Get that Sin, Feed it to the pigs.

There’s an occurrence in the bible where Jesus and his disciples cross to the side of the river to some hood known as Gerasenes. It’s a place just next to the sea and what you’d expect in this place are white beaches and the beauty of the seaside but what does Jesus and his team of disciples encounter when they hit ground? A mad man, who keeps on ranting and seems to know quite a lot about Jesus. 

The story is; the guy is Hulk in this town but in a bad way. They have tried to chain him up but he has supernatural strength and has since been breaking out and has resorted to living in the cemetery where he is not bothered by the town folk and he gets do his ‘thing’ without interference. The only problem is that he has been causing himself grievous body harm and he doesn’t seem to understand that the town’s people have been trying to chain him up for his own good. 

The other problem is that people have not understood his situation. With all respect to our psychiatrists, he is not just a sick man. Legion is his name and what that means is that his body is a host to many spirits. Today he will exhibit one personality and tomorrow another and his personalities are infinite as are his hosts (read army).  Even though he is using his hands and teeth it’s the spirits within him that are doing all the harm not him. They are not there to empower him or for good but are detrimental to his whole being for all they aim to achieve is his ultimate destruction and eventual death.

Jesus is full of discernment and immediately starts to cause mayhem to the spirits by commanding them out of the man.  The spirits respond with one voice and ask him not to torment them.  The reason that the spirits know Jesus is because they were once with him in heaven, their former habitation with God before Lucifer’s rebellion. Jesus had to ask their name not because he did not identify them but for our record and our understanding that a man can be possessed by more than one spirit. The unclean spirits had been masquerading as this man and that’s exactly what everybody had believed all through. They had not realized that there were so many spirits within the man for if they had, they would have known that you don't handle spiritual matters with physical acts. It never works. 

The unclean spirits see a way out for they know Jesus is not just going to leave them alone. They now ask him for his permission to go into the pigs that were grazing on the steep cliff’s surrounding the sea. Jesus agrees and the spirits seeing the green light rush like the crazy they were towards the more than two thousand pigs. The number of unclean spirits in the man can be best estimated by the number of pigs that got mad. If they were over two thousand pigs and all of them received one spirit then you can see how heavy and crowded a predicament the man was in. 

What followed was a total chaos and pandemonium, a scene only best captured in the movies. The pigs now filled with the unclean spirits, screaming like the mad they were headed towards the cliffs and threw themselves into the sea to their death. It only goes to reinstate the eventual end of the man if Jesus had not showed up. 

This act did not go well with the town folk and they begged Jesus to get out of the place but what they did not know was Jesus’ Mission was over. All he had come to do he had done. He had come all the way through the sea to deliver only one man and he had accomplished it. Jesus does not care about our earthly possessions if we don’t know about him but he cares about the souls of men. He will go over oceans and seas just to save one man and that’s exactly what He did. I can only imagine the arguments in that town that night. Some were lamenting on how much loss they‘d suffered by that impromptu visit by Jesus and others arguing that it was worth it for the guy had been freed from his oppression. One thing I am sure is that the town was never the same again after that incident and I am sure they got their wealth back after some time, knowing how pigs produce but with a new knowledge. That Christ is Lord. 

The man tried desperately to get into the boat with him but he declined and told him to go and be a testament to his brothers and rest of the town folk. He had come to plant seed and it was up to the man to be the light to rest of the men in that town. In one act Jesus not only set free a man from demons but also converted him into a preacher to the rest of his family and the town. Jesus’ radical surgery of separating evil from man not only soothes but empowers. The guy was not only delivered he was also empowered with a profession and many lined up to listen to his testimony of Christ. 

I've learnt that God does not necessarily choose those that are perfect to do his work, He chooses anyone who is capable and everyone is capable. A man full of scars from his past, a prostitute who is spared from death by a stroke in the sand, a hated rich tax collector or politician who has been embezzling public funds , a fisherman who is always in tatters with no social standing. It does not matter who you are and what you are going through. Jesus is able to rid you of what is troubling you and in the process He will give you purpose. You will be a man again and others will look up to you and be amazed!

Mark 5: 1 -19