church we will attract all sorts of people, including "undesirables" of all sorts, people rejected by society. So there are three things that happen here:
- The "undesirable" is attracted to Jesus
- Jesus welcomes him
- Jesus restores him.
Sometimes we need to correct our attitudes in dealing with one and two, but I think that three (Jesus restoring him) is the key. The reason that, like the townspeople, we often don't want to have anything to do with "undesirables" is that we don't know how to restore them, how to help them. The motive often isn't "they're worthless, let's have nothing to do with them", but more often "we don't know/can't help them, let's have nothing to do with them". This is important, for sometimes preachers/teachers will rebuke churches or congregations accusing them of the first motive when this is not the real problem. People's apparently uncaring attitudes (and I am a person, so can be included in "people's") is often a reaction to not knowing how to care for someone.
Jesus did know how to help the man. Now this does not mean every person can be helped by a simple bit of exorcism (though some can), but this is what happened here. Demon possession (or demonisation) is real. So Jesus cast out the demons.
See what happened to the man. He was dressed and in his right mind. This is the ministry of Jesus, to restore people's dignity.
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