Rejecting Jesus on First Appearance

Scripture: The swineherds ran off, and on going into the town, they told the whole story about what had happened to the demoniacs. Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood. Matthew 8:33-34

Observation: This village has a problem, which is two demon-possessed men who torment anyone who comes near them. Upon Jesus casting out the demons into a heard of pigs, the townspeople hear about it, and immediately ask Jesus to leave them alone. They want nothing to do with the son of God, who can help and heal and restore and teach them, leading to their opportunity to know the Lord and find eternal happiness. They would rather Jesus be on his way and quit upsetting their farmers.

These townspeople are outside of Israel and likely not Hebrew. They are likely decedents of the nationalities that use to live across the Jordan and/or north of Israel - Assyrian, Amorites, Amalekites, Hittites, Moabites, etc. - and have no real interest in Yahweh. So when a group of Jews come, and the outcome is the death of some pigs, they have no desire to hear any good news about salvation. Despite the fact that Jesus just performed a miracle that saved two men and likely eliminated a major issue in their community, they reject Jesus on first appearances, before any message is even spoken.

Application: I live in an area of the country where there are many, many people with absolutely no context for Jesus at all. And I have seen such people reject a conversation about Jesus - cutting it off in mid-sentence at the mere pronouncement of his name - because they don't want to hear anything about him. This is the way of it for many ... without context, or even rejecting the context itself, those who have this level of unbelief in God often reject Jesus without even a message being told.

I still do believe that "pre-evangelism" at least begins to create context about God. I am sad that not all Christians see the value. Tradition tells us that after Jesus' resurrection, apostles returned to this area to find a population ready to believe in Jesus ... that this event created soil for future planting of the good news. May I have the strength to continue to believe that conversations that are completely rejected at the first mention of Jesus will still have value for the long-term salvation of others.

Prayer: Lord, give me strength this day, in this dark corner of our world, to say the name of Jesus to anyone you put in my path with such a need to hear it. Amen.