28 And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. 29 And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” 30 Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. 31 And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” 32 And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. 33 The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region. (Matt 8:28-34, ESV)
Recently as I was reading the miraculous story of Christ’s deliverance of these two demonized men, I could not help but focus on some characters I had not paid much attention to in past readings… “the herdsmen.” Over the years I have heard various teachings about this incident, most of which have asked the question why Jewish men were herding pigs in the first place, but we need to understand that the Gaderenes (or Gergesenes, depending on your translation) was not a Jewish region in the time of Jesus. Gadara was a predominantly gentile city within Decapolis, an area strongly influenced by Greek culture southeast of the Sea of Galilee.1 For these herdsmen there was likely no shame they carried in farming pigs. The citizens of the city did not purchase ham and pork chops with the contrition of a Baptist grandma purchasing wine for her coq au vin. For the herdsmen of the Gaderenes they did their work with pride knowing that in doing so they were providing for their families, bringing home the bacon (sometimes quite literally).
With this context, when we read from the perspective of the herdsmen, what we find for them is unexplainable suffering. As their swine ran down the bank and into the sea, so did their livelihood, even if they were from the minority Jewish community in Decapolis and couldn’t eat pork their jobs were now at stake (no one wants a herdsman who can’t keep their herd alive), and so went their means to purchase other meats, dairy, bread, and drink. These men experienced great loss but two men in their periphery went free.
It’s clear from Matthew, Mark (5:11-17), and Luke’s (8:32-37) telling of the incident that the herdsmen understood who was responsible for the financial loss. After the complaint of the herdsmen, the townspeople did not ask for the formerly demonized men (or man in Mark and Luke’s account) to leave the village. Mark and Luke record that the townspeople saw the man “in his right mind”2 and in response begged Jesus to leave. They were not upset with the deliverance of the demonized, they were upset that it came at their expense. One can easily imagine the herdsmen rallying their fellow townspeople with cries of “if he could do this to our pigs just imagine what he might do to your poultry and cattle, the cost is too great.” “Yes, people previously couldn’t pass through the area of the tombs because of the demonized, but we could still feed our families. Is their deliverance worth such a great cost to us?”
When faced with suffering it is natural to ask ‘why me?’ The Israelite prayer book, Psalms, repeatedly guides sufferers to ask God ‘why,’3 and even to sing and pray for vindication from their suffering.4 It is not wrong to ask God for an explanation or a resolution. It is promised “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). However, there is no promise that we will see the ‘good’ in this life.
I have found in Christians communities that when we face suffering we often ask questions like ‘what does the Lord want to teach me through this?’ or ‘how will the Lord use this for my good?” These are not bad questions, but what if the Lord allows our swine to run over a cliff to accomplish something that is not even primarily about us? What if your suffering and Christ’s work is concerned with those on the margins of your life and your suffering is part of a mission greater than you might justify today, even if you had the hindsight?
A common refrain I hear from Christians when someone is suffering is that given some time and hindsight there will be understanding; “In five/ten/fifteen years you’ll look back on this season of suffering and it will all make sense.” But this is not a biblical promise. Yes, Joseph was able to look back on his suffering and say to his brothers who stripped him naked and sold him into slavery that what [they] meant for evil God meant for good (Gen. 50:20). However, there are plenty of biblical examples where hindsight provides nothing but hindsight; John the Baptist is imprisoned and then beheaded, the apostles James and Peter are both taken captive but only Peter is rescued while James is executed without explanation, the poor man Lazarus experiences hunger and sores only to receive comfort after death.5
Perhaps the clearest example of suffering without explanation is that of Job, who lost his children, his business, and his health; thirty-five chapters of the book of Job are dedicated to he and his friends trying to make sense of his suffering, and in the very end Job hears the voice of God who still gives him no reason, but instead is asked by God ‘who do you think you are?’6 For those unfamiliar with Job’s story, the onset of his suffering came from a challenge by Satan to show that Job was merely a fairweather follower and would curse God if blessings were taken away. But despite Job’s faithful endurance God never tells Job what was happening behind the scenes. In the end, Job’s fortunes are restored, but this does not make his grief and losses any less real. Job is even vindicated by God from his accusing friends, but Job never received divine hindsight this side of heaven. Nevertheless, for thousands of years faithful followers of God have been blessed by his example of persevering faith without explanation for his suffering. We might say that his swine were run off a cliff at least in part for the comfort and guidance of millions of sufferers like us.
In this way, just as the herdsmen were not the main character in their suffering, neither was Job. To which we might ask, what if we are not the main character in our own suffering, what if God is seeking to accomplish something so much greater, or perhaps in our eyes ‘so much smaller’, than our story, but instead we chase swine rather than resting in his sovereignty that we cannot make sense of?
Looking back to the herdsmen, we must acknowledge both personal cost and another’s benefit. The deliverance of these men did not erase the loss of the herd or settle whatever anxieties followed. Recognizing the mercy someone else has received does not require pretending that our loss is insignificant or painless. Yet in the loss, stood Jesus, who had brought freedom to men whom no one else could help. The townspeople seeing this, still though, begged Jesus to leave. Regardless of what we can and cannot know about their motives, their plea raises a question for us: when Christ’s presence unsettles us, will we still seek his mercy?
To be sure, one person’s deliverance doesn’t promise that our circumstances will resolve as theirs did. We can’t turn someone’s testimony into a timetable for our own relief, but their joy doesn’t need to silence our lament. We can acknowledge the good they have received while bringing our own grief to Jesus. We can ask for provision, for healing, for an explanation. Trust does not require us to call the loss painless or to claim knowledge of God’s purposes. The danger comes when we make receiving an answer, or recovering what we have lost, a condition of welcoming him.
The effects of suffering on our relationship with God can be vast, suffering can cause us to cling to Him or push him away. But there is a difference between pleading with Jesus to relieve our suffering and insisting that he leave unless he does. An anguished “why, O God?” can be a cry to the One whose mercy we need even when his purposes remain hidden.
In our suffering we should ask, might our pain lead us to push him away? In our loss, our anxiety (that is our lack of control, and our inability to domesticate God and swear a hippocratic oath on his behalf that he ‘do no harm’) we too can push him out seeking to regain jurisdiction we never had in the first place, or we can take the perspective of Job who in his suffering said “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
“Chasing swine” is not grieving what is gone or seeking to rebuild what has been broken, but becoming so determined to recover control that we would rather send Jesus away than remain with him in uncertainty. The reality is that we may never receive the hindsight we desire for why we’ve suffered the losses we have. Like Job, we might never get the full story (or even part of the story) this side of eternity. But we can bring that loss to him, asking for mercy without pretending that we already understand. We can lament and still ask Jesus to stay.
- “Gadara,” Encyclopedia of the Bible, Bible Gateway, accessed October 21, 2026, https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Gadara.
↩︎ - Mark 5:15; Luke 8:35. ↩︎
- Psalm 10:1; 22:1; 42:9; 43:2; 44:23-24; 74:1,11; 80:12; 88:14. ↩︎
- Psalm 17:1-2; 26:1-2; 35:23-28; 43:1; 54:1 ↩︎
- I’m referring here to the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16, not the friend of Jesus who is raised from the dead in John 11. ↩︎
- My summary of Job 40:6-41:34. ↩︎
