Should he stay or should he go?

STANDOUT VERSE - MATTHEW 8:34
Then the entire town came out to meet Jesus, but they begged him to go away and leave them alone.

What had Jesus actually done? Why did he receive this treatment? He had healed two men and destroyed a herd of pigs in the process, but I wonder whether it really was the destruction of the pigs that caused them to ask him to leave. We don’t even know that the villagers were told about the pigs – only about the men.

Was it in fact the healing? Through that action they saw the power of Jesus. He was able to accomplish what their town leaders and cultic priests could not. The demons whom they feared and knew, knew Jesus and so feared him. What power this man might have. What things he might do to them. What would happen if he stayed? This man is a threat.

That power is still there. He can accomplish what our politicians, celebrities, sportsmen, pop-stars, anyone else in whom we place our hopes and dreams, cannot. He can heal the disease that is at the root of our being and remove our sin, but this means a change of who we are and that is a threat to our identity, worth and self-sufficiency. The threat is not new and created, for the real threat is sin just as it was the demons for the Gadarenes. Yet the world turns its fire against the solution.

When I realise my sinfulness do I turn my rage against the sin or the light which exposed it?

Would I rather have Jesus leave than transform me?

Jesus, change me.