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Dr. Martin Matsumura recently got a lesson in today's media-saturated world: The slow march of science can't keep up with a hyper-connected society.
Matsumura, a cardiologist, recently presented to the American College of Cardiology the findings of a study looking at the health effects of running. Specifically, Matsumura and his colleagues wanted to find out why people who ran long distances for years had shorter lifespans than those who ran moderate distances.
The finding — that there is a declining benefit to exercise at some point — had been reached in a growing body of research, Matsumura said. He wanted to find out why.
But his presentation coincided with another report in Missouri Medicine linking super long-distance running with more coronary artery plaque, and a media onslaught occurred, or at least an onslaught for a researcher whose work appears in highly technical medical journals.
"I was completely unprepared," he said.
Numerous news sites and television stations across the country picked up a health news service's story on the presentation and the Missouri report, and some took it too far, said Matsumura, a doctor at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Pennsylvania. "It got overhyped a bit," he said.
One story was headlined: "If you run too much, you won't live as long," Matsumura said. "And that's not exactly true."
Matsumura — who is a runner and has competed in half-marathons — said the correct story starts with the fundamental truth that exercise is good for all. However, studies in recent years, including a survey of about 2,000 runners in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, have found that there is a point of diminishing returns for hard-core exercisers. It appears that for runners, that line gets crossed after about 20 miles a week.
Matsumura suspected that the problem wasn't the additional hours of exercise, so he and his colleagues examined other reasons and posed the questions in a Web-based survey open to any runner 35 or older. Nearly 3,900 runners responded.
Did longer-distance runners take excessive amounts of pain relief drugs that, in large enough doses, can be damaging? (They actually found that shorter-distance runners consumed more, Matsumura said.) Were they less conscientious about following their personal medical needs, thinking that the health effects of extra running balanced things out? (No, there was little difference.) Matsumura said the researchers also asked about diet, coffee consumption and other factors.
The results didn't shed any more light on the issue. "We didn't have a good explanation for why longer distance runners show less longevity," he said.
As for that longevity, the Copenhagen study said the increase in survival was more than six years for male joggers and more than five for women. In comparative terms, the study found that the relative risk of premature death was reduced by 44 percent for low-mileage runners, while the relative risk reduction was 14 percent for those running the highest mileage. But that still was better than the relative risk of non-runners, Matsumura said.
Researchers will continue to follow runners in the coming years to see if they can determine the reason for the differences, he said.
As a runner, Matsumura knows better than to expect that other runners will slow down because of the research.
Neal Novak, president of the Lehigh Valley Roadrunners, agreed. "That report won't change their lifestyle one iota," he said.
A former marathoner who cut back to about 20 miles a week after undergoing hip surgery, Novak said runners run because they're "driven" people who find enjoyment in it.
"I don't know if it improves the quantity of your life, but it improves the quality of your life," he said.
That suits Matsumura, who does not advocate ending marathon runs. Instead, he says long-distance runners should keep up with the news.
If you're not a long distance runner, keeping the training in moderation is probably the right way to go, he said. "It is true if you're running purely for health, probably the 20-mile range is probably right."


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A McMinnville teenager was arrested Friday on charges that allege he sexually assaulted four juvenile females over a three-year period.
Capt. Dennis Marks of the McMinnville police identified the suspect as Fernando Rivera Serratos, 18.
He was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count each of first-degree rape, first-degree unlawful sexual penetration and third-degree sexual abuse. The charges include Measure 11 offenses, which carry a mandatory minimum prison sentence on conviction.
Bail was set at $220,000 pending arraignment in Yamhill County Circuit Court.
Marks gave this account:
In early May of this year, officers took a report about a teenage juvenile female who alleged she had been sexually assaulted by Serratos about a year ago. The victim also said another female had also been sexually assaulted by him.
After significant interviews and investigation, detectives have identified and interviewed four victims. The assaults allegedly occurred over a three-year period of time, and as recently as the last few weeks in locations throughout McMinnville.
All of the victims were acquainted with Serratos prior to the alleged assaults. Police have no information regarding further victims.
Anyone with information related to these incidents should call Detective Michelle Formway at 503-434-2340.

subset: commoncrawl


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An Oregon State football player won't be suiting up this fall. Although, that may be the way he prefers to play.
Tyler Patrick Thomas, 19, was dismissed from the football team after he was arrested for trespassing in an area woman's home.
Thing is, this wasn't your everyday trespass. Thomas was in the 32-year-old woman's house, naked, and in a three-point stance. You know the position, the one where football players spread their legs, bend over and place one hand on the ground, like when the offensive and defensive get down on the line of scrimmage. Um, yes, that one. All this is going down while the homeowner and the police watch.
