05/23/2022 – Day 085 – Mark 5 – 6: // “The Healing of a Demon-Possessed Man” / 5: 1-20/ An overwhelming faith and gratitude from the man while a very strange paradox from the Gerasenes reaction to the healing.
My commentary sources that I am quoting:
- Matthew Henry Commentary – pg. 1374 – up to the point of healing.
- William Barclay – The Gospel of Mark – pgs. 121 through 124 – The Gerasenes reaction to Jesus healing the man.
Let’s get started:
- “Christ, by rescuing souls out of Satan’s power, saves the living from among the dead... (v6); When he saw Jesus afar off, coming ashore, he ran and worshipped him. He usually ran upon others with rage, but he ran to Christ with reverence. This was done by an invisible hand of Christ, which could not be done with chains and fetters; his fury was all on a sudden curbed…. If Christwok in us heartily to pray for a deliverance from Satan, he will work for us that deliverance… We are not a match for our spiritual enemies, in our own strength; but in the Lord, and in the power of His might, we shall be able to stand against them.”
“He desired that he might go along with Christ (v. 18) Christ would not suffer him to go with him. He had other work for him to do; he must go home to his friends, and tell them what great things the Lord had done for him, and his neighbors and friends might be edified, and invited to believe in Christ. He must take particular notice rather of Christ’s pity than of his power; he must tell them what compassion the Lord had had on him in his misery. The man in a transport of joy, proclaimed, all the country over, what great things Jesus had one for him, v. 20. And see what was the effect of it, All men did marvel but few went any further. Many that cannot but wonder at the works of Christ, yet do not , as they ought , wonder after him. (Jimmy note – as the healed man desired to….)
2. The Gerasenes’ reaction:
“And then comes the surprise, the paradox, the thing that no one would really expect. One would have thought that they would have regarded the whole matter with joy; but they regarded it with terror. ANd one would ahve thought that they would have urged Jesus to stay with them and exercise still further his amazing power; but they urged him to get out of their district as quickly as possible. Why? A man had been headed but their pigs had been destroyed, and therefore they wanted no more of this. The routine of life had been unsettled, and they wanted the disturbing element removed as quickly as possible.
A frequest battle-cry of the human mind is, ‘Please don’t disturb me.’ On the whole, the one thing people want is to be let alone.
(i) Instinctively, people say, ‘Don’t disturb my comfort.’ If someone came to us and said, ‘I can give you a world that will be better for the mass of people in general, but it will mean that your comfort will, at least for a time, be disturbed and upset and you will have to do with less for the sake of others,’ most of us would say, ‘I would rather that you would leave things as they are.’
There is a greqt deal of talk about wht life owes us. Life owes us precisely nothing; the debt is the other way round. it is we who life all that we have to give. We are followers of one who gave up the glory of heaven for the narrowness of earth, who gave up the joy of God for the pain of the Cross. It is human not to want to have our comfort disturbed; it is divine to be willing to be disturbed that others may have more.”
(Jimmy note: Therefore , pray that we cease asking: “Why does God let good people suffer. God has suffered for us, so that we might have eternl life with Him, and we are called to share in His sufferings, to His glory and for the Kingdom of God.)