Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region — the community's response to the greatest miracle in the Gospels up to this point is a request for Jesus to leave. The pleading is as urgent as the demons' pleading — the same word (parakaleō) used for the Legion's begging is used for the community's request. The economic loss explains the response but does not exhaust it: the presence of someone who can do what Jesus has just done is more unsettling than the presence of a demon-possessed man who was at least predictable. The controlled wildness of the possessed man was a known quantity; Jesus is an unknown and uncontrollable quantity.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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