Wondering what Story they Told

Scripture: The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. Mark 5:12-14

Observation: When Jesus arrives on the eastern shore of the sea of Galilee, he has this encounter with a demon-possessed madman. He casts the demons out of him and into a herd of pigs, who immediately kill themselves, and as a result the townspeople are afraid of Jesus and actually ask him to leave.

So ... what did the townspeople hear that Jesus had done? Twice these verses state that there were witnesses - not Jesus, nor his disciples, nor the healed man, but others including the pig herders - who reported what happened. Did they actually report that Jesus could command of a couple thousand demons? Did they see the demons and describe them? Did they report how Jesus interacted with a famously deranged and dangerous madman and both calmed and healed him? Everywhere Jesus goes, crowds come to him to seek healing. However, what the witnesses reported in this case caused the people to actually "plead" with Jesus to go away, despite the fact he clearly healed a very dangerous person.

It seems like MOST people would view the healing as a good thing, and perhaps think that the herdsmen might themselves be a bit deranged for stating their pigs committed suicide due to the interaction between Jesus and a couple thousand demons. Instead, the opposite occurs. The fact they went into both the town and countryside to tell of the incident means the story - whatever it was - was broadcast to many people very quickly. There are two types of stories that herdsmen who just had two thousand pigs in their care die may want to spread rapidly:

1) Good news that should be celebrated

2) Lies (or at least half-truths) created to explain a perceived personal failure

It seems, based on the attitude of the people who come to investigate and thus ask Jesus to leave them, coupled with the fact that Jesus (who almost always tells those whom he healed to not broadcast the fact) explicitly tells the healed man to tell others what the Lord did for him (aka, broadcast the truth!), that #2 was at play here.

Application: I get fed a significant number of 'apologetic' videos on various social media platforms ... often these are videos that show someone challenging a person of faith to prove something about God and/or Jesus. In almost all of them, they challenger begins by stating something like, "Given the fact that X, how can you believe Y?" where X is not only not a fact, but a lie. (And Y is often a lie Christians don't actually believe either.)

I am often surprised when I actually watch these (which isn't often) that the lies that comprise the challenge are typically so fantastically and obviously false that it would seem any logical person who even thinks through their own question would realize the error of their base assumption. This is why the conundrum about what the pig herders said is so fascinating. They somehow convinced an entire town that ... Jesus incited 2,000 pigs to commit suicide. As a standalone 'given', that makes no sense! Anyone hearing that story, then arriving and seeing the actual circumstance - Jesus talking to the madman who had terrorized their entire village for years but was now calm and normal - would at the very least be intellectually curious, and should be excitedly pleased.

Instead ... then and today ... the lies take hold, and people become afraid of Jesus. People hold onto obvious lies instead of believing in the truth, because the lies justify certain behaviors or emotions they have decided to embrace. Even when those behaviors and emotions are painful or harmful or suboptimal for happiness and success, people cling to them and thus to any lies that justify them because ... facing the truth, accepting faith, and undergoing life change scares them.

I am sure there are lies I believe that hold me back from fully living the life the Lord wants for me. While I have total faith in Jesus, there are things I do that take me off of the Lord's path and plans for me daily. There is some story I've been told, where I believe the story even when evidence indicates something better is available to me if I just considered the truth.

Prayer: Lord, I do want to ignore the lies that I still believe, and embrace your truth for my life. May I continue to look for what you are doing in every situation surrounding me every minute of every day, and adjust my thinking to your facts and your truth, not to my flawed perspective. Amen.