Talk about encroachment.
As you probably guessed, Thomas was drunk when this all went down and the police were not impressed. This was not the Montana native's first alcohol-related offense (he was cited for underage possession last year), but this one certainly ended much worse. He's now facing charges for first-degree criminal trespass, second-degree criminal mischief and resisting arrest.


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Last December , the Seattle Council approved legislation authorizing Seattle Public Utilities to revise its contracts with solid waste collection companies that would pave the way to a "One Less Truck" program in 2015. The legislation set the stage for every other week garbage collection that supposedly could provide more incentive for waste reduction, cut garbage truck traffic in neighborhoods by 20 percent, and reduce overall system costs by about $6 million annually.
Today, Mayor Ed Murray said he'll ask the Council and SPU to shelve plans for reducing garbage collections to every other week.
In a letter to Sally Bagshaw, chair of the Council's Seattle Public Utilities and Neighborhoods Committee, Murray said his decision was based on an evaluation of the city's recent pilot program that tested every-other-week garbage collection in four neighborhoods, and on the recommendation of a special customer review panel.
Bagshaw said she supports the mayor's decision.
According to a press release sent out by the mayor's staff, Murray said his decision was motivated primarily out of concerns that the proposed program could work hardship on some Seattle residents, and that he remains strongly committed to the city's recycling ethic and goals.
"Based on projections in the City's recently-adopted Solid Waste Managment Plan, we should be able to stay on track with our recycling goals without resorting to every-other-week garbage collections," Murray said. "If that turns out not to be the case, we can always reassess."
Murray said he has directed SPU to review and recommend the means to achieve the city's 60 percent recycling goal through other recycling programs. That recommendation will be presented to the mayor and the City Council by the end of June.
"I agree with Mayor Murray that every-other-week garbage collection does not give Seattleites sufficient value to offset the personal costs involved," said Bagshaw.
"While every-other-week service would reduce garbage service by half it would not reduce residential bills by half. We must look to other programs to increase our city's recycling and composting opportunities, and I will work with the Mayor and Seattle Public Utilities to achieve the city's goals."


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Understanding WLANs: Architecture 101
December 29, 2008
Architecture is what makes any network more than the sum of its parts. We outline some of the differences between major vendors and give an overview of how contemporary enterprise WLAN architectures are combining new innovative technologies with past approaches.
Sharks swim continuously to avoid sinking to their deathbut that doesnt prevent them from circling back through familiar waters.
In the hardscrabble enterprise WLAN market, vendors that stop innovating also quickly fall from grace. But those that flourish arent moving ahead without a backwards glance. In fact, some of todays hottest players are combining creative new twists with the best of the past, producing hybrid architectures that are increasingly tough to categorize.
In the beginning
Todays WLANs may bear little resemblance to pre-802.11 deployments, but those dusty old peer-to-peer wireless bridges launched an industry that now threatens to topple Ethernet.
But as businesses moved beyond experimentation, new requirements emerged: VPN tunnel termination, captive portal authentication, load balancing across APs, remote management. At first, these new capabilities were stuffed into business-grade fat APs, such as Cisco Aironet and Proxim Orinoco. Some even learned to speak proprietary Inter-AP load balancing protocols inside homogeneous WLANs. Soon, network administrators learned how to supervise these otherwise autonomous APs from a central point using SNMP and SYSLOG.
These innovations fostered early enterprise WLAN deployment. But they also hit the wall fairly quickly, when AP CPU and memory became saturated. More powerful chips were available, but they were too big and too expensive to be included in every single AP. Inevitably, those more advanced capabilities had to be off-loadedfirst to Wireless Gateways (e.g., BlueSocket, ReefEdge) and then to Wireless Switches (e.g., Symbol, Airespace).
Early Wireless Gateways concentrated wireless network access, providing necessary services like firewalling, VPN termination, and subnet roaming at layer three. Wireless Switches delved into layer two by relieving APs of association management duties like 802.1X authentication, key caching, fast handoff, and prioritization.
When enterprise APs grew thinner, they also became more dependent on Wireless Switcheswhich then evolved into Wireless Controllers, responsible for AP discovery, provisioning, and maintenance. And WLAN topologies became rigidly hierarchical: clients talked to APs, APs talked to Controllers, Controllers routed traffic onto the wired network.
Moving ahead
Controller-based products quickly dominated the enterprise WLAN landscapean outcome that remains to this today. All ten companies in ABIs latest 802.11n vendor matrixMeru, Aruba, Motorola, Bluesocket, Trapeze (Belden), Cisco, Colubris (HP), Xirrus, Siemens (Enterasys), and Extricomparticipate in the WLAN Controller market.
