Interesting thing about Mark/Peter, he is really detailed in his story telling. For example, in the story of Legion and Christ and the casting into the pigs (Gerasene Demoniac), which I don't remember in Matthew, but maybe it was there. His description of how Legion speaks and when the man speaks and Christ's words are specific. Christ says less than anything in Matthew. Mark/Peter makes Christ appear more introspective. Also the story is more of a spiritual world story(as opposed to a human world story). Mostly in Matthew there are parables and several human miracles (healing and what not), but this story regarding Legion is mystical. It is similar to the description of Adam and Eve before the misbehavior. They were not orginally clothed with flesh, which makes me thing they were spirits of some kind: mystical. While I recognize that these days we would say, oh well this guy had skitzophrenia (yeah, I like that spelling), the desciption in the scripture leads my thoughts elsewhere and not to something explainable. Legion is real and the demons are talking to Christ. Talking, like saying, "hey we are in here and there is more than one of us and we are going to do whatever you tell us to do because you are God's son, but don't send us back to hell man because we can't take it anymore." The passage is more tangible regrading evil than I have ever read. It also makes me think that that war that Ernie talked about when I was a teenager and I am supposed to wear my armour of God, which I never understood and mostly thought he made some story up and being a teenager, I knew everything anyway, might be totally plausible. Although, I almost wonder if that is something that is supposed to happen amongst the spiritual beings, aka Christ and the demons, and not neccessarily amongst those of us who are normal average, none demon speaking, non God hearing, not on that perception wave length. I guess what I am saying is that Mark/Peter saw something that was not of this world and maybe wasn't supposed to be . . . this is one of those passages that movies are made of . . . Perhaps they had access to this experience because they are the chosen to walk around with Christ and record the happenings of Christ and didn't they speak in tongues so that all who were there could hear the message? Didn't Christ pass on some of the healings ability onto the disciples? I mean that would qualify them as spiritual world type folk. Not neccessarily standard human folk. Maybe that is why they were privvy and the rest of us just get second hand what happened.

I have heard this story all my life in bible school or Sunday school or wherever, but it never made sense to me. I don't know if I have ever read the text or not (not often that I have, mostly oral history is the deal when I was book learning in church), but it is definitely a little creepy. It is a faith issue. Do demons exist? Are they present in this world? Do they have the capablity of possession? If so then are they capable of temptation? Is there really a devil lurking in the shadows or is he only waiting for us to die to snatch our souls? If I have faith in God and Christ and the Holy Trinity, is there a duality or is God all encompassing and duality is not even a possibility, thus no devil or evil or demons and only the self will of the arduous son of Adam? Yes I am asking questions and yes answers would be super cool. This "miracle" didn't impress upon the town's people like the healings did on the other town's people. It wasn't a "Hey, cool that guy is healing people. He must be God." The towns people were like, "Hey, get out of here. You are freaking us out. We don't care who you are." The reaction of the people is what makes me think, "hmm. . .kind of not real, like too real, like whoa, the things that people don't talk about happening but gives them reason to worship some random totem." It wasn't until they heard the story second hand (which we all know what second hand information is like, funnier or more embellished or sadder or somethinger, not so scary or scarier), they were amazed. They were not joyful that the son of God had shown up and taken away this guy's anguish, they were in awe of whatever the guy said. There is an assumption that he spoke gospel and that was what the awe was for, but really why did it take someone else telling them the deal? Perhaps it was because they were so spooked out by what they didn't understand? Maybe it was because what they saw, being non spiritual people, was not what Mark/Peter saw, being spiritual people, and the man who experienced it interpreted it for them! Nah, too much sense, but then again it would explain why Christ spoke in parables and then explained them to the disciples who were capable of interpretation. This explanation is beginnig to sound more and more like Harry Potter.