Verses 1-34
Chapter 8
Of all the gospel writers Matthew is the most orderly. He never sets
out his material haphazardly. If in Matthew one thing follows another in
a certain sequence, there is always a reason for that sequence; and it
is so here. In Matthew 5:1-48; Matthew 6:1-34; Matthew 7:1-29
Matthew has given us the Sermon on the Mount. That is to say, in these
chapters he has given us his account of the words of Jesus; and now in Matthew 8:1-34 he gives us an account of the deeds of Jesus. Matthew 5:1-48; Matthew 6:1-34; Matthew 7:1-29 show us the divine wisdom in speech; Matthew 8:1-34 shows us the divine love in action.
Matthew 8:1-34
is a chapter of miracles. Let us look at these miracles as a whole,
before we proceed to deal with them in detail. In the chapter there are
seven miraculous happenings.
(i) There is the healing of the leper (Matthew 8:1-4).
Here we see Jesus touching the untouchable. The leper was banished from
the society of men; to touch him, and even to approach him, was to
break the Law. Here we see the man who was kept at arm's length by all
men wrapped around with pity and the compassion of the love of God.
(ii) There is the healing of the centurion's servant (Matthew 8:5-13).
The centurion was a Gentile, and therefore the strict orthodox Jew
would have said that he was merely fuel for the fires of hell; he was
the servant of a foreign government and of an occupying power and
therefore the nationalistic Jew would have said that he was a candidate
for assassination and not for assistance; the servant was a slave and a
slave was no more than a living tool. Here we see the love of God going
out to help the man whom all men hated and the slave whom all men
despised.
(iii) There is the healing of Peter's wife's mother (Matthew 8:14-15).
This miracle took place in a humble cottage in a humble home in
Palestine. There was no publicity; there was no admiring audience; there
was only Jesus and the family circle. Here we see the infinite love of
the God of all the universe displaying all its power when there was none
but the circle of the family to see.
(iv) There was the healing of all the sick who were brought to the doors at evening time (Matthew 8:16-17).
Here we see the sheer universality of the love of God in action. To
Jesus no one was ever a nuisance; he had no hours when he was on duty
and hours when he was off duty. Any man could come to him at any time
and receive the willing, gracious help of the love of God.
(v) There was the reaction of the scribe (Matthew 8:18-22).
On the face of it this little section appears to be out of place in a
chapter on miracles; but this is the miracle of personality. That any
scribe should be moved to follow Jesus is nothing less than a miracle.
Somehow this scribe had forgotten his devotion to the Scribal Law;
somehow although Jesus contradicted all the things to which he had
dedicated his life, he saw in Jesus not an enemy but a friend, not an
opponent but a master.
It must have been an instinctive reaction. Negley Farson writes
of his old grandfather. When Farson was a boy, he did not know his
grandfather's history and all that he had done, but, he says, "All I
knew was that he made other men around him look like mongrel dogs." That
scribe saw in Jesus a splendour and a magnificence he had never seen in
any other man. The miracle happened, and the scribe's heart ran out to
Jesus Christ.
(vi) There is the miracle of the calming of the storm (Matthew 8:23-27).
Here we see Jesus dealing with the waves and the billows which threaten
to engulf a man. As Pusey had it when his wife died, "All through that
time it was as if there was a hand beneath my chin to bear me up." Here
is the love of God bringing peace and serenity into tumult and
confusion.
(vii) There is the healing of the Gerasene demoniac (Matthew 8:28-34).
In the ancient world people believed that all illness was due to the
action of devils. Here we see the power of God dealing with the power of
the devil; here we see God's goodness invading earth's evil, God's love
going out against evil's malignancy and malevolence. Here we see the
goodness and the love which save men triumphantly overcoming the evil
and the hatred which ruin men.
The Living Death (Matthew 8:1-4)
8:1-4 When
Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him; and,
look you, a leper came to him, and remained kneeling before him. "Lord,"
he said, "you can cleanse me, if you are willing to do so." Jesus
stretched out his hand and touched him. "I am willing," he said, "be
cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to
him: "See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and
bring the gift which Moses ordered, so that they will be convinced that
you are cured."
In the ancient world leprosy was the most terrible of all
diseases. E. W. G. Masterman writes: "No other disease reduces a human
being for so many years to so hideous a wreck."
It might bean with little nodules which go on to ulcerate. The
ulcers develop a foul discharge; the eyebrows fall out; the eyes become
staring; the vocal chords become ulcerated, and the voice becomes
hoarse, and the breath wheezes. The hands and feet always ulcerate.
Slowly the sufferer becomes a mass of ulcerated growths. The average
course of that kind of leprosy is nine years, and it ends in mental
decay, coma and ultimately death.
Leprosy might begin with the loss of all sensation in some part
of the body; the nerve trunks are affected; the muscles waste away; the
tendons contract until the hands are like claws. There follows
ulceration of the hands and feet. Then comes the progressive loss of
fingers and toes. until in the end a whole hand or a whole foot may drop
off. The duration of that kind of leprosy is anything from twenty to
thirty years. It is a kind of terrible progressive death in which a man
dies by inches.
The physical condition of the leper was terrible; but there was
something which made it worse. Josephus tells us that lepers were
treated "as if they were, in effect, dead men." Immediately leprosy was
diagnosed, the leper was absolutely and completely banished from human
society. "He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is
unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp" (Leviticus 13:46).
The leper had to go with rent clothes, dishevelled hair, with a
covering upon his upper lip, and, as he went, he had to cry: "Unclean,
unclean" (Leviticus 13:45).
In the middle ages, if a man became a leper, the priest donned his
stole and took his crucifix, and brought the man into the church, and
read the burial service over him. For all human purposes the man was
dead.
In Palestine in the time of Jesus the leper was barred from
Jerusalem and from all walled towns. In the synagogue there was provided
for him a little isolated chamber, ten feet high and six feet wide,
called the Mechitsah. The Law enumerated sixty-one different contacts
which could defile, and the defilement involved in contact with a leper
was second only to the defilement involved in contact with a dead body.
If a leper so much as put his head into a house, that house became
unclean even to the roof beams. Even in an open place it was illegal to
greet a leper. No one might come nearer to a leper than four cubits--a
cubit is eighteen inches. If the wind was blowing towards a person from a
leper, the leper must stand at least one hundred cubits away. One Rabbi
would not even eat an egg bought in a street where a leper had passed
by. Another Rabbi actually boasted that he flung stones at lepers to
keep them away. Other Rabbis hid themselves, or took to their heels, at
the sight of a leper even in the distance.