But business requirements and hardware capabilities have continued to evolve. Significant refinements and variations on this now-common architecture have emerged to address contemporary needs in more cost-effective, efficient, and flexible fashions.
Along the way, WLAN architectures grew even more difficult to categorize. Vendors now differentiate their offerings in fairly diverse ways. Its no longer terribly helpful to refer to a given AP as fat or thinnor can one lump everything else into one box labeled controller.
Many networking devices, from routers to firewalls, can be decomposed into three planes: data, control, and management. These planes can also be applied to WLAN infrastructure devices.
The data plane is responsible for moving information in real-timein WLANs, accessing the wireless media to convert radio signals into LAN frames. In a broader architectural sense, the data plane describes the way in which a network relays data between elements. For example, are packets relayed from APs to controller or can they be forwarded directly between APs?
The control plane makes real-time operational decisions, based on policies related to topology, security, quality of service, bandwidth limits, etc. In routers, the control plane participates in protocols that ultimately determine which packets get discarded or forwarded to another router. In wireless devices, the control plane may be responsible for decisions that affect association admission, session prioritization, stateful packet inspection, and load balancing.
The management plane is responsible for carrying out non-real-time administrative tasks, including AP activation, provisioning, configuration updates, firmware maintenance, fault surveillance, and performance monitoring. For example, must APs be configured individually, or can the same configuration update be applied to a group of APs from a single point?


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TULSA, Oklahoma — Brian Roberts scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, including the go-ahead jumper with 30.6 seconds left, and the New Orleans Pelicans stayed unbeaten in the preseason with a 105-102 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night (Friday, Manila time).
Roberts put the Pelicans in front after Reggie Jackson's driving layup had given the Thunder a 102-101 lead. Anthony Davis added two free throws with 21 seconds left to push the Pelicans' lead to 105-102, then blocked Jeremy Lamb's three-point attempt with 3.2 seconds left.
Eric Gordon scored 21 points for the Pelicans and Davis finished with 18.
Kevin Durant shrugged off a slow start to score 25 points. After shooting 4 of 12 from the field in the first half, Durant found his range in the third quarter. The forward nailed a three-pointer to open the Thunder's second-half scoring and finished the quarter with 13 points on 4-of-8 shooting.
He played 32 minutes and did not see action in the fourth quarter.
Rookie reserve Steven Adams had 10 points and 15 rebounds and Serge Ibaka finished with 11 points, including seven in the fourth quarter.
Coming into the game 13 of 58 on 3-pointers in the preseason, Oklahoma City found its touch from long distance, connecting on 9 of 12 3s in the first half in grabbing a 56-52 lead at intermission. The Thunder finished 12 of 23 from behind the arc.


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
Following last year's "winter that wasn't," winter 2013 thus far has been with us in fine form, with cold temperatures, a fair amount of snow - and plenty of beautiful scenes. These photos were taken over the past week on the Lake Ontario shore and nearby woods near Fort Niagara.
More of the same weather seems to be in store, despite those predictions of an early spring by Punxsutawney Phil and others. (photos by Terry Duffy)


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Classical Studies
CLAS 250W (TH; 4th Sem Lang Req) Greeks, Romans and Barbarians (1)
Herodotus, Caesar, and Tacitus will be consulted, along with comedy, tragedy, fragments of ethnographers and passages from other primary sources to see how perceptions of barbarians changed over time, affected by the ways that Greek and Roman interaction with them changed. In order to better understand how recent history shapes our interpretation of ancient culture, we will study post-colonialist, Afro-centric, and "anti-anti-Semitic" approaches to the Greco-Roman image of Egyptians, Persians, Indians, Scythians, Libyans, Ethiopians, Phrygians, Lydians, Gauls, Britons, and Germans. Credit may only be earned in one of the following: GREEK 350W, LATIN 350W or CLAS 250W.
- Prerequisite: No seniors.
- General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Writing-centered; Thinking Historically; Fourth Semester Language Requirement
- Offering: Triennially in spring
- Instructor: Bachvarova


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Evening Blues
- Member for
- 15 years · 1 day
- Find A Grave ID
- 46587085
- Home Page
- http://www.oldmacedoniacemetery.com
I have been doing genealogy for over 20 years. The main names I am researching are Abernathy, Coley, Higgins, Howell, Knight, Ledford, Roach, Moss, Whitmore, and Williams.
