Rub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a Tub
Do you think that pig in the picture is thinking
about flying right into that river and drowning itself?
Huh, what do flying suicidal pigs have to do with the Bible?
I'll get to
that later.
I would hope, it's hard enough understanding that book without
you confusing people further. I don't know what you see in that anthology of
stories, myths, fables and poems.
That's
because it isn't an anthology. It's one continuous history of God's
relationship to man from the past creation of this world to the future end of
this world. If we accept that fact, We'll have a better understanding
not only of the Bible, but of world events going on around us today.
Such as?
Such as not
being scared by all the Global Warming hype when you understand what the Bible
says is ahead. Such as not being fearful of threats from other countries when
you see how the Bible says they will line up. Kermit, The Thinking Frog said, "The only thing we have to fear is God Himself." He is absolutely right, for we have a Fearsome and Awesome God,
who has let us in on His plan in the Bible so we need not fear anything else.
Also, understanding the
Bible as a whole clears up a lot of those little events in the Bible that seem
mysterious.
Oh Yeah, how is all that stuff in the Old Testament relevant to
anything. A lot of you people find that mysterious enough to avoid. All
those "begats" and hard to pronounce names like Jebusites,
Girgashites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites. I bet
most wouldn't know a Pathrusite from a Stalagmite. What's with all these
ites, huh?
Well,
except for Stalagmite, they are groups of people named after some body's
son, you know, the result of all those begats. Take the Girgashites...
Bless you.
Very funny.
Girgashites, in fact, all those "ites" you named, were
descendants of Ham. You remember Noah had three sons, Japheth, Shem and
Ham.
Ah, ha, your Rub-a-dub-dub Three men in a Tub silliness!
Yes.
Where are the flying pigs?
We'll get
to them. Anyway, Shem is the ancestor of the Jews. We get the term Semite
from him, a corruption from the Greek or Latin because there is no H in those
languages. Japheth's descendants went north after the flood. We of European
blood descended from his tribes. Ham had a son whose name you probably know by
the country he inhabited. His name was Canaan.
Canaan
begat Sidon, his firstborn, and he begat Hitt, Jebu, Amor and so
forth. In fact his next begat was Girgash...
And Girgash formed a tribe called Girgashites.
Correct.
And the Girgashites and those other tribes all lived in the land of milk and
honey God intended for the Hebrews. God drove all those people out of Canaan
because they weren't very nice. He took His time, but those peoples were driven
out.
Ha, took his time. Maybe your God isn't so powerful after all.
Why didn't he just zap them, like Sodom and Gomorrah? Use up all his power
turning Lot's wife into salt did he?
God wasn't
too weak to "zap". He did it because the Hebrews weren't strong
enough to subdue the country yet. If God had zapped those tribes, then the wild
animals would have been left uncontrolled and overrun the place before the
Hebrews could get a handle on them. God is pretty sparing with the zapping and
the miracles. He likes to work his plan through people, only he knows why. But
that's another story, just accept it for now that God always knows what he's
doing.
Back to the
point, the Girgashites ended up controlling a region southeast of the Sea of
Galilee, know later as the Gadarenes or the Gerasenes. This is an area known
for the Decapolis, or the ten cities. We have cities such as Gadara and Gerasa
in this country. Near Gadara are a lot of tombs and on the east shore of Lake
Tiberias (another name of the Sea of Galilee), at el-Kursi, near the Wadi
es-Samak is a cliff. We have a story about Jesus involving tombs and a cliff in
the region of the Gerasenes. Might not have been those specific tombs or that
particular cliff, but these were things in the area so it wasn't unusual they
were mentioned.
Okay, nice little history lesson, or is it a geography lesson.
All this gobbly-gook about Girgashites, Gerasenes, Gerasa and Gadara and you
still haven't said anything about pigs.
I mentioned
Ham.
Oh, now who is being cute.
Fine, old
haunt, I'll get to the flying pigs, but first I want you to contemplate Isaiah
65:1-7
"I revealed
myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek
me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'
All day long I have
held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing
their own imaginations-a people who continually provoke me to my very face,
offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; who sit
among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil;
who eat the
flesh of pigs,
and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat; who say, 'Keep away;
don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!'
Such people are smoke in my
nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.
"See, it stands
written before me:
I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will
pay it back into their laps-both your sins and the sins of your fathers,"
says the LORD.
Then the
next time you're roaming around, we’ll talk about this story put together from Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20
and Luke 8:26-39.