There never has been any disease which so separated a man from
his fellow-men as leprosy did. And this was the man whom Jesus touched.
To a Jew there would be no more amazing sentence in the New Testament
than the simple statement: "And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched
the leper."
Compassion Beyond The Law (Matthew 8:1-4 Continued)
In this story we must note two things--the leper's approach and
Jesus' response. In the leper's approach there were three elements.
(i) The leper came with confidence. He had no doubt that, if Jesus willed, Jesus could make him clean.
No leper would ever have come near an orthodox scribe or Rabbi;
he knew too well that he would be stoned away; but this man came to
Jesus. He had perfect confidence in Jesus' willingness to welcome the
man anyone else would have driven away. No man need ever feel himself
too unclean to come to Jesus Christ.
He had perfect confidence in Jesus' power. Leprosy was the one
disease for which there was no prescribed rabbinic remedy. But this man
was sure that Jesus could do what no one else could do. No man need ever
feel himself incurable in body or unforgivable in soul while Jesus
Christ exists.
(ii) The leper came with humility. He did not demand healing; he
only said, "If you will, you can cleanse me." It was as if he said, "I
know I don't matter; I know that other men will flee from me and will
have nothing to do with me; I know that I have no claim on you; but
perhaps in your divine condescension you will give your power even to
such as I am:" It is the humble heart which is conscious of nothing but
its need that finds its way to Christ.
(iii) The leper came with reverence. The King James Version says that he worshipped Jesus. The Greek verb is proskunein (Greek #4352),
and that word is never used of anything but worship of the gods; it
always describes a man's feeling and action in presence of the divine.
That leper could never have told anyone what he thought Jesus was; but
he knew that in the presence of Jesus he was in the presence of God. We
do not need to put this into theological or philosophical terms; it is
enough to be convinced that when we are confronted with Jesus Christ, we
are confronted with the love and the power of Almighty God.
So to this approach of the leper there came the reaction of
Jesus. First and foremost, that reaction was compassion. The Law said
Jesus must avoid contact with that man and threatened him with terrible
uncleanness if he allowed the leper to come within six feet of him; but
Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. The medical knowledge of
the day would have said that Jesus was running a desperate risk of a
ghastly infection; but Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.
For Jesus there was only one obligation in life--and that was to
help. There was only one law--and that law was love. The obligation of
love took precedence over all other rules and laws and regulations; it
made him defy all physical risks. To a good doctor a man sick of a
loathsome disease is not a disgusting spectacle; he is a human being who
needs his skill. To a doctor a child sick of an infectious disease is
not a menace; he is a child who needs to be helped. Jesus was like that;
God is like that; we must be like that. The true Christian will break
any convention and will take any risk to help a fellow-man in need.
True Prudence (Matthew 8:1-4 Continued)
But there remain two things in this incident which show that, while
Jesus would defy the Law and risk any infection to help, he was not
senselessly reckless, nor did he forget the demands of true prudence.
(i) He ordered the man to keep silence, and not to publish
abroad what he had done for him. This injunction to silence is common on
Jesus' lips (Matthew 9:30; Matthew 12:16; Matthew 17:9; Mark 1:34; Mark 5:43; Mark 7:36; Mark 8:26). Why should Jesus command this silence?
Palestine was an occupied country, and the Jews were a proud
race. They never forgot that they were God's chosen people. They dreamed
of the day when their divine deliverer would come. But for the most
part they dreamed of that day in terms of military conquest and
political power. For that reason Palestine was the most inflammable
country in the world. It lived amidst revolutions. Leader after leader
arose, had his moment of glory and was then eliminated by the might of
Rome. Now, if this leper had gone out and published abroad what Jesus
had done for him, there would nave been a rush to install a man with
powers such as Jesus possessed as a political leader and a military
commander.
Jesus had to educate men's minds, he had to change their ideas;
he had somehow to enable them to see that his power was love and not
force of arms. He had to work almost in secrecy until men knew him for
what he was, the lover and not the destroyer of the lives of men. Jesus
enjoined silence upon those he helped lest men should use him to make
their own dreams come true instead of waiting on the dream of God. They
had to be silent until they had learned the right things to say about
him.
(ii) Jesus sent the leper to the priests to make the correct
offering and to receive a certificate that he was clean. The Jews were
so terrified of the infection of leprosy that there was a prescribed
ritual in the very unlikely event of a cure.
The ritual is described in Leviticus 14:1-57
. The leper was examined by a priest. Two birds were taken, and one was
killed over running water. In addition there were taken cedar, scarlet
and hyssop. These things were taken, together with the living bird, and
dipped in the blood of the dead bird, and then the living bird was
allowed to go free. The man washed himself and his clothes, and shaved
himself. Seven days were allowed to pass, and then he was re-examined.
He must then shave his hair, his head and his eye-brows. Certain
sacrifices were then made consisting of two mate lambs without blemish,
and one ewe lamb; three-tenths of a deal of fine flour mingled with oil;
and one log of oil. The restored leper was touched on the tip of the
right ear, the right thumb, and the right great toe with blood and oil.
He was finally examined for the last time, and, if the cure was real, he
was allowed to go with a certificate that he was cleansed.
Jesus told this man to go through that process. There is
guidance here. Jesus was telling that man not to neglect the treatment
that was available for him in those days. We do not receive miracles by
neglecting the medical and scientific treatment open to us. Men must do
all men can do before God's power may cooperate with our efforts. A
miracle does not come by a lazy waiting upon God to do it all; it comes
from the co-operation of the faith-filled effort of man with the
illimitable grace of God.
A Good Man's Plea (Matthew 8:5-13)
8:5-13 When
Jesus had come into Capernaum, a centurion came to him. "Lord," he
appealed to him, "my servant lies at home, paralysed, suffering
terribly" He said to him: "Am I to come and cure him?" "Lord," answered
the centurion, "I am not worthy that you should enter my house; but,
only speak a word, and my servant will be cured. For even I am a man
under authority, and I have soldiers under me. I say to one soldier,
'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Do this!' and he does it." Jesus was
amazed when he heard this, and said to those who were following him,
"This is the truth I tell you--not even in Israel have I found so great a
faith. I tell you that many will come from the cast and west and will
sit down at table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of
Heaven; but the sons of the Kingdom will be cast into outer darkness.
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth there." And Jesus said to
the centurion, "Go; let it be done for you as you have believed." And
his servant was healed at that hour.