My other hobby is photography. I take photos of everything from cemeteries to concerts.
If you see any of my photos that are very tiny (ie. the size of a postage stamp), please let me know. Several years ago, the Find A Grave website had a weird glitch that made dozens and dozens of my photos the size of a thumbnail pic. I did not upload these tiny pictures. If you will let me know, I can hopefully replace them with a normal size picture.
Please note that I don't have editorial control over memorials that are listed as famous. If changes or corrections need to be made, please contact the Find A Grave admins.
I have created a website dedicated to my family cemetery, the Old Macedonia Cemetery of Bartow County. You can find it by following the link below.
And please be aware that just because I have taken a cemetery photo, it does not mean that I operate the cemetery or have anything to do with the cemetery. I only took a photograph.
Any photos that were taken by me may be used on genealogy websites such as ancestry.com. You have my permission. All I ask is that I am given photography credit.
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Hand Transplant Recipients (Left to Right): Jessica Arrigo, Chris Pollock and Sheila Advento
Based on groundbreaking research and experience in solid-organ transplants, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has begun a novel clinical study on human hand transplantation that seeks to reduce the use of immunosuppressive drugs and their damaging side effects for patients.
Surgeons at UPMC performed their first unilateral hand transplant on March 14, 2009, followed by the nation's first bilateral hand transplant on May 4, 2009. They successfully completed another bilateral surgery on February 5, 2010 and their first female patient, a unilateral recipient, on Sept. 11, 2010.
Although surgeons from around the world have performed hand transplants successfully for almost 10 years, they have used multiple immunosuppressive medications to prevent rejection of the grafts, increasing the risk of diabetes, hypertension and other disorders.
In contrast, researchers and surgeons at UPMC propose to implement an immunomodulatory approach known as the "Pittsburgh Protocol," which entails antibody therapy, donor bone marrow cell infusion and treatment with a reduced amount of immunosuppressive drugs to reduce toxicity for patients.
A hand transplant offers another, potentially safer alternative for those who have lost a hand. By focusing on reducing the multiple immunosuppressant drugs typical of this procedure, surgeons at UPMC believe that they can restore what many amputees have lost without the risk of devastating side effects.
Surgeons at UPMC will adapt a two-phase protocol that involves initial antibody treatment followed by bone marrow cell therapy. The goal is not merely to suppress the immune system but to change the way it functions. Transplant patients will receive antibodies to help overcome the initial overwhelming immune response. That will be followed by a bone marrow infusion. The bone marrow cells target specific cells that could reject the hand and help "re-educate" the immune system into thinking that the transplanted hand is not a foreign object. Patients will be treated with tacrolimus, a drug that was first used in liver transplants by Thomas Starzl, M.D., Ph.D., over two decades ago, to maintain the low-grade immunosuppression needed to prevent long-term graft rejection.
Unlike a solid-organ transplant, which is needed to prolong life, a hand transplant improves only the quality of life. Hand transplant team members take very seriously the long-term health of all patients, and have devoted many years of research to developing an immunomodulatory protocol that will reduce the risks of the procedure. Researchers believe the new protocol will achieve this goal, allowing more amputees to be considered for hand transplants in the future.
UPMC researchers are seeking patients between the ages of 18 and 60 with amputation at the forearm or below who are interested in receiving a hand transplant. Selected patients will undergo intensive medical screenings and psychological evaluation. Eligible subjects will be invited to undergo a comprehensive informed consent process and placed on the transplant list to await a potential donor. Those who receive transplants will be expected to stay in the Pittsburgh area for three months after the surgery to undergo extensive therapy and careful monitoring and assessment by physicians.
For more information on enrollment in the hand transplant program, please call 412-648-9207.
Rick Pietzak
Senior ManagerTelephone: 412-864-4151
Contact Us
Click on the image below to view a high resolution version. Photo credit: "UPMC"
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Supplemental content provided by Healthwise, Incorporated. To learn more, visit www.healthwise.org
For help in finding a doctor or health service that suits your needs, call the UPMC Referral Service at 412-647-UPMC (8762) or 1-800-533-UPMC (8762). Select option 1.
UPMC is an equal opportunity employer. UPMC policy prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, sex, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected group status. Further, UPMC will continue to support and promote equal employment opportunity, human dignity, and racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity. This policy applies to admissions, employment, and access to and treatment in UPMC programs and activities. This commitment is made by UPMC in accordance with federal, state, and/or local laws and regulations.
Medical information made available on UPMC.com is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not rely entirely on this information for your health care needs. Ask your own doctor or health care provider any specific medical questions that you have. Further, UPMC.com is not a tool to be used in the case of an emergency. If an emergency arises, you should seek appropriate emergency medical services.
