<p>8:34 <i>And all in the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him- </i>&quot;Begged&quot; is the very same word used about the demons / mentally ill men 'beseeching' Jesus in :31. As the mentally ill men besought Jesus to send away the demons, so the city dwellers besought Jesus to also 'go away'. As the keepers of the pigs &quot;went their way&quot; (:33), so the same word is used of the demons 'going away' into the pigs (:31,32). As the city dwellers 'came out' to meet Jesus, so the mentally ill men 'came out' of the tombs to meet Jesus (8:28) and the demons 'came out' of them (8:32). Perhaps the idea is that those unbelievers were spiritually in the same position as the despised mentally ill men whom they had excluded from their society. And the story ends with the mentally ill saved, and the townspeople asking Jesus to depart from them, which will be the exact position of the rejected at the last day (Mt. 25:41; Lk. 13:27). It is they who are condemned, by their own wish; the mentally ill men asked for the pigs to bear their condemnation, which they felt worthy of- and thus were saved. The parallel record in Mark 5 records three prayers to Jesus: &quot;the devils besought him&quot;, and &quot;Jesus gave them leave&quot; (vv. 12,13); the Gadarenes &quot;began to pray him to depart out of their coasts&quot; (v. 17); and He obliged. And yet when the cured, earnestly zealous man &quot;prayed him that he might be with him... Jesus suffered him not&quot; (vv. 18,19). After the fascination, physically and intellectually, had worn off, very few of the crowds continued their interest. The Lord scarcely converted more than 100 people in the course of His ministry. We are familiar, from our own experience of sin and failure, with the pure grace of the Lord Jesus. We see that largeness and generosity of spirit within Him, that manifestation of the God of love, that willingness to concede to our weakness; and therefore we can tend to overlook the fact that the Lord Jesus set uncompromisingly high standards. I would even use the word &quot;demanding&quot; about His attitude.</p>
<p><i>To depart from their borders-</i>&nbsp;Consider how the believers were assembled praying for Peter's release, and then when he turns up on the doorstep, they tell the servant girl that she's mad to think Peter was there. Or how the Lord Jesus did such wonderful miracles- and people asked him to go away. We too have this element within us. We would rather salvation and forgiveness were 'harder' to attain. The popularity of Catholic and Orthodox rituals is proof enough of this. It always touches me to read in the Gospels how the Lord Jesus cured wide eyed spastic children, crippled, wheezing young women, and sent them (and their loved ones) away with a joy and sparkle this world has never known. But the people asked Him to go away, and eventually did Him to death. A voice came from Heaven, validating Him as the Son of God; those who heard it involuntarily fell to the ground. But the people didn't really believe, and plotted to kill him (Jn. 12:37). They turned round and bayed for His blood, and nailed Him to death. He cured poor Legion; and the people told the Lord to go away. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Mark records further: &ldquo;And as he was entering into the boat, he that had been possessed with demons pleaded with him that he might go with him. But Jesus did not permit him. Instead he said to him: Go to your home, to your family, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you. And he went his way and began to publish in Decapolis the great things Jesus had done for him, and all men marvelled&rdquo; (Mk. 5:18-20). This preaching in Decapolis rather than to his family could be read as disobedience. The Gospels are transcripts of the twelve disciples&rsquo; own preaching and obedience to the Lord&rsquo;s commission for them to go into all the world and tell the news of what they had seen and heard of Him. Yet there is a theme in the Gospels, consciously included by the writers and speakers, of men being disobedient to the preaching commission which the Lord gave them. When some were told to say nothing, they went and told many others (Mk. 7:36). And as Acts makes clear, the disciples themselves were disobedient, initially, to the commission to go tell the Gentiles the good news of their salvation. Legion&rsquo;s disobedience is especially instructive for us:</p>
<div align="center">
<table border="0" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="0" width="80%">
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td valign="top">
            <p><b>Mk. 5:19</b></p>
            </td>
            <td valign="top">
            <p><b>Mk. 5:20</b></p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>Go to thy&nbsp;<i>house</i></p>
            </td>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>He goes to the<i>&nbsp;ten cities&nbsp;</i>[Decapolis]</p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>unto thy&nbsp;<i>friends</i></p>
            </td>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>He goes to&nbsp;<i>strangers</i></p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td valign="top">
            <p><i>tell&nbsp;</i>them   [Lk. 8:39 &ldquo;<i>show</i>&nbsp;them&rdquo;- by personal demonstration to individuals]</p>
            </td>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>He &ldquo;<i>publishes</i>&rdquo;</p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>how great things</p>
            </td>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>how great things</p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>the&nbsp;<i>Lord [i.e. God]</i>&nbsp;hath done   for thee</p>
            </td>
            <td valign="top">
            <p><i>Jesus&nbsp;</i>had   done for him</p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>and how he had mercy on thee.</p>
            </td>
            <td valign="top">
            <p>[ignored]</p>
            </td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>The record of the commission given him and his obedience to it are clearly intended to be compared. The man went to strange cities, indeed he organized a whole preaching tour of ten cities- rather than going home and telling his immediate friends / family. And how true this is of us. It&rsquo;s so much easier to embark upon a campaign to strangers, to do &lsquo;mission work&rsquo;, to &lsquo;publish&rsquo; the Gospel loudly, rather than&nbsp;<i>tell</i>&nbsp;and<i> show</i>&nbsp;it to our immediate personal contacts. And we notice too how he omits to tell others of the Lord&rsquo;s merciful grace to him personally. Rather does he speak only of the material, the literality of the healing. And he tells others what Jesus had done for him, rather than take the Lord Jesus&rsquo; invitation to perceive the bigger picture in all this- that this was the hand of God. One wonders whether the disciples were commenting upon their own sense of inadequacy in their initial personal witness. The Lord told the cured demoniac to go back to his friends (Mk. 5:19) and family (Lk. 8:39) and witness to them. Clearly enough, the man didn&rsquo;t have any friends- for he had a history of violence and lived alone, many having tried unsuccessfully to bind him due to the grievous harm he must have inflicted upon many. Yet the man went out and preached to the whole area (Mk. 5:20). Was this just rank disobedience to what His Saviour Lord had just told him? Perhaps, due to unrestrained enthusiasm. But more likely is that the man now considered the whole world around him to be his family and friends, and therefore he witnessed to them. His care for others in desiring to witness to them flowed quite naturally from his experience of conversion at the Lord&rsquo;s hands.</p>
<p>Mary&rsquo;s praise that &ldquo;He hath done to me great things&rdquo; is surely behind her Son&rsquo;s words in Lk. 8:39, where He bids Legion go home&quot; and shew how great things God hath done unto thee&quot;.&nbsp;Her eternal influence on her Son is a huge encouragement to all mothers. For the language of the risen Lord in Revelation has discernible links with language she used to Him in His infancy.</p>