Even in the brief appearance that he makes on the stage of the
New Testament story this centurion is one of the most attractive
characters in the gospels. The centurions were the backbone of the Roman
army. In a Roman legion there were 6,000 men; the legion was divided
into sixty centuries, each containing 100 men, and in command of each
century there was a centurion. These centurions were the long-service,
regular soldiers of the Roman army. They were responsible for the
discipline of the regiment, and they were the cement which held the army
together. In peace and in war alike the morale of the Roman army
depended on them. In his description of the Roman army Polybius
describes what a centurion should be: "They must not be so much
venturesome seekers after danger as men who can command, steady in
action, and reliable; they ought not to be over-anxious to rush into the
fight, but when hard pressed, they must be ready to hold their ground,
and die at their posts." The centurions were the finest men in the Roman
army.
It is interesting to note that every centurion mentioned in the
New Testament is mentioned with honour. There was the centurion who
recognized Jesus on the Cross as the Son of God; there was Cornelius,
the first Gentile convert to the Christian Church; there was the
centurion who suddenly discovered that Paul was a Roman citizen, and who
rescued him from the fury of the rioting mob; there was the centurion
who was informed that the Jews had planned to murder Paul between
Jerusalem and Caesarea, and who took steps to foil their plans; there
was the centurion whom Felix ordered to look after Paul; there was the
centurion accompanying Paul on his last journey to Rome, who treated him
with every courtesy, and accepted him as leader when the storm struck
the ship (Matthew 27:54; Acts 10:22; Acts 23:17; Acts 23:23; Acts 24:23; Acts 27:43).
But there was something very special about this centurion at
Capernaum, and that was his attitude to his servant. This servant would
be a slave, but the centurion was grieved that his servant was ill and
was determined to do everything in his power to save him.
That was the reverse of the normal attitude of master to slave.
In the Roman Empire slaves did not matter. It was of no importance to
anyone if they suffered, and whether they lived or died. Aristotle,
talking about the friendships which are possible in life, writes: "There
can be no friendship nor justice towards inanimate things; indeed, not
even towards a horse or an ox, nor yet towards a slave as a slave. For
master and slave have nothing in common; a slave is a living tool, just
as a tool is an inanimate slave."
A slave was no better than a thing. A slave had no legal rights
whatsoever; his master was free to treat him, or maltreat him, as he
liked. Gaius, the Roman legal expert. lays it down in his Institutes:
"We may note that it is universally accepted that the master possesses
the power of life and death over the slave." Varro, the Roman writer on
agriculture, has a grim passage in which he divides the instruments of
agriculture into three classes--the articulate, the inarticulate and the
mute, "the articulate comprising the slaves, the inarticulate
comprising the cattle, and the mute comprising the vehicles." The only
difference between a slave and a beast or a cart was that the slave
could speak.
Cato, another Roman writer on agriculture, has a passage which
shows how unusual the attitude of this centurion was. He is giving
advice to a man taking over a farm: "Look over the livestock, and hold a
sale. Sell your oil, if the price is satisfactory, and sell the surplus
of your wine and grain. Sell worn-out oxen, blemished cattle, blemishes
sheep, wool, hides, an old wagon, old tools, an old slave, a sickly
slave, and whatever else is superfluous." Cato's blunt advice is to
throw out the slave who is sick. Peter Chrysologus sums the matter up:
"Whatever a master does to a slave. undeservedly, in anger, willingly,
unwillingly, in forgetfulness, after careful thought, Knowingly,
unknowingly, is judgment, justice and law."
It is quite clear that this centurion was an extraordinary man.
for he loved his slave. It may well be that it was his totally unusual
and unexpected gentleness and love which so moved Jesus when the
centurion first came to him. Love always covers a multitude of sins; the
man who cares for men is always near to Jesus Christ.
The Passport Of Faith (Matthew 8:5-13 Continued)
Not only was this centurion quite extraordinary in his attitude to
his servant; he was also a man of a most extraordinary faith. He wished
for Jesus' power to help and to heal his servant, but there was one
problem. He was a Gentile and Jesus was a Jew, and, according to the
Jewish law, a Jew could not enter the house of a Gentile for all Gentile
dwelling-places were unclean. The Mishnah lays it down: "The
dwelling-places of Gentiles are unclean." It is to that Jesus refers
when he puts the question: "Am I to come and heal him?"
It was not that this law of uncleanness meant anything to Jesus;
it was not that he would have refused to enter any man's dwelling; it
was simply that he was testing the other's faith. It was then that the
centurion's faith reached its peak. As a soldier he well knew what it
was to give a command and to have that command instantly and
unquestionably carried out; so he said to Jesus, "You don't need to come
to my house; I am not fit for you to enter my house; all you have to do
is to speak the word of command, and that command will be obeyed."
There spoke the voice of faith, and Jesus laid it down that faith is the
only passport to the blessedness of God.
Here Jesus uses a famous and vivid Jewish picture. The Jews
believed that when the Messiah came there would be a great banquet at
which all Jews would sit down to feast. Behemoth, the greatest of the
land beasts, and leviathan, the greatest of the denizens of the sea,
would provide the fare for the banqueters. "Thou has reserved them to be
devoured by whom Thou wilt and when" (4Ezra 6:52). "And behemoth shall
be revealed from his place, and leviathan shall ascend from the sea,
those two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation,
and shall have kept until that time; and then shall they be food for all
that are left" (2 Baruch 29:4).
The Jews looked forward with all their hearts to this Messianic
banquet; but it never for a moment crossed their minds that any Gentile
would ever sit down at it. By that time the Gentiles would have been
destroyed. "The nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish;
those nations shall the utterly laid waste" (Isaiah 60:12). Yet here is Jesus saying that many shall come from the east and from the west, and sit down at table at that banquet.
Still worse, he says that many of the sons of the kingdom will
be shut out. A son is an heir; therefore the son of the kingdom is the
man who is to inherit the kingdom, for the son is always heir; but the
Jews are to lose their inheritance. Always in Jewish thought "the
inheritance of sinners is darkness" (Wisdom of Solomon 15:11). The rabbis had a saying, "The sinners in Gehenna (Greek #1067)
will be covered with darkness." To the Jew the extraordinary and the
shattering thing about all this was that the Gentile, whom he expected
to be absolutely shut out, was to be a guest at the Messianic banquet,
and the Jew, whom he expected to be welcomed with open arms, is to be
shut out in the outer darkness. The tables were to be turned, and all
expectations were to be reversed.