They sailed to the
region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. They went across the lake to the region of the
Gerasenes. When
he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two
demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no
one could pass that way. "What do you want with us, Son of
God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the
appointed time?" When
Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to
meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not
even with a chain. 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. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and
cut himself with stones. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a
demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn
clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs.
When he saw Jesus from
a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He cried out and fell at his feet. He shouted at the top of his voice, "What
do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you
won't torture me! I
beg you, don't torture me!" For Jesus had
commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man, had said to him, "Come out of this man, you
evil spirit!"
Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept
under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into
solitary places.
Then Jesus asked him,
"What is your name?"
"My name is
Legion," he replied, because
many demons had gone into him."for we are many." And he begged Jesus again and again
not to send them out of the area. And they begged him repeatedly not to order them
to go into the Abyss.
Some distance from
them a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into them, "If you drive us out, send us into the herd
of pigs. Send
us among the pigs; allow us to go into them. " and He gave them permission. He said to them, "Go!" and so
when they, the demons, the evil spirits, came out of the man, and
they went into the pigs, and the whole herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank
into the lake and were drowned and died in the water.
When those tending the
pigs saw what had happened, they ran off, went
into the town and
reported all this in the town and countryside, and the
people went out to see what had happened including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. Then the
whole town went out to meet Jesus. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed
by the legion of demons sitting there, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, dressed and in his right mind; and they were
afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the
demon-possessed man,
how the demon-possessed man had been cured. —and told about the pigs as well. And then all the people of the region of the
Gerasenes asked Jesus, when
they saw him, to
leave them, because they were overcome with fear. The people, they began to plead with Jesus to leave their
region.
So He got into the
boat and left. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed, whom the demons had gone out, begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but Jesus
sent him away
but said,
saying,
"Go Return home to your family and tell them how much the
Lord God has done for you, and how he has had mercy on
you." So the man went away and told all over town and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for
him. And all the people were amazed.
When Pigs
Fly and Pigs Die
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Say to
the Israelites: 'Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you
may eat: You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and
that chews the cud.
" 'There are some
that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them.
The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is
ceremonially unclean for you. The coney, though it chews the cud, does not have
a split hoof; it is unclean for you. The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does
not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. And the pig, though it has a
split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.
Leviticus 11:1-7 NIV
So we're back on pigs again. What's with the photo, we can eat
the cow in the foreground, but not the pig in the far background? We going to
discuss Solomon's barbecue recipes today?
Forget the
photo. Did you read what I left you with?
Ah, yes. Shocking, absolutely shocking. Poor little piggies,
what'd they ever do to anyone? How can you think so highly of someone who'd do
a thing like that?
What?
Release a couple guys from the possession of Demons?
No, slaughter a bunch of pigs. And the people there didn't like
it. He scared them so much they told him to go away. Probably afraid they were
next to be sent over a cliff.
You do so
have a way to twist things to suit the worldly view, don't you?
That's my job.
Let's go
beyond what you say and think about this. Jesus and his disciples had been
teaching to a lot of crowds in and around the Jewish side of Galilee. So why
did he suddenly, unexpectedly, kind of out of the blue up and say one day, "Let's go over to the other side of the
lake." What was on
the other side of the lake?
The region of the Gerasenes or Gadarenes.
And who had
settled this region?
Oh, no, are you getting back into that Girgashites gibberish
again?
Yes, were
the Girgashites Jewish?
No, they were enemies of the Jews; pretty mean ones that your
God wanted wiped out.
Right, and
so Jesus just on a whim decides to sail over and visit a non-Jewish territory.
It wasn't smooth sailing either, not like they just got to relax on the
water awhile. They set off and a fierce storm hit their boat and rocked them
badly, scared the Disciples badly. Almost seems as if someone didn't want Him
to go.
Hey, don't look at me!
Couldn't
have been Jesus felt compelled to go after the Girgasites. They seem to have
disappeared from history before this trip. At least Titus Flavius Josephus, the
great historian of the Jews couldn't find any trace of Girgashites left in this
period.
No, Jesus
just suddenly sails off with his disciples for Gentile territory. He's got
disciples with Him who don't seem to get it and who show a real lack of faith
on the way and when he gets back he is going to be rejected by the people in
his hometown. He is also beginning to come under regular attack from the
religious leaders among the Jews. Yet, he goes off to a Gentile country and
exercises a couple of blokes who may not even have been Jewish and ticks off a
whole town of people. Why?
Cause he heard there was a herd (heh heh, little play on words
there) of pigs and His Father had it in for pigs?