Pittsburgh, PA, USA | UPMC.com


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This SCLC newsletter features numerous articles written by members of the SCLC regarding Birmingham, Alabama. Also featured is a graphic story of the crisis in Birmingham.
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We continue in our study of the gospel of Mark and go back to chapter 5 and the opening twenty verses which we took a look at last week and we'll complete this morning.
The purpose for which Mark writes is laid out in verse 1 of chapter 1, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." This is a history of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, as is the gospel of Matthew, the gospel of Luke and the gospel of John. There are four Holy Spirit inspired, divinely authored records of His life and ministry. And even those four with all that they contain can't begin to tell the whole story. In fact, John reminds us that all the books in the world couldn't contain the record of everything that our Lord did.
But the purpose of the writing of these gospels is stated for us by John at the end of his gospel. He sums up not only the reason for his own gospel, but for all the others, when he says, "These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you might have life in His name." The purpose of the writers is that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God and in so believing have eternal life through His name. That is the reason we give such careful attention to these gospels, and it's a tremendous joy for us again to be going through the record of Mark.
Now how can Jesus demonstrate himself to be the Son of God? He can do it with supernatural knowledge. He can say things that have never before been said and for which He is the sole authority, such as in the Sermon on the Mount when the people were astounded that He spoke as one having authority within Himself which was very unlike the rabbis who always quoted someone else. And, of course, the comment about His teaching was, "Never a man spoke like this man." He was demonstrably more wise, more erudite, more learned, had more knowledge not only of the things that people were familiar with, but supernatural knowledge that had to come only from the mind of God, of course, than anyone ever. And so He demonstrated His deity with His knowledge and He said that, He said, "Believe Me for My words."
But He also demonstrated who He was, demonstrating His deity by His works. The Old Testament says that when the Messiah comes, when the Savior comes, when the Redeemer comes, He will literally fulfill the Old Testament promises of a new creation, a new earth, a renovated earth as Isaiah describes it in great detail. It's very different than the world we know today, the fallen world. There will be a wholesale renovation of the planet, followed by the implosion of the universe and its replacement by a new heaven and a new earth. If He is to be the Son of God, then He must demonstrate the power that God has over created order, and He does that.
He controls the wind, as we saw in chapter 4. He controls the waves. He creates loaves and fish. In fact, on two occasions, one the feeding of the five thousand, and we'll see a little later the feeding of the four thousand and that's only the men, you can add the women and the children, massive occasions in which He created food. He has power over the physical world as demonstrated by His ability to give life to dead people and to give organs to people whose organs are diseased, and limbs, new fresh functioning limbs to people whose limbs are deformed, paralyzed, or in some way injured or amputated. He has this power.
The Messiah must have power over the created world, the physical world. He must have power over another realm and that is the supernatural world—since Satan is the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of the darkness who has extended his rule across the planet earth and runs the world's system.The Messiah, the Son of God, if He is in fact the Son of God must be able to have a display of power over demons and over Satan. We've already seen how Jesus has confronted demons on several occasions in the early chapters of Mark and vanquished them from the people whom they possessed. He has already demonstrated His power to withstand and triumph in temptation with Satan. Throughout His entire ministry, He demonstrated this power to command the demons and they succumbed to His every command.
Back in chapter 1 verse 32 it says, regarding His ministry in Galilee and Capernaum, "When evening came after the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city had gathered at the door and He healed many who were ill with various diseases and cast out many demons. And He was not permitting the demons to speak because they knew who He was." When He didn't want them to speak, they couldn't even speak, they couldn't even acknowledge who He was.
On the one hand, there were occasions, we already saw them, when the demons burst out and said, "We know who You are, the Holy One of God." In this case in Mark chapter 5, the demon again knows who He is, "The Son of the Most High God." Jesus wanted to minimize that kind of testimony of demons for the same reason that the Apostles didn't want testimony from a demon-possessed person in the book of Acts, because it's not to the advance of the Kingdom necessarily to have as your agents, demons.
But nonetheless, they expressed the truth about Him because they knew the truth about Him. And in the book of Mark, as we already know, the only testimony so far to the reality of who He is has come from demons. In fact, we won't hear a human being acknowledge Him as the Son of God till the very end of the book of Mark when a Roman centurion says, "Truly this was the Son of God."
Did He have power over nature? Absolutely. Did He have power over the physical world? Absolutely. Did He have power over the supernatural world of demons, the forces of hell? Absolutely.
