Mark 5:12 "Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them"....
I was reading about strongman in the earlier chapter of Mark 3:20-30 - the possession of the prince of demons Beelzebub. And then came to this Chapter 5.
Reason was that owing to the recent ICU admission of my father in law just days before Christmas, his tightly held Buddha Pendant which he wore during his dialysis ,had been bothering the family for a while. We had always prayed for the opportunity to have it removed. But knowing what a partriach type of man he is, none of us would ever dare to.
Reading Mark 5:
- It was interesting in v1 that the evil spirit came out to meet Jesus! (He asked for it!)
- Have you ever wondered why Legion pleaded Jesus not to send them out of the sea?
- Instead, the demons begged Jesus to send them among the PIGS?? Why pigs?!!
- Of course the permission was granted by Jesus - so into the pigs they went!
- But the best joke was that the pigs , about 2000 , RUSHED down the steep bank into the lake and were DROWNED!
- so the demons got drowned - still went into the sea! LOL
Strange Reaction from the people who became afraid of the man who was once off minded become of sound mind. Mad people - afraid. Mad made sound also afraid. Worst still, they pleaded with Jesus to leave their region?! WHY ? Crazy or not? Shouldn't they be rejoicing??That a mad man got healed?? Alamak!
Reflection
Well, the demon-possesed man who was no more wanted to follow Jesus. But Jesus did not let him so. Instead, he was asked to be a WITNESS of what the Lord has done for him and how much the Lord has mercy upon him. This is the Christian's testimony of witness.
I had never expected the removal of my FIL buddha pendant last week due to the ICU protocol procedures. To cut the story short, my FIL agreed not to pursue on having it back anymore. This is yet another of the Lord's goodness and faithfulness in answering the family prayers. We definitely could not have done it due to such a strongman stubborness. But the Lord has His own mysterious ways of making that impossible so possible! PTL! Amen.
Bye to the pendant. Forever! Go to the PIGS! Be drowned!
The site of this pig story is recently found. So the Bible is always true!
And Jesus is real!
Ho Ho HO!
Have a blessed Christmas! (MY FIL was discharged on 25/12/2015 - what a mercy from the Lord!)
This is a recent archaelogical finding in Dec 2015:- Extracted from CHRISTIANTODAY.COM
Site where Jesus Christ drove demons into the sea uncovered, confirming biblical event
(Israeli Antiquities Authority)
The 1,500-year-old slab of marble with Hebrew inscriptions unearthed by University of Haifa researchers in Kursi on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The discovery is the first piece of evidence confirming the existence of a Jewish or early Christian community in Kursi, mentioned in the New Testament as the place where Jesus performed the Miracle of the Swine.
In the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ was described to have confronted Satan directly in the land of the Gadarenes or Gerasenes where the Miracle of Swine took place. This dramatic confrontation when Jesus cast out demons was recounted by no less than three apostles—Matthew, Mark and Luke with varying nuances.
Archaeologists from Israel now believe they have found evidence of the biblical event in Kursi, the historically Gentile district of the Decapolis on the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee, Breitbart reported.
Kursi is the spot traditionally associated with the miracle of Jesus' banishment of demons into a herd of swine.
This is the place where they recently unearthed a 1,500-year-old marble slab with Hebrew inscriptions.
(Wikipedia)
Medieval book illustration of Christ exorcising the Gerasenes demonic.
The archaeologists believe the slab to be a commemoration tablet dating from around 500 AD. The inscription in Hebrew begins with the words "Remembered for good."
On the slab, scientists also identified the words "amen" and "marmaria," which could refer to marble or to Mary, Jesus' mother.
As described by the apostle Mark, the Miracle of the Swine took place after residents in Kursi tried to restrain a man possessed by the devil by shackling and chaining him.
The man had lived among the dead in the tombs, howling night and day and gashing himself with stones, terrifying the locals who dared not go near him.
They finally managed to put shackles on him while he was asleep. But the crazed man had super-human strength and easily broke free from the chains.
But before he could terrify the locals again, Jesus approached.
Surprisingly, to the locals' utter amazement, the man ran and bowed down before Jesus. The demons inside him howled and begged Jesus not to torment them.
Then Jesus commanded, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!"
The demons inside the man then replied, "My name is Legion; for we are many."
Jesus then cast the demons into a herd of about 2,000 swine grazing on a nearby hillside. The pigs rushed headlong down the steep bank into the sea, where they drowned.
The man now released from demonic possession then pleaded for Jesus to take him, but Jesus told him to stay and proclaim the mercy of God to his family and friends.
In the fifth and sixth centuries, a Christian church was built to mark the spot of the biblical location of the Miracle of the Swine, but this was destroyed by the invading Persian army in 614 AD, Breitbart said.
The church was rebuilt, but was again destroyed, this time by a fire that struck it. The site remained abandoned for most of the following 1,300 years.
The church was forgotten until it was uncovered by accident during the building of a new road in 1970.
Near the vicinity of the church ruins, caves are still visible, and there is a mountain that drops down into the sea, exactly as the Bible describes it.
Christian apologist Steve Ray told Breitbart News that since Kursi had the largest monastery in Israel, it was obviously held in high esteem by the first Christians.
"The early Judeo-Christians remembered the places and events surrounding the life of Christ, and as soon as Christianity was legalised, churches were built on these different sites," he said.
"The more archaeology uncovers," Ray said, "the more the Bible is confirmed."
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