Forget the
pigs right now. There may have been several reasons. He may have wanted to
teach his disciples a little more about faith. The Demons knew who he was;
maybe he wanted his followers to hear that. And maybe he was pointing to both
his purpose and to the future as prophesied in that passage from Isaiah 65:
"I revealed
myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek
me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'
All day long I have
held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing
their own imaginations-a people who continually provoke me to my very face,
offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; who sit among the graves and spend their
nights keeping secret vigil;
who eat the flesh of pigs,
and whose pots
hold broth of unclean meat; who say, 'Keep away; don't come near me, for I am
too sacred for you!'
Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps
burning all day.
"See, it stands
written before me:
I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will
pay it back into their laps-both your sins and the sins of your fathers,"
says the LORD.
What was
going to happen? Jesus was going to preach His message to the Jews, that He was
the Messiah and they were going to reject Him. He would then take his message
to the Gentiles, those who didn't call on his name and who didn't seek him.
Like the Demon-possessed men the nation of Israel was saying "stay away,
don't come near us". The Jews, God's chosen people, the people he loved,
were gorging themselves on the unclean things of the world. They were pigs
hurtling themselves toward a cliff, possessed by sin, about to be drowned and
perish. The Jews had made themselves unclean by long practicing the
ceremonies of the Gentiles. They were in a sense possessed by the world and had
become unclean in the sight of God.
I believe
this event was partly to point to that and party to demonstrate God's mercy to
the gentiles who also needed Him.
So he killed a bunch of pigs and scared a bunch of people.
He didn't
kill those pigs, the Demons did, because all Demons know to do is destruction.
And did He really so scare those people they wanted him away? Or was there
possibly another reason?
What do you mean?
I mean, why
were those pig herds there? What was the purpose? Those pigs were doomed
anyway, you know. They were going to be somebody's ham and eggs or pork chops
and applesauce. Those were valuable animals. That loss of herd cost somebody
big bucks. Yet, they came and asked Jesus to leave rather than arrest him and
take him to court to make restitution.
Have you
considered these people were running an illegal operation, a black market in pork being sold to
the Jews across the Sea? Perhaps those herdsmen were even Jews themselves.
Remember the Prodigal Son? He sank so low he was feeding swine. Where would he
be feeding pigs in Israel? A Jew was unclean who handled pigs. Perhaps the Lord
was picturing the Prodigal Son working over on the other side of the Sea of
Galilee in this very field. Nonetheless, if this was a black market
operation, they were similar to a drug supplier in our world. The drug dealer
isn't going to the authorities if you somehow destroy his product because he
would be in trouble if he did. So it may have been with this town and they just
sent Jesus away so as not to make trouble or get their business closed down.
Jesus
allowed the Demons to go into the herd, he didn't order them there and the
Demons destroyed the illegal product used by people in defiance of God's will.
Remember, God's justice is as prevalent in his Word as His mercy.
One other
thing I'd like to mention. You'll be especially interested in this.
I will? What?
What were
the demons so worried about? Why did they ask to go into the pigs?
Is it hot in here or is it just me? Think I'll step out
for some air right now.
What did
the Demons cry out? "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed
time? I beg you don't torture me. Swear to God you won't torture me! They
begged Him repeatedly not to throw them into the Abyss."
The Demons
knew scripture. They knew they would be locked up and eventually thrown into
Hell. They also knew this was to be in some future time. They feared this
greatly and they knew very well that Jesus had the power to imprison them until
Judgment day. They didn't want to be locked up. So they begged to go from the
men into the pigs. Jesus gave them His permission to go into the pigs, he
didn't send them into the herd. The Demons then just did what was their nature
and destroyed the pigs. Don't know where the demons went after the pigs
drowned, perhaps they possessed a school of sharks or something.
I am sure
we could dig much more out of this occurrence, but this is enough to ponder for
now. But I don't think any thing in scripture happens at random and I believe
all of Scripture links together in one way or another.
I want to
give a nod to Dr. R. Brown, professor at Wilmington University, teacher of
Pastors as a member of SEND International- World Missions, Sunday School
teacher extraordinaire and author of Preparing for the Realities of Mission in
a Changing World (2006) for pointing out the relationship of the Girgashites to
the Gerasenes and his discussion of the black marketing of pigs. I have deep
respect for Dr. Brown's scholarship and Biblical knowledge, and am grateful for
the many times he has challenged my thinking.
So to solve
this, my wife suggested we take the dinner to them. So she and the kids have
prepared the meal ahead and later today, when my daughters get home from taking
care of the animals, we will pack up the car and head north, thankful that we
all can get together once more. Thankful the kids will be home in time to do
so. Thankful my parents at their age are independent and healthy.
Thankful my parent's home has heat. (Right: My parents in 2008)
