Matthew 8,9

January 4, 2011

Matthew 8,9

Overview:  An eventful travelogue full of teaching, healing and one calming of a storm.

8:28-34 is one of those very revealing stories featuring Jesus.  Jesus encounters two demoniacs and casts the demons out of them into a herd of pigs. Verse 34 is the kicker - "Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him they begged him to leave their neighborhood."  They didn't thank him.  They didn't ask him to heal anyone else.  They begged him to leave.  One business had already taken a hit - the swineherders had seen their investments run headlong into the sea - no one was anxious to be next.  Jesus is sought out often in the gospels by those in neeed, but this passage reminds that there are those who experience Jesus as inconvenient and disruptive.  There are aspects of Jesus' message that will still strike us at times as inconvenient - because they may not coincide with our desires and some that we will experience as disruptive because...they are. 
9:36-38 give us a glimpse of Jesus instructing the disciples.  After the flurry of activity in chapters 8 and 9, chapter 9 ends with a summary statement about Jesus traveling through cities and villages meeting needs.  The disciples are alongside of him, helping one assumes and bearing witness to all that Jesus does.  Having taken all this in they are left with these words from Jesus, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."