And he said to them, “Go then!” They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned.

This passage teaches us of the Garesene Demoniacs. In mark it was only one demoniac, in Matthew it is two. But the story is the same. These demoniacs were large and powerful strong men. This man was a large and powerful strong man. He was possessed by many demons. In the Roman army, a legion was a 100 men. So this already strong man was probably almost superhuman, because of the demonic possession. There are two very interesting things that Jesus is telling us here, Lets dig into it.

First, Jesus is making reference to the previous chapter, where He accused the pharisees of binding up the strong man (ie. the jewish people) with many rules and heavy burdens, in order to plunder them of all of its treasures. In this passage Jesus is showing us that He is the one that has come to unbind the strong man, and free it to be how it was meant to be all along.

The other thing that is happening here, is to me, much more interesting. The deamons all thought that Jesus was there to destroy them, and as such, they wanted to escape that fate. They thought that they could trick Jesus by going into the swine, but Jesus was not a tricked. Instead Jesus wanted to both, deal with the deamons, while at the same time, teach these jews an important lesson.

These were Hellenistic jews. These Jews had made their living as hosts to pilgrims visiting the greek shrines and idols. These jews had forgotten the law and were living sinful synchonistic lives. The swine were illegal for jewish people to own, or even touch. So, tending to swine made them unclean too, and thus they were all sinning against the law.

So Jesus sent the demons into the swine, so that he could deal with both problems at the same time. First the demons, would be humiliated, being forced to stop possessing a strong man, and instead possess pigs, but the swine would also be destroyed to remind these jews of the Law and their first commitment to the Lord.

Losing the pigs (approximately 2000), would be the same as destroying their whole economy. Jesus killed their illegal economy (swine), but He gave them a new economy, an economy based around the law and the worship of the lord. If they do this instead, and trust in Him, they will be more prosperous than ever before, and they will be stronger too.

We don’t know what happened to these Garesenes, or if the Helenistic Jews ever repented, but it will be an interesting thing to ask God about when we meet him in heaven.

Oh lord, help me today to see you and your will for my life, help me to put away my petty offenses, and to reconcile with those that I have hurt. Amen.