Dream Trip to Israel Part 7

Our day started with a bus ride to the East side of the Sea of Galilee directly across the water from our hotel in Tiberius. We stopped at the “Land of the Gerasenes” where Jesus heals a demon-possessed man. God recounts the story in the Fifth chapter of Mark.

Here is the beginning of the story:
1 They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. 2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. 3 This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. 4 For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. (Mark 5:1-5)

As the story continues, Jesus casts the evil spirits out of the man and sends them into a herd of pigs. The herd then runs down the hill into the Sea of Galilee and drown themselves. I have read this account many times and preached on it as well. But, again, I cannot describe how moving it was to stand in the small town, look up on the hillside to see several rock-hewn tombs where the possessed man lived, look to the base of the hill to see a field where the herd of pigs would have grazed, then to finally look down the slope of the land where the herd would have rushed to the sea and drowned themselves (the water was four or five hundred yards from where we were standing).

The story is profound for many reasons, but Lon brought out an important insight for us all. As you read the rest of the story, you read that the townspeople ran to the nearby villages to tell everyone what had happened to the man and “the pigs as well.” (v. 16) Then they all came to Jesus and “began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.” (v. 17)

Why would they want the Miracle Worker to leave?
Why would they plead with the man who healed the sickest man in the village to travel out of their entire region?

These people valued their herd of pigs more than the possessed man who lived in the tombs. Instead of praising Jesus for healing the man they desperately wanted him to leave so that they would not loose anymore livestock.

We must learn from the sin of the Gerasenes. We must remind ourselves each day that people are more important than…anything! Core Value #1 at McLean Bible Church is “People matter to God and to us.” Jesus valued people over the rest of creation. Jesus valued us so much he voluntarily died so that we could be reconciled to Him. God made people, only people, in His image. We are all of the greatest value to God – even those – especially those – whom the world finds worthless.

We visited a few other sites on this day including Tel Bethshean which has been excavated back to 2000 BC when it was a Canaanite town. We saw areas of excavation showing when the Israelites occupied the town during the time of King David. Finally, we saw areas that revealed its occupation by Rome during the time of Christ. What a bewildering thing to literally walk through four thousand years of history in less than two hours!

Carpe Deum! (Seize God!)
Todd Phillips
www.toddphillips.net