There are many occasions in the four gospels in which we see this power displayed, none is as amazing as this one...the one recorded in Mark 5 which is also in Matthew 8 and Luke 8 and it deserves to be repeated three times because it is the most extensive and extreme illustration of His power over unclean spirits. Let's read it again. Verse 1.
"They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him. And he had his dwelling among the tombs and no one was able to bind him anymore even with a chain, cause he had often been bound with shackles and chains and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Constantly night and day he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains and gashing himself with stones. Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him. And shouting with a loud voice, he said, 'What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You, by God, do not torment me.' For He had been saying to him, 'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.' And He was asking him his name and he said to Him, 'My name is legion, for we are many.' And he began to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country.
"Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. The demons implored Him saying, 'Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.' Jesus gave them permission and coming out the unclean spirits entered the swine and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea about two thousand of them and they were drowned in the sea. Their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country and the people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion. And they became frightened. Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man and all about the swine. And they began to implore Him to leave their region. As He was getting in the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed was imploring Him that he might accompany Him. And He didn't let him, but He said to him, 'Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you.' And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him and everyone was amazed."
As I said, if Jesus is in fact the Son of God and the Messiah, and the Redeemer, if He is the one who will crush the serpent's head, then He must demonstrate power over the kingdom of darkness. You remember 1 John 3:8 says, "The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil." That is part of the divine purpose.
You remember in Luke chapter 11 and verse 20 Jesus said, "If I cast out demons, it is by the finger of God. And if I cast out demons by the finger of God, you know the Kingdom of God has come." The Kingdom has come in the sense that the King has come.
What did He mean by the finger of God? If you go back to Exodus chapter 8, you read the account, the very interesting account of the magicians of Egypt trying to copy what Moses did by divine power. They had their false and deceptive fabrications of things. But eventually Moses was doing things by the power of God that they couldn't duplicate. And so it was the magicians of Egypt who in Exodus chapter 8 and verse 19 said, "This is the finger of God."
In other words, finger is simply a substitute word for power. And it is that very language that Jesus borrows from the Egyptian magicians in His comments in Luke 11 because that would be a very familiar story to the Jewish people, and they would remember that what was going on in Egypt was the finger of God, meaning the power of God and even the pagan Egyptian magicians acknowledged it and Jesus then borrowing that familiar concept and language incorporates it into His statement, "If I cast out demons by the finger of God, then you know the Kingdom of God has come." And there was no other explanation for what He was doing.
So part of His ministry was to demonstrate the power of God over the world of darkness. As we come to this account, I've told there are three dominating powers that are basically revealed here...three dominating powers. Number one is the devastating power of demons...the devastating power of demons. Though demon possession has gone on a for a long time, you see it in Genesis 6, but you don't have occasions of demon possessions being manifest throughout the history of the Old Testament. It also becomes apparent that open demon possession that has visible manifestation through human behavior begins to disappear even in the New Testament. But during the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, demon possession becomes extensively manifest. And it isn't because the demons want to manifest themselves, it is because Jesus brings them out. Demon possession almost exclusively and certainly at an amazing level is revealed during the life and ministry of Jesus and then the Apostles, then it begins to diminish as the Apostles begin to disappear. In this explosion of power that came with Jesus came an explosive revelation of the conflict that demons waged against Him and how much power He had over them.
So with that in mind, we come to the opening seven verses, the devastating power of demons, we've already discussed it. Jesus is in a little flotilla with the Apostles and the disciples coming across the northern Sea of Galilee to the eastern shore. They have encountered a storm in the middle of the night, it's taken them a while because the storm threw them off course. They finally arrive in the dawn on the other side. Jesus spoke and the wind stopped and the waves stopped. We remember that amazing event.
They finally reach the other side. They probably didn't know what was going to happen when they got there. They assumed because this is a more rural area, we're going to go over there and get a little rest maybe from the crush of the crowds and these Apostles and disciples can get a little more individual personalized instruction from our Lord. But that wasn't the plan.
As soon as He got to the other side called the country of the Gerasenes, there was a village there named Gerasa, that's why it is called that. Although in Matthew it's called the region of the Gadarenes because there's a bigger city south and east, Gadara that kind of gave its name to the region, so it's the region of Gadara and it's the actual village of Gerasa.
In that area, and there's still a village there today even with the name Kursi. "When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him and he had his dwelling among the tombs and no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain because he had often broken the chains and shackles that had bound him. They were torn apart by him, broken in pieces. No one was strong enough to subdue him." So now he's a wild man and uncontrolled. He is violent, according to one of the other writers. He is so violent that nobody wants to pass that way, he does deadly damage to people's lives. He is a threat to life.
