[ p. 143 ]
A RETREAT ACROSS THE LAKE
Mk. iv. 35-v. 20; Mt. viii. 18, 23-34; Lk. viii. 22-39.
It was now late, and they needed repose, especially the Master. For He had spent the previous night in prayer on the hillside, and all day He had been anxiously employed, first in ordaining His Apostles, then in disputing with the Pharisees, and then in discoursing by parables to the multitude and afterwards in expounding His parables to the Twelve. He sorely needed repose ; yet He did not retire to His couch. He would fain continue His instruction of the Twelve, and He foresaw that, if He remained at Capernaum, the morrow would bring fresh distraction. And therefore He had determined, late as it was, to withdraw from the town and seek a peaceful retreat where He might commune with them undisturbed. Whither should He go ? The previous year He had retired inland, but now His fame had spread and He would find no seclusion there. The eastern side of the Lake, so sparsely populated, He had never yet visited, and thither tie would betake Himself.
They embarked in the boat which they kept in readiness for emergencies, and put off. It was late and their departure was unobserved, but they cf. Mk.
were not alone on the Lake. Night was the UL 9 time for fishing, and as they stole on their way, they passed boats swinging by their nets. It was a long row of some seven miles ; and while His fisher-disciples [ p. 144 ] plied the oars, the Master sat on the seat at the stern, a wooden thwart usually padded with leather, and so weary was He that He fell fast asleep.
The worst peril of the Lake is its liability to sudden tempests, soon spent but furious while they last, especially after a sultry day when the cool breeze from the western sea encounters the sultry atmosphere of the deep basin and is sucked whirling down the gorges. So it happened that night. A tempest broke —a hurricane of wind, as the old Greek lexicographer defines the Evangelists’ term, with black, driving clouds and pelting rain. The Lake was lashed into fury, and the waves dashed over the frail craft. So weary was the Master that He slept on. “Lord,” cried the disciples, “save! We are perishing." “Why," He remonstrated, “are you so afraid ? How little faith you have !” Then, addressing the storm as though it were a raging beast, “Hush !” said He; “be muzzled !” His command was the will of God, the Eternal Creator. “The sea is His, and He made it” (Ps. xcv. 5; Pr. xxx. 4; Is. xl. 12); He “hath gathered the wind in His “measured the waters in the hollow of His hand”; and the wild elements obeyed. It was no natural subsidence—a gradual falling of the wind leaving a long, lingering swell; for, says the Evangelist, “the wind sank to rest, and there ensued a great calm.”
The other boats had shared the peril, and their crews Mt. viii. were amaze d. They knew the Lake and had experienced many a tempest, but never had they known a storm pass thus. “What manner of man,” they exclaimed, or more truly “what unearthly personage—a visitant from what realm—is this ? Even the winds and the sea obey Him !”(Mt. xiii. 27; Cf. 1 Jo. iii. 1; 2 Pet. iii. 2)
[ p. 145 ]
The boat held on its way and came to land in the early morning near Gerasa, the modern Kersa. Elsewhere the eastern shore slopes gently, but here it drops sheer down into the Lake, and here they disembarked. The hillside promised a quiet retreat, and thither they betook themselves. As they went, they had a startling adventure. In those days lunatics were suffered to roam at large, and they frequently haunted burial-places ; and as Jesus and His company approached the burial-place of the town, still marked by the ruins of rock-hewn sepulchres, a lunatic rushed out upon them. He was a raging madman, the terror of the neighbourhood, all the more that according to the idea of the age his madness was ascribed to demoniacal possession. Attempts had been made to fetter him, but he had always burst his bonds, and he lurked there in the caverns of the dead, yelling and raving and lacerating his naked body. It appears that he knew Jesus. Frenzy so violent can hardly have been of long standing, and probably ere his seizure he had visited Capernaum and had there seen and heard the famous teacher whom the multitude acclaimed as the Messiah. And now on espying Him he conceived that He had come on an errand of judgment, and he ran to meet Him and with a wild cry knelt before Him.
It was an extreme case, and the Lord approached it after His accustomed manner, humouring the hallucination of the disordered brain. He addressed the supposed demon : “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.” Generally the command sufficed, the authority of His voice and look impressing the patient and persuading him that he was dispossessed; but here [ p. 146 ] the frenzy was harder to master. The lunatic resisted. With that confusion cf personality which the notion of possession created, he identified himself with the indwelling demon and answered in its character, deprecating the Messiah’s vengeance : “Why are you troubling me, Jesus, Son of God Most High ? I adjure you by God, do not torture me.”
This the first attempt was unavailing. It had inspired terror in the crazed brain and would only aggravate its frenzy. And so the Lord tried another way. “What is your name ?” He inquired by way of recalling to the man his proper identity. But the delusion persisted and, still speaking in the demon’s character, the man replied that his name was " Legion,” his notion being that he was possessed not by a single demon but by a whole regiment. It seemed as though the case were hopeless, but the Lord’s strong and gracious personality was winning the mastery and in the moment of seeming defeat the madman capitulated. Feeding hard by on the common were herds of swine, some two thousand in all, and a wild idea presented itself to the disordered mind. The belief then was that the wilderness was the proper abode of evil spirits, and it was to escape from that drear exile that they took possession of men. They craved embodiment, and any sort of embodiment was better than none: if they could not obtain lodgement in men, they would seek it in beasts. This idea suggested a compromise to the maniac. Speaking for the army of demons which possessed him, he begged : “Since we must go out of the man, do not banish us from the country (from the fertile, populated country into the lone wilderness). Send us into yonder swine.” [ p. 147 ] “Begone” answered the Lord. The maniac would leap up, and the creatures, already startled by his wild cries, rushed panic-stricken down the hillside and plunged over the precipice into the Lake.
And thus the Lord’s merciful purpose was achieved. The man’s hallucination was dispelled. Assuredly he was rid of the demons : they had entered the swine and been plunged into the Lake. Had he not seen it with his own eyes ? His frenzy was soothed, and that was the beginning of his cure ; for he could now understand and surrender his troubled spirit to the Lord’s healing grace.
On witnessing the destruction of their charges the swineherds hurried off to the town and the neighbouring farms and reported the disaster ; and presently an excited crowd appeared on the scene. There they beheld Jesus and the madman sitting at His feet, exhausted by his recent frenzy but a madman no longer. He was clothed—clothed, as the word signifies, with a mantle, lent him by one of the strangers, perhaps the Lord Himself, to cover his nakedness ; and he was perfectly sane. So amazing a transformation smote them with superstitious fear, and they durst not vent their indignation at the loss of their property ; but they would not harbour so dangerous a visitor, and they besought Jesus to quit their neighbourhood. He quietly betook Himself with His companions to the boat, and the man followed Him and, as He was getting on board, begged leave to accompany Him. But He refused. There was work for the man to do where he was, and he must prove his gratitude by facing every risk. “Go home,” said He, “and tell your people what the Lord has done for you.” The [ p. 148 ] man obeyed, and he did more than he was bidden. Not alone to his own people did he tell the story, but he travelled all over Decapolis publishing the grace of Jesus.
It was worth the Lord’s while crossing the Lake to win so ardent a herald of His Kingdom, yet His immediate errand was frustrated. Amid the excitement which His miracle had aroused quiet converse with the Twelve was impossible, and He returned to Capernaum.