The Jew had to learn that the passport to God's presence is not
membership of any nation; it is faith. The Jew believed that he belonged
to the chosen people and that because he was a Jew he was therefore
dear to God. He belonged to God's herrenvolk, and that was enough
automatically to gain him salvation. Jesus taught that the only
aristocracy in the Kingdom of God is the aristocracy of faith. Jesus
Christ is not the possession of any one race of men; Jesus Christ is the
possession of every man in every race in whose heart there is faith.
The Power Which Annihilates Distance (Matthew 8:5-13 Continued)
So Jesus spoke the word and the servant of the centurion was healed.
Not so very long ago this would have been a miracle at which the minds
of most people would have staggered. It is not so very difficult to
think of Jesus heating when he and the sufferer were in actual contact;
but to think of Jesus healing at a distance, healing with a word a man
he had never seen and never touched, seemed a thing almost, if not
completely, beyond belief. But the strange thing is that science itself
has come to see that there are forces which are working in a way which
is still mysterious, but which is undeniable.
Again and again men have been confronted by a power which does
not travel by the ordinary contacts and the ordinary routes and the
ordinary channels.
One of the classic instances of this comes from the life of
Emanuel Swedenborg. In 1759 Swedenborg was in Gotenborg. He described a
fire occurring in Stockholm 300 miles away. He gave an account of the
fire to the city authorities. He told them when it began, where it
began, the name of the owner of the house, and when it was put out, and
subsequent research proved him correct in every detail. Knowledge had
come to him by a route which was not any of the routes known to men.
W. B. Yeats, the famous Irish poet, had experiences like this.
He had certain symbols for certain things, and he experimented, not so
much scientifically, but in everyday life, in the transmission of these
symbols to other people by what might be called the sheer power of
thought. He had an uncle in Sligo, who was by no means a mystical or
devotional or spiritual man. He used to visit him each summer. "There
are some high sandhills and low cliffs, and I adopted the practice of
walking by the seashore while he walked on the cliffs of sandhills; 1,
without speaking, would imagine the symbol, and he would notice what
passed before his mind's eye, and in a short time he would practically
never fail of the appropriate vision." Yeats tells of an incident at a
London dinner party, where all the guests were intimate friends: "I had
written upon a piece of paper: 'In five minutes York Powell will talk of
a burning house,' thrust the paper under my neighbours plate, and
imagined my fire symbol, and waited in silence. Powell shifted the
conversation from topic to topic, and within the five minutes was
describing a fire he had seen as a young man."
Men have always quoted things like that, but within our own
generation Dr. J. B. Rhine began definite scientific experiments in what
he called Extra-Sensory Perception, a phenomenon which has become so
much discussed that it is commonly called by its initial letters, ESP.
Dr. Rhine has carried out, in Duke University in America, thousands of
experiments which go to show that men can become aware of things by
other means than the ordinary senses. A pack of twenty-five cards marked
with certain symbols is used. A person is asked to name the cards as
they are dealt, without seeing them. One of the students who
participated in these experiments was called Hubert Pearce. On the first
five thousand trials--a trial is a run through the whole pack of
cards--he averaged ten correct out of twenty-five, when the laws of
chance would say that four correct could be expected. On one occasion,
in conditions of special concentration, he named the whole twenty-five
cards correctly. The mathematical odds against this feat being pure
chance are 298,023,223,876,953,125 to 1.
An experimenter called Brugman carried out another experiment.
He selected two subjects. He put the sender of the messages in an
upstairs room and the receiver below. Between the rooms there was an
opening covered by two layers of glass with an air space between, so
that the sending of any message based on sound was quite impossible.
Through the glass panel the sender looked at the hands of the receiver.
In front of the receiver was a table with forty-eight squares. The
receiver was blindfolded. Between him and the squared table was a thick
curtain. He held a pointer which passed through the curtain on to the
table. The experiment was that the sender had to will the receiver to
move the pointer to a certain square. According to the laws of chance
the receiver should have been right in four out of one hundred and
eighty results. In point of fact he was right in sixty. It is difficult
to avoid the conclusion that the mind of the sender was influencing the
mind of the receiver.
It is a definitely proven fact that a certain Dr. Janet in
eighteen out of twenty-five cases was able to hypnotise subjects at a
distance, and he was partially successful in four other cases.
There is no doubt that mind can act on mind across the distances
in a way which we are beginning to see, although yet we are far from
understanding. If human minds can get to this length, how much more the
mind of Jesus? The strange thing about this miracle is that modern
thought, instead of making it harder, has made it easier to believe it.
A Miracle In A Cottage (Matthew 8:14-15)
8:14-15 And
when Jesus had come into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law
lying in bed. ill with a fever. So lie touched her hand and the fever
left her. And she rose, and busied herself serving them.
When we compare Mark's narrative of events with that of
Matthew, we see that this incident happened in Capernaum, on the Sabbath
day, after Jesus had worshipped in the synagogue. When Jesus was in
Capernaum, his headquarters were in the house of Peter, for Jesus never
had any home of his own. Peter was married, and legend has it that in
the after days Peter's wife was his helper in the work of the gospel.
Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis 7: 6) tells us that Peter and his wife
were martyred together. Peter, so the story runs, had the grim ordeal
of seeing, his wife suffer before he suffered himself. "On seeing his
wife led to death, Peter rejoiced on account of her call and her
conveyance home, and called very encouragingly and comfortingly,
addressing her by name, 'Remember thou the Lord.'"
On this occasion Peter's wife's mother was ill with a fever.
There were three kinds of fever which were common in Palestine. There
was a fever which was called Malta fever, and which was marked by
weakness, anaemia and wasting away, and which lasted for months, and
often ended in a decline which finished in death. There was what was
called intermittent fever, which may well have been very like typhoid
fever. And above all there was malaria. In the regions where the Jordan
River entered and left the Sea of Galilee there was marshy ground; there
the malarial mosquitoes bred and flourished, and both Capernaum and
Tiberias were areas where malaria was very prevalent. It was often
accompanied by jaundice and ague, and was a most wretched and miserable
experience for the sufferer from it. It was most likely malaria from
which Peter's wife's mother was suffering.
This miracle tells us much about Jesus, and not a little about the woman whom he cured.
(i) Jesus had come from the synagogue; there he had dealt with and had cured the demon-possessed man (Mark 1:21-28).
As Matthew has it, he had healed the centurion's servant on the way
home. Miracles did not cost Jesus nothing; virtue went out of him with
every healing; and beyond a doubt he would be tired. It would be for
rest that he came into Peter's house, and yet no sooner was he in it
than there came still another demand on him for help and heating.
