‘And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, there met him two possessed with demons, coming forth out of the tombs, extremely fierce, so that no man could pass by that way.'
When they landed on the shore of the country of the Gadarenes they were met by two wild and fierce demoniacs who ran to meet them out of the tombs, which were in caves in the rocks. Matthew tells us that they were possessed with demons. It would seem that Matthew wants us to know that Jesus deliberately went that way, for he tells us that men did not usually pass that way because these demoniacs were so fierce and uncontrolled. Their very behaviour demonstrated the amount of evil forces within them. This dreadful fierceness caused by possession has to be experienced to be believed. It regularly causes self-harm, and a lust for blood. I knew a woman in such a state, who had to be held down all through the night, desperate to see the sight of blood, until at four in the morning, after prayer in the name of Jesus, she suddenly subsided and the blood lust left her. And it genuinely was followed by a remarkable and very noticeable calm. The storm at sea was as nothing compared with these two raging demoniacs.
‘The country of the Gadarenes.' Gadara was an inland town whose territories reached down to the shore of the sea. The other synoptics in the better manuscripts read Gerasa, which probably refers, not to the city of Gerasa, but the small town of Kersa on the shoreline. Near that town is a fairly steep slope within forty metres of the shore, and the cave tombs can still be seen there.