A choice – Jesus or the pigs? Reading Mark 5:
1-20...
All four canonical gospels tell us of the many
miracles Jesus of Nazareth worked during his public life.
Notwithstanding the popular idea that the miracle is a subversion of
the laws of nature, the words that Sacred Scripture uses to speak of
admirable happenings that impress us, deserve our attention. An
example is the Hebrew word "môpēt" and its cognates used
in the Old Testament which means "symbolic act". In the NT,
the synoptic gospels use the Greek word “dynamis” (act of power),
John uses “semeion” (sign) and “ergon” (work); Acts of the
Apostles uses "teras" (wonder) to speak of "miracles"
(Acts 2:22). The word "miracle" comes from the Latin
"miraculum" (something to be admired), which the Vulgate
(the translation of the Bible by St. Jerome) used to translate the
words that refer to happenings that manifest the power of God.
Our world lives a tense moment right now as
imperialist forces seek to impose capitalism as the only model of
economic-social organization destroying democracy in many countries
using techniques like law-fare. It is in this situation that we read
the text of Mark 5: 1-20 which tells of an exorcism, a powerful act
of Jesus of Nazareth to liberate a human being and the reaction of
his countrymen.
The story begins with the arrival of Jesus in the
region of Gerasenes by boat (v.1); as he was getting down, a man with
an evil spirit came, knelt at his feet, crying out in a loud voice,
"What do you want of me, Jesus, Son of God? I beg you not to
torment me. " In fact, Jesus was already ordering the unclean
spirit to come out of him. The Nazarene now asks him, "What is
your name?" "Legion is my name, because we are many,"
responds the possessed. It is worth noting that "Legion"
was the name of the military units of the Romans who were occupying
Palestine at that time. As it became clear that the evil spirits
could not dominate the Nazarene, something they tried to do, they
began insisting that he does not expel them to somewhere far away
from the region.
It happened that there was a large herd of pigs
(the Jews' aversion to this animal is proverbial) grazing on the
hills and it is to these that the evil spirits wanted to be cast out
and Jesus did it. Soon the herd (numbering about two thousand) rushed
down hillside, threw itself into the sea and got drowned. Seeing this
the frightened herdsmen fled to break the news to the inhabitants of
the whole region.
The news upset the people of the region; they
came out to find out what exactly had happened. They saw Jesus and
the man freed of the evil spirits sitting there, clothed and in his
right mind. They became afraid (v.15). Those who had witnessed the
event told them about what had happened to the possessed man and the
to the pigs. Then they asked Jesus to leave their territory. This
rejection of Jesus and the Kingdom of God (solidarity community, not
one based on cutthroat competition) comes after the Nazarene had
faced the decision of the authorities to kill him (see Mk 3: 1-6) and
the disagreement of his relatives with his activities (see Mk 3,
20-21).
As Jesus was embarking the man who had been freed
from the evil spirits asked to be allowed to go with him, but the
Rabbi wouldn’t allow it, instead but gave him a task: that of
announcing to his people the Good News of all that the Lord done for
him. Immediately he began to do it in the Decapolis region. And
everyone was amazed.
It is interesting to inquire about the
implications of reading this pericope in the present , given the
symbolic nature of biblical language. In the episode, the
representative of the empire, the possessed, seeks to dominate the
Nazarene by calling him by name and with his shout, "What you
want..." (v.7). But Jesus, on the contrary, exercises greater
power by requiring that the impure spirit identify itself. Then he
casts out the unclean spirits, restoring the integrity of the
possessed; however, it is paradoxical – the inhabitants of the
region preferred to keep their pigs rather than the restoration of
the capacity to lead a full life to one of their countrymen!
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