Here was no publicity; here there was no crowd to look and to
admire and to be astonished. Here there was only a simple cottage and a
poor woman tossing with a common fever. And yet in those circumstances
Jesus put forth all his power.
Jesus was never too tired to help; the demands of human need
never came to him as an intolerable nuisance. Jesus was not one of these
people who are at their best in public and at their worst in private.
No situation was too humble for him to help. He did not need an admiring
audience to be at his best. In a crowd or in a cottage his love and his
power were at the disposal of anyone who needed him.
(ii) But this miracle also tells us something about the woman
whom Jesus healed. No sooner had he healed her than she busied herself
in attending to his needs and to the needs of the other guests. She
clearly regarded herself as "saved to serve." He had healed her; and her
one desire was to use her new-found health to be of use and of service
to him and to others.
How do we use the gifts of Christ? Once Oscar Wilde wrote what
he himself called "the best short story in the world." W. B. Yeats
quotes it in his autobiography in all of what he calls "its terrible
beauty." Yeats quotes it in its original simplicity before it had been
decorated and spoiled by the literary devices of its final form;
"Christ came from a white plain to a purple city, and, as he
passed through the first street, he heard voices overhead, and
saw a young man lying drunk upon a window-sill. 'Why do you
waste your soul in drunkenness?' he said. The man said, 'Lord,
I was a leper, and you healed me, what else can I do?' A little
farther through the town he saw a young man following a harlot,
and said, 'Why do you dissolve your soul in debauchery?' And the
young man answered, 'Lord, I was blind and you healed me,
what else can I do?' At last, in the middle of the city, he saw
an old man crouching, weeping on the ground, and, when he
asked why he wept, the old man answered, 'Lord, I was dead,
and you raised me into life, what else can I do but weep?'"
That is a terrible parable of how men use the gifts of Christ
and the mercy of God. Peter's wife's mother used the gift of her health
restored to serve Jesus and to serve others. That is the way in which we
should use every gift of God.
Miracles In A Crowd (Matthew 8:16-17)
8:16-17 And,
when it was late in the day, they brought to him many who were in the
power of evil spirits, and he cast out the spirits with a word, and
healed all those who were ill. This happened that the saying spoken
through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: "He took our weaknesses
and carried our sins."
As we have already seen, Mark's account of this series of incidents makes it clear that they happened on the Sabbath day (Mark 1:21-34).
That explains why this scene happened late in the day, at the evening
time. According to the Sabbath Law, which forbade all work on the
Sabbath day, it was illegal to heal on the Sabbath. Steps could be taken
to prevent a person from getting any worse, but no steps might be taken
to make him any better. The general law was that on the Sabbath medical
attention might only be given to those whose lives were actually in
danger. Further, it was illegal to carry a burden on the Sabbath day,
and a burden was anything which weighed more than two dried figs. It
was, therefore, illegal to carry a sick person from place to place on a
stretcher or in one's arms or on one's shoulders, for to do so would
have been to carry a burden. Officially the Sabbath ended when two stars
could be seen in the sky, for there were no clocks to tell the time in
those days. That is why the crowd in Capernaum waited until the evening
time to come to Jesus for the healing which they knew he could give.
But we must think of what Jesus had been doing on that Sabbath
day. He had been in the synagogue and had healed the demon-possessed
man. He had sent healing to the centurion's servant. He had healed
Peter's wife's mother. No doubt he had preached and taught all day; and
no doubt he had encountered those who were bitter in their opposition to
him. Now it was evening. God gave to men the day for work, and the
evening for rest. The evening is the time of quiet when work is laid
aside. But it was not so for Jesus. At the time when he might have
expected rest, he was surrounded by the insistent demands of human
need--and selflessly and uncomplainingly and with a divine generosity he
met them all. So long as there was a soul in need there was no rest for
Jesus Christ.
That scene called to Matthew's mind the saying of Isaiah (Isaiah 53:4) where it is said of the servant of the Lord that he bore our weaknesses and carried our sins.
The follower of Christ cannot seek for rest while there are
others to be helped and healed; and the strange thing is that he will
find his own weariness refreshed and his own weakness strengthened in
the service of others. Somehow he will find that as the demands come,
strength also comes; and somehow he will find that he is able to go on
for the sake of others when he feels that he cannot take another step
for himself.
The Summons To Count The Cost (Matthew 8:18-22)
8:18-22 When
Jesus saw the great crowds surrounding him, he gave orders to go away,
across to the other side. A scribe came to him. "Teacher," he said, "I
will follow you wherever you may be going." Jesus said to him: "The
foxes have lairs, and the birds of the sky have places where they may
lodge, but the Son of Man has nowhere where he may lay his head."
Another of his disciples said: "Lord, let me first go away and bury my
father." Jesus said to him: "Follow me, and let the dead bury their
dead."
At first sight this section seems out of place in this chapter.
The chapter is a chapter of miracles, and at first sight these verses
do not seem to fit into a chapter which tells of a series of miraculous
events. Why then does Matthew put it here?
It has been suggested that Matthew inserted this passage here
because his thoughts were running on Jesus as the Suffering Servant. He
has just quoted Isaiah 53:4 : "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases" (Matthew 8:17),
and very naturally, it is said, that picture led on in Matthew's
thoughts to the picture of the one who had nowhere to lay his head. As
Plummer has it, "Jesus' life began in a borrowed stable and ended in a
borrowed tomb." So it is suggested that Matthew inserted this passage
here because both it and the immediately preceding verses show Jesus as
the Suffering Servant of God.
It may be so, but it is even more likely that Matthew inserted
this passage in this chapter of miracles because he saw a miracle in it.
It was a scribe who wished to follow Jesus. He gave Jesus the highest
title of honour that he knew. "Teacher" he called him; the Greek is
didaskalos (Greek #1320), which is the normal translation of the Hebrew word Rabbi (Hebrew #7227). To him Jesus was the greatest teacher to whom he had ever listened and whom he had ever seen.
It was indeed a miracle that any scribe should give to Jesus
that title, and should wish to follow him. Jesus stood for the
destruction and the end of all that narrow legalism on which scribal
religion was built; and it was indeed a miracle that a scribe should
come to see anything lovely or anything desirable in Jesus. This is the
miracle of the impact of the personality of Jesus Christ on men.
