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Another year around the sun.

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The following New Testament story reveals two important things.

As Jesus was walking through an obviously non-Hebrew neighborhood on His way to a boat on the lake, a man who “lived in the tombs and could not be restrained even with a chain” because “with each attempt he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones  who, when he saw Jesus from a distance, “he ran and fell on his knees in front of him, shouting at the top of his voice, ‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!’ and in response Jesus told the voice, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”.

The demon, actually there was a group of them as the voice claimed his name was “Legion”, realized he had no choice but begged he not be sent from the area. 

He began to bargain. God’s biggest enemy was bold enough to try to strike a bargain.

Jesus knew who and what the demon was/were and they in turn were aware of who He was. It was God facing the demons He had expelled from heaven, and He knew they were powerfully bad.

“A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside.The demons begged Jesus, ‘Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.’”  

In response Jesus gave in and gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into a nearby herd of pigs. The herd of about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. 

It’s all there, right in the New Testament.

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.  “When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.  Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well.  Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.”

Who could blame them?

It is against their law for the Israelites to eat pork or even touch the skin of a pig, yet, here is a man herding pigs. They weren’t piglets but full grown pigs, thousands of them, which could mean that there are not only other pigs somewhere making more pigs, but the herder must have been making money off his livestock or he was quite the fool to continue raising a product he cannot sell.

Obviously, there were people there who ate pigs, lots of them,  which clearly illustrates the Hebrews did not live there alone but, perhaps, as Jesus was just passing through, this was gentile territory of non-Israelites and enough of them that a man made money feeding them.

Who raises pigs just to let them die?

Israel was not a country at the time, just a location in the Roman Empire that had a lot of one group of people and obviously others there as well. It was Juda at that time not Israel. 

The other bit of information is supportive of the claim that “Jesus became like us in all things but sin.”

That means that, unless it was sinful, Jesus had grown accustomed to the traditions and values of his society and was capable of acting on them so long as it was not a commission of sin.

Bigotry is wrong, but it is not listed as a sin. As a matter of fact it is too often promoted in the Good Book by God Himself.

Jesus never met or even spoke to the Pig herder. He did, however, give into the demons’ request at the expense of this man and his livelihood and, possibly, his family’s well being.

He did not act on his own, but Jesus chose to honor the request of the demons and show total disdain for and dismissiveness toward the man whose livelihood He used and destroyed in the process.

He might have considered that putting the demons in pigs and then drowning the pigs was a clever approach, a biblical Zoink, but being immortal, the demons lived on while the pigs and the man’s future drown.

Did the demons outfox Jesus?

He could have just wished them away and sent them to oblivion.

Why did the request of the demons have to be honored to the detriment of the person who was obviously not Hebrew and, with Islam still off in the future, could still eat pork, and was, perhaps, a descendant of Ishmael?

The other?

In this case, Jesus modeled preferring the suggestions of demons, the enemies of His father, over those of people other than His “chosen” ones.

And as a human, Jesus was okay with this.

The people subsequently asked Him to leave. He assumed his actions were going to be simply accepted, and they would have been had He acknowledged that the people with the pigs were not of his people and should not be so easily disregarded. 

As Jesus got into a boat to leave, the recently dispossessed man asked if he could go with Him, but Jesus wouldn’t let him, instead, telling him to go back to the people who might be angry they lost a food source when his 2,000 pigs were drown and probably had some ill feelings toward him to explain how wonderful it all was. The man went back, and one person who was on the boat leaving with Jesus and not on land when the man faced the people, tells us, “And all the people were amazed.”

How would he know that beyond a blind view of what just happened.

The pigs drown. 

The herder lost his livelihood.

People at market had to be told there were going to be no pigs for sale and go home meatless.

2,000 pigs drown.

A legion of demons is set free to prey on others.

All because Jesus bargained with a demon, one of those who has been plaguing God’s creation from Day One (or 8. if you follow genesis and assume everyone took that first Sabbath off), and treated the non-Hebrew pig herder as trash.

What message was He sending?

One might say “IDFing know” but someone thinks they understand it.

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