It’s interesting who hears Jesus and how they respond to him. Coming down from the mountain of kindgom teaching (Matt. 5-7), Jesus immediately enters into the heart of human response to the demonstration of his kingdom.
The unclean, isolated, rejected, pagan, godless, sick, possessed, and outcast respond in courage, humility, and trust.
Some Jewish religious elite respond with excuses.
Winds and waves, non-human elements, obey his authority. His disciples worry about their own well-being.
Jesus enters the region of the Gadarenes, a predominantly Gentile-Roman region about 6 miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee where the people religiously practice the worship of Greco-Roman gods and goddesses. Demons flee their well-established residence in two men in obedience to Jesus’ command, and yet the whole town of people begs him to get out of town. Do the demons fear his power more than the people trust his authority?
Jesus busts through any religious boundary constructed to include and exclude. The kingdom of heaven has broken through the paradigms of the stuff of earth (4:17). God’s mission to renew and restore his creation is bigger, wider, and deeper than anyone thinks or imagines.
When I look at the responses to Jesus in chapter 8, I feel compelled to ask some questions. Where do I put limits on God’s work in my life and in the lives of others? Am I open to God breaking in on my world? Where am I missing God’s kingdom mission because my view of him is too narrow or too self-absorbed? What is my response to him?
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