The impact of one personality on another can indeed produce the
most wonderful effects. Very often a man has been launched on a career
of scholarship by the impact of the personality of a great teacher upon
him; many a man has been moved to the Christian way and to a life of
Christian service by the impact of a great Christian personality on his
life. Preaching itself has been described and defined as "truth through
personality."
W. H. Elliott in his autobiography, Undiscovered Ends, tells a
thing about Edith Evans, the great actress: "When her husband died, she
came to us, full of grief. . . . In our drawing room at Chester Square
she poured out her feelings about it for an hour or so, and they were
feelings that came from springs that were very deep. Her personality
filled the room. The room was not big enough! ... For days that room of
ours was 'electric,' as I expressed it then. The strong vibrations had
not gone."
This story is the story of the impact of the personality of
Jesus on the life of a Jewish scribe. It remains true that to this day
what is needed most of all is not so much to talk to men about Jesus as
to confront them with Jesus, and to allow the personality of Jesus to do
the rest.
But there is more than that. No sooner had the scribe undergone
this reaction than Jesus told him that the foxes have their lairs and
the birds of the sky have a place in the trees to rest, but the Son of
Man has no place on earth to lay his head. It is as if Jesus said to
this man: "Before you follow me--think what you are doing. Before you
follow me--count the cost."
Jesus did not want followers who, were swept away by a moment of
emotion, which quickly blazed and just as quickly died. He did not want
men who were carried away by a tide of mere feeling, which quickly
flowed and just as quickly ebbed. He wanted men who knew what they were
doing. He talked about taking up a cross (Matthew 10:38). He talked about setting himself above the dearest relationships in life (Luke 14:26); he talked about giving away everything to the poor (Matthew 19:21). He was always saying to men: "Yes, I know that your heart is running out to me, but--do you love me enough for that?"
In any sphere of life men must be confronted with the facts. If a
young man expresses a desire for scholarship, we must say to him:
"Good, but are you prepared to scorn delights and live laborious days?
"When an explorer is building up his team, he will be inundated with
people offering their services, but he must weed out the romantics and
the realists by saying, "Good, but are you prepared for the snow and the
ice, for the swamps and the heat, for the exhaustion and the weariness
of it all? "When a young person wishes to become an athlete, the trainer
must say, "Good, but are you prepared for the self-denial and
self-discipline that alone will win you the eminence of which you dream?
"This is not to discourage enthusiasm, but it is to say that enthusiasm
which has not faced the facts will soon be dead ashes instead of a
flame.
No man could ever say that he followed Jesus on false pretences.
Jesus was uncompromisingly honest. We do Jesus a grave disservice, if
ever we lead people to believe that the Christian way is an easy way.
There is no thrill like the way of Christ, and there is no glory like
the end of that way; but Jesus never said it was an easy way. The way to
glory always involved a cross.
The Tragedy Of The Unseized Moment (Matthew 8:18-22 Continued)
But there was another man who wished to follow Jesus. He said he
would follow Jesus, if he was first allowed to go and bury his father.
Jesus' answer was: "Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own
dead." At first sight that seems a hard saying. To the Jew it was a
sacred duty to ensure decent burial for a dead parent. When Jacob died,
Joseph asked permission from Pharaoh to go and bury his father: "My
father made me swear, saying, 'I am about to die; in my tomb which I
hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me.'
Now therefore let me go up, I pray you, and bury my father; then I will
return" (Genesis 50:5). Because of the apparently stern and unsympathetic character of this saying different explanations have been given of it.
It has been suggested that in the translation into Greek of the
Aramaic which Jesus used there has been a mistake; and Chat Jesus is
saying that the man can well leave the burying of his father to the
official buriers. There is a strange verse in Ezekiel 39:15
: "And when these pass through the land and any one sees a man's bone,
then he shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in
the valley of Hamon-gog." That seems to imply a kind of official called a
burier; and it has been suggested that Jesus is saying that the man can
leave the burial to these officials. That does not seem a very likely
explanation.
It has been suggested that this is indeed a hard saying, and
that Jesus is saying bluntly that the society in which this man is
living is dead in sin, and he must get out of it as quickly as possible,
even if it means leaving his father still unburied, that nothing, not
even the most sacred duty, must delay his embarkation on the Christian
way.
But the true explanation undoubtedly lies in the way in which
the Jews used this phrase -- 'I must bury my father'! -- and in the way
in which it is still used in the east.
Wendt quotes an incident related by a Syrian missionary, M.
Waidmeier. This missionary was friendly with an intelligent and rich
young Turk. He advised him to make a tour of Europe at the close of his
education, so that his education would be completed and his mind
broadened. The Turk answered, "I must first of all bury my father." The
missionary expressed his sympathy and sorrow that the young man's father
had died. But the young Turk explained that his father was still very
much alive, and that what he meant was that he must fulfil all his
duties to his parents and to his relatives, before he could leave them
to go on the suggested tour, that, in fact, he could not leave home
until after his father's death, which might not happen for many years.
That is undoubtedly what the man in this gospel incident meant.
He meant, "I will follow you some day, when my father is dead, and when I
am free to go." He was in fact putting off his following of Jesus for
many years to come.
Jesus was wise: Jesus knew the human heart; and Jesus knew well
that, if the man did not follow him on the moment, he never would. Again
and again there come to us moments of impulse when we are moved to the
higher things; and again and again we let them pass without acting upon
them.
The tragedy of life is so often the tragedy of the unseized
moment. We are moved to some fine action, we are moved to the abandoning
of some weakness or habit, we are moved to say something to someone,
some word of sympathy, or warning, or encouragement; but the moment
passes, and the thing is never done, the evil thing is never conquered,
the word is never spoken. In the best of us there is a certain lethargy
and inertia; there is a certain habit of procrastination; there is a
certain fear and indecision; and often the moment of fine impulse is
never turned into action and into fact.
Jesus was saying to this man: "You are feeling at the moment
that you must get out of that dead society in which you move; you say
you will get out when the years have passed and your father has died;
get out now -- or you will never get out at all."
In his autobiography H. G. Wells told of a crucial moment in his
life. He was apprenticed to a draper, and there seemed to be little or
no future for him. There came to him one day what he called "an inward
and prophetic voice: 'Get out of this trade before it is too late; at
any cost get out of it.'" He did not wait; he got out; and that is why
he became H. G. Wells.
May God give to us that strength of decision which will save us from the tragedy of the unseized moment.