"Constantly night and day," showing his horrendous restlessness. He's screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, gashing himself with stones. We would say psychologically he's a sociopath, but truly in reality he is a demon-possessed man whose own personality and sense of self-control has been totally sublimated. He is now simply a vehicle for demonic expression. They have totally taken the man over.
We find them, as he comes down the mountain in his normal terrifying screaming assault, verse 6 says, "He sees Jesus from a distance and he ran up and bowed before Him." The other people in that region might have not known Jesus, but he knew Him. O, believe me, the word had passed on the demonic internet, whatever that is, so that all the demons everywhere knew what Jesus was doing in Galilee. Whatever the mechanism of spiritual recognition, it wasn't that the man recognized Jesus, it was that the demon did. The demon would certainly know he was in the presence of holy God, God the Son. He is crushed immediately. The demon in the man, demons actually, though one is the spokesman, he bows. The word proskuneo is the word for worship, he falls prostrate at the feet of Jesus and he screams with this shrieking loud demonic voice that has overpowered the human voice and is using the human vocal chords, "What business do we have with each other, Jesus the Son of the Most High God?"
Why does he ask that question? Well first of all, he knows who He is, the Son of the Most High God. They always do. Back in chapter 1 verse 23, the demon said, "We know who You are, the Holy One of God." In chapter 3 verse 11 it says they all said that. Whenever He ran into a demon, the demons all confessed that He was the Son of God. They know who He is. But what they don't understand is why are You here now? What business do we have with each other, Jesus? And Matthew adds that he said, "Before the time."
I've said this before, I'll say it again. The demons theology is orthodox. They have an orthodox theology proper, that is they know God to be who He is, a Trinitarian God. They have an orthodox Christology, they know that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. They have an orthodox eschatology, they understand that there's a future timetable in which they will be sent to the Lake of Fire and this seems off schedule...off schedule. In Luke it says that he even said, "Don't send us into the abyss, abussos, the pit, the place where God occasionally binds permanently the demons, such as He those who sinned in Genesis 6. Second Peter 2 and Jude tells us they were bound permanently in a pit. Demons don't want to be in a pit. They are evil, they are not just evil but passionately evil and they want to be able to do their evil in the world. They want the freedom to roam and create their havoc, they don't want to be locked into a pit, even if it's not the permanent Lake of Fire. So he comes and says, "Wait a minute, this isn't the schedule, this isn't the time. And please don't send us into the pit." The pit is something they could be sent to then and now, that's not future. The Lake of Fire is future. But it doesn't seem to be the schedule that they're familiar with.
Now that leads us to verse 8 and the second power. The first power is the devastating power of demons. Second is the delivering power of deity...the delivering power of deity. In verse 8 Jesus had been saying to the man, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit," to the demon who was the spokesman, the representative spokesman for all the demons that were in this man and there were many, as we will see. "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit."
On other occasions in the New Testament record that He said very similar things to that...very kind of familiar statement to the demons to be told to come out and to be identified as unclean spirits. He commands with divine authority and sovereignty the demons to vacate the tortured streaker.
He also was asking him, "What is your name? What is your name?" The man had a name, I'm sure. Had a name that his mother and father gave him when he was a sweet little baby in their arms, probably a name that had family significance and family meaning and maybe even incorporated into it some virtue or some characteristic they hoped would be true of their little one. But by now, the human name has been sublimated. The man's personality is so totally dominated that he essentially is virtually out of existence. And so the name that is given in reply is the name that relates to the force of demons that now live in him, and so the spokesman demon said to Jesus, "My name is 'Legion' for we are many....we are many." Luke says, "Many demons had entered that man," leading, therefore, to the choosing of the name.
And just to show you how extensive it is, "Legion" is really not a name, it is a military designation. And a legion had up to six thousand soldiers. Six thousand Roman soldiers, it's a military unit of thousands of men, up to six thousand soldiers. Jesus draws that name out. Some commentators have assumed that the demons were happy to give that name because they thought it might intimidate Jesus, to know that there were that many of them He had to deal with. I don't see that as reality. I think they understood they couldn't intimidate Jesus, they know exactly who He is. But He draws the name out of them. They're not giving the name as a defense mechanism, He's demanding the name because He wants to demonstrate the extensiveness of His power over demons. It's one thing to cast a demon out of a person, it's another thing to deal with thousands of demons with a simple command.