The Peace Of The Presence (Matthew 8:23-27)
8:23-27 When he
embarked on the boat, his disciples followed him. And, look you, a
great upheaval arose on the sea, so that the boat was hidden by the
waves; and he was sleeping. They came and wakened him. "Lord," they
said, "save us; we are perishing." He said to them, "Why are you such
cowards, you whose faith is little?" Then, when he had been roused from
sleep, he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. The
men were amazed. "What kind of man is this," they said, "for the winds
and the sea obey him?"
In one sense this was a very ordinary scene on the Sea of
Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is small; it is only thirteen miles from
north to south and eight miles from east to west at its widest. The
Jordan valley makes a deep cleft in the surface of the earth, and the
Sea of Galilee is part of that cleft. It is 680 feet below sea level.
That gives it a climate which is warm and gracious, but it also creates
dangers. On the west side there are hills with valleys and gullies; and,
when a cold wind comes from the west, these valleys and gullies act
like gigantic funnels. The wind, as it were, becomes compressed in them,
and rushes down upon the lake with savage violence and with startling
suddenness, so that the calm of one moment can become the raging storm
of the next. The storms on the Sea of Galilee combine suddenness and
violence in a unique way.
W. M. Thomson in The Land and the Book describes his experience on the shores of the Sea of Galilee:
On the occasion referred to, we subsequently pitched our tents
at the shore, and remained for three days and nights exposed to
this tremendous wind. We had to double-pin all the tent-ropes,
and frequently were obliged to hang with our whole weight
upon them to keep the quivering tabernacle from being carried
up bodily into the air. . . . The whole lake, as we had it, was
lashed into fury; the waves repeatedly rolled up to our tent
door, tumbling over the ropes with such violence as to carry away
the tent-pins. And, moreover, these winds are not only violent,
but they come down suddenly, and often when the sky is perfectly
clear. I once went to swim near the hot baths, and, before
I was aware, a wind came rushing over the cliffs with such force
that it was with great difficulty that I could regain the shore."
Dr. W. M. Christie, who spent many years in Galilee, says that
during these storms the winds seem to blow from all the directions at
the same time, for they rush down the narrow gorges in the hills and
strike the water at an angle. He tells of one occasion:
A company of visitors were standing on the shore at Tiberias,
and, noting the glassy surface of the water and the smallness
of the lake, they expressed doubts as to the possibility of such
storms as those described in the gospels. Almost immediately
the wind sprang up. In twenty minutes the sea was white with
foam-crested waves. Great billows broke over the towers at the
corners of the city walls, and the visitors were compelled to
seek shelter from the blinding spray, though now two hundred
yards from the lakeside."
In less than half an hour the placid sunshine had become a raging storm.
That is what happened to Jesus and his disciples. The words in the Greek are very vivid. The storm is called a seismos (Greek #4578), which is the word for an earthquake. The waves were so high that the boat was hidden (kaluplesthai, Greek #2572) in the trough as the crest of the waves towered over them. Jesus was asleep. (If we read the narrative in Mark 4:1; Mark 4:35,
we see that before they had set out he had been using the boat as a
pulpit to address the people and no doubt he was exhausted.) In their
moment of terror the disciples awoke him, and the storm became a calm.
Calm Amidst The Storm (Matthew 8:23-27 Continued)
In this story there is something very much more than the calming of a
storm at sea. Suppose that Jesus did in actual physical fact still a
raging storm on the Sea of Galilee somewhere round about A.D. 28, that
would in truth be a very wonderful thing; but it would have very little
to do with us. It would be the story of an isolated wonder, which had no
relevance for us in the twentieth century. If that is all the story
means, we may well ask: "Why does he not do it now? Why does he allow
those who love him nowadays to be drowned in the raging of the sea
without intervening to save them?" If we take the story simply as the
stilling of a weather storm, it actually produces problems which for
some of us break the heart.
But the meaning of this story is far greater than that--the
meaning of this story is not that Jesus stopped a storm in Galilee; the
meaning is that wherever Jesus is the storms of life become a calm. It
means that in the presence of Jesus the most terrible of tempests turns
to peace.
When the cold, bleak wind of sorrow blows, there is calm and
comfort in the presence of Jesus Christ. When the hot blast of passion
blows, there is peace and security in the presence of Jesus Christ. When
the storms of doubt seek to uproot the very foundations of the faith,
there is a steady safety in the presence of Jesus Christ. In every storm
that shakes the human heart there is peace with Jesus Christ.
Margaret Avery tells a wonderful story. In a little village
school in the hill country a teacher had been telling the children of
the stilling of the storm at sea. Shortly afterwards there came a
terrible blizzard. When school closed for the day, the teacher had
almost to drag the children bodily through the tempest. They were in
very real danger. In the midst of it all she heard a little boy say as
if to himself: "We could be doing with that chap Jesus here now." The
child had got it right; that teacher must have been a wonderful teacher.
The lesson of this story is that when the storms of life shake our
souls Jesus Christ is there. and in his presence the raging of the storm
turns to the peace that no storm can ever take away.
The Demon-haunted Universe (Matthew 8:28-34)
8:28-34 And,
when he had come to the other side, to the territory of the Gadarenes,
two demon-possessed men met him, as they emerged from the tombs. They
were very fierce, so that no one was able to pass by that road. And,
look you, they shouted: "What have we to do with you, you Son of God?
Have you come to torture us before the proper time? "A good distance
away from them a herd of many pigs was grazing. The devils urged Jesus:
"If you cast us out, send us into the herd of pigs." He said to them:
"Begone." They came out and went into the herd of pigs. And, look you,
the whole herd rushed down the cliff into the sea, and died in the
waters. Those who were herding them fled, and went away into the town
and related the whole story, and told of the things which had happened
to the demon-possessed men. And, look you, the whole town came out to
meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they urged him to depart from their
districts.
Before we begin to study this passage in detail, we may try to
clear up one difficulty which meets the student of the gospels. There
was clearly some uncertainty in the mind of the gospel writers as to
where this incident actually happened. That uncertainty is reflected in
the differences between the three gospels. In the King James Version
Matthew says that this happened in the country of the Gergesenes (Matthew 8:28); Mark and Luke say that it happened in the country of the Gadarenes (Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26).
There are even very considerable differences between the different
manuscripts of each gospel. In the Revised Standard Version, which
follows the best manuscripts, and which makes use of the most up-to-date
scholarship, Matthew places the incident in the country of the
Gadarenes; Mark and Luke in the country of the Gerasenes.
The difficulty is that no one has ever really succeeded in
identifying this place beyond doubt. Gerasa can hardly be right, for the
only Gerasa of which we have any information was thirty-six miles
inland, south-east of the lake, in Gilead; and it is certain that Jesus
did not voyage thirty-six miles inland. Gadara is almost certainly
right, because Gadara was a town six miles inland from the shores of the
lake, and it would be very natural for the town burying-place and the
town grazing-place to be some distance outside the town. Gergesa is very
likely due to the conjecture of Origen, the great third century
Alexandrian scholar. He knew that Gerasa was impossible; he doubted that
Gadara was possible; and he actually knew of a village called Gergesa
which was on the eastern shores of the lake, and so he conjectured that
Gergesa must be the place. The differences are simply due to the fact
that those who copied the manuscripts did not know Palestine well enough
to be sure where this incident actually happened.
This miracle confronts us with the idea of demon-possession
which is so common in the gospels. The ancient world believed
unquestioningly and intensely in evil spirits. The air was so full of
these spirits that it was not even possible to insert into it the point
of a needle without coming against one. Some said that there were seven
and a half million of them; there were ten thousand of them on a man's
right hand and ten thousand on his left; and all were waiting to work
men harm. They lived in unclean places such as tombs, and places where
no cleansing water was to be found. They lived in the deserts where
their howling could be heard. (We still speak of a howling desert.) They
were specially dangerous to the lonely traveller, to the woman in
childbirth, to the newly married bride and bridegroom, to children who
were out after dark, and to voyagers by night. They were specially
dangerous in the midday heat, and between sunset and sunrise. The male
demons were called shedim (Hebrew #7700), and the female liliyn after lilith (Hebrew #3917).
The female demons had long hair, and were specially dangerous to
children; that was why children had their guardian angels (compare Matthew 18:10).
As to the origin of the demons different views were held. Some
held that they had been there since the beginning of the world. Some
held that they were the spirits of wicked, malignant people, who had
died, and who even after their death still carried on their evil work.
Most commonly of all they were connected with the strange old story in Genesis 6:1-8.
That story tells how the sinning angels came to earth and seduced
mortal women. The demons were held to be the descendants of the children
produced by that evil union.
To these demons all illness was ascribed. They were held to be
responsible, not only for diseases like epilepsy and mental illness, but
also for physical illness. The Egyptians held that the body had
thirty-six different parts, and that every one could be occupied by a
demon. One of their favourite ways of gaining an entry into a man's body
was to lurk beside him while he ate, and so to settle on his food.
It may seem fantastic to us; but the ancient peoples believed
implicitly in demons. If a man gained the idea that he was possessed by a
demon, he would easily go on to produce all the symptoms of
demon-possession. He could genuinely convince himself that there was a
demon inside him. To this day anyone can think himself into having a
pain or into the idea that he is ill; that could happen even more easily
in days when there was much of what we would call superstition, and
when men's knowledge was much more primitive than it is now. Even if
there are no such things as demons, a man could be cured only by the
assumption that for him at least the demons were the realest of all
things.
The Defeat Of The Demons (Matthew 8:28-34 Continued)
When Jesus came to the other side of the lake, he was confronted by
two demon-possessed men, who dwelt in the tombs, for the tombs were the
natural place for the demons to inhabit. These men were so fierce that
they were a danger to passers-by, and the prudent traveller would give
them a very wide berth indeed.
W. M. Thomson in The Land and the Book tells us that he himself,
in the nineteenth century, saw men who were exactly like these two
demon-possessed men in the tombs at Gadara:
There are some very similar cases at the present day--furious
and dangerous maniacs, who wander about the mountains and
sleep in eaves and tombs. In their worst paroxysms they are quite
unmanageable, and prodigiously strong.... And it is one of the
most common traits of this madness that the victims refuse to
wear clothes. I have often seen them absolutely naked in the
crowded streets of Beirut and Sidon. There are also cases in
which they run wildly about the country and frighten the
whole neighbourhood."
Apart from anything else, Jesus showed a most unusual courage in stopping to speak to these two men at all.
If we really want the details of this story we have to go to Mark. Mark's narrative (Mark 5:1-19)
is much longer, and what Matthew gives us is only a summary. This is a
miracle story which has caused much discussion, and the discussion has
centered round the destruction of the herd of pigs. Many have found it
strange and have considered it heartless that Jesus should destroy a
herd of animals like this. But it is almost certain that Jesus did not
in fact deliberately destroy the pigs.
We must try to visualize what happened. The men were shouting and shrieking (Mark 5:7; Luke 8:28).
We must remember that they were completely convinced that they were
occupied by demons. Now it was normal and orthodox belief, shared by
everyone, that when the Messiah and the time of judgment came, the
demons would be destroyed. That is what the men meant when they asked
Jesus why he had come to torture them before the proper time. They were
so convinced that they were possessed by demons that nothing could have
rid them of that conviction other than visible demonstration that the
demons had gone out of them.
Something had to be done which to them would be unanswerable
proof. Almost certainly what happened was that their shouting and
shrieking alarmed the herd of pigs; and in their terror the pigs took to
flight and plunged into the lake. Water was fatal to demons. Thereupon
Jesus seized the chance which had come to him. "Look," he said. "Look at
these swine; they are gone into the depths of the lake and your demons
are gone with them for ever." Jesus knew that in no other way could he
ever convince these two men that they were in fact cured. If that be so,
Jesus did not deliberately destroy the herd of swine. He used their
stampede to help two poor sufferers believe in their cure.
Even if Jesus did deliberately work the destruction of this herd
of pigs, it could surely never be held against him. There is such a
thing as being over-fastidious. T. R. Glover spoke of people who think
they are being religious when in fact they are being fastidious.
We could never compare the value of a herd of swine with the
value of a man's immortal soul. It is unlikely that we refuse to eat
bacon for breakfast or pork for dinner. Our sympathy with pigs does not
extend far enough to prevent our eating them; are we then to complain if
Jesus restored sanity to two men's minds at the cost of a herd of pigs?
This is not to say that we encourage or even condone cruelty to
animals. It is simply to say that we must preserve a sense of proportion
in life.
The supreme tragedy of this story lies in its conclusion. Those
who were herding the pigs ran back to the town and told what had
happened; and the result was that the people of the town besought Jesus
to leave their territory at once.
Here is human selfishness at its worst. It did not matter to
these people that two men had been given back their reason; all that
mattered to them was that their pigs had perished. It is so often the
case that people in effect say, "I don't care what happens to anyone
else, if my profits and my comfort and my ease are preserved." We may be
amazed at the callousness of these people of Gadara, but we must have a
care that we too do not resent any helping of others which reduces our
own privileges.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)MT-