They don't want to come out of the man. They don't want to be sent to the pit. They don't want to even go out of the country because they begin imploring Him earnestly not to send them out of the country, verse 10. They're not ready for the Lake of Fire, that's the future. That's not the time yet. They're not ready for the abyss, they don't want to go there into that place of incarceration where they can't function. They don't even want to leave the country they're in, the region they're in. It's Gentile territory which means it's the territory in which there are probably multiple religions all of them concocted by demons, cause anything other than the truth is a demon doctrine, right? Doctrines of demons.
So they've developed a perfect setting for their promotion of the kingdom of darkness. They have their own religions, their own cults, their own idols. It is a desirable context for their evil operation. And this man, this maniac man is only one feature of their evil operation, no doubt. There probably were many more demons operating in the area through the false religion, without manifesting themselves so that those false religious leaders looked respectable and even moral. They want to stay there with whatever they've got going. They want to continue to do it. It's not time for their eternal torment.
They don't want to go to the abyss, so they have a plan, verse 11. "Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain." Now this reminds us again that we're in Gentile territory, right? Jews don't raise pigs. This is a Gentile operation and it's a large, large herd, according to verse 13, there are two thousand pigs in this herd. So this is a rather significant enterprise. It might even be a village enterprise with that many pigs.
So the demons say to Him in verse 12, "Send us into the swine so that we may enter them." Inevitably someone will ask me, "Why did they want to go into the pigs?" I don't know. I am happy to report to you, I have absolute no inside into why demons want to do anything. I don't operate in that realm, I don't know any demons well enough to ascertain their motivations. I have no idea except to say they want the freedom to do damage. And if you can't do damage through a man, you do damage through animals. Is it possible that an animal could be demon possessed? Obviously it is. It is possible that a demon can literally take over the behavior of animals. Animals are not self-conscious, they don't have a personality, sorry, folks, your dog does not have a personality. You think it does, it has certain behavior characteristics that are unique to it, but it's not self-conscious. It's not a person. And so, it has a brain and behaviors that demons can dominate. And the very action of the pigs, as we'll see in a moment, indicates what demons do. They create chaos. They remove normal instinct, and normal restraint that even animals have and create violent and deadly results.
Now just as a footnote here, a question that struck me as I was thinking this through, the demons are begging for mercy, it says the demons implored Him. They're begging. It isn't just one request. I mean, it's coming out of this man and this demon in behalf of the rest is begging and pleading with Jesus. And, you know, you might think, "Send them to the pit. The world would be a better place if we had two thousand less demons, or four thousands or however many there were in this legion. Doesn't that make sense? And, in fact, while you're doing it, send them all to the pit. Why not just rid the world of demons?"
You know, there are some people who call themselves Christians, some preachers who think that God is in some kind of struggle with the powers of hell. And that sometimes Satan wins, sometimes He wins. That is absolutely absurd. In any fell swoop, in any moment, God could take all demons that exist, myriad, murion times murion, ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, the innumerable, no doubt, millions of demons that exist and He could put them in chains instantaneously.
You say, "How do you know that?" Revelation 20 says, "In the future, in the Millennium, that's exactly what He's going to do. He's going to chain Satan and all his forces for a thousand years." He could do it any time He wanted.
The fact that He doesn't do it now indicates that He doesn't want to do it now, because they serve a purpose which is what makes it so silly for people to run around thinking they can tell demons what to do...binding demons here, binding Satan here, binding demons here. First of all, you have no authority, they're laughing at you like they laughed at the sons of Sceva and say, "Jesus we know, and Paul, we know, but who is that guy?"
But secondly, they fit into the divine purpose. Satan came to God and said, "I want to go after Job." God said, "Go after him cause it serves My purpose." Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 says, "There was given to Him by God allowed by God a messenger from Satan." Messenger is angelos, a satanic angel. That's a demon who created a thorn in his flesh and he prayed three times to have it removed and God said, "I'm not going to remove it because My strength is perfected in your...what?...your weakness and you're going to learn to be humble through this."
And it was Peter, Luke 22, Jesus says to Peter, "Satan desires to have you that he might sift you like wheat." Well, what did He tell him, no? "No, I told him yes." Jesus said yes to Satan, go at him, sift him because when he's converted, he'll be able to strengthen other brothers. When he's come through this thing triumphantly and his faith is intact, he's going to be a better Apostle and a more effective servant.
God has His purposes. He could stop the whole satanic operation instantaneously, bind them all, or throw them into the pit immediately, even into the Lake of Fire. But He has His purposes. He lets evil run its full course because it brings Him glory. It brings out...it brings out the wonder of His grace and it also brings out the wonder of His wrath. He'll shut it down when He gets ready to shut it down. But He's not ready yet.
Their diabolical desire is to work in the physical world and for now, He allows it. If not through humans, through animals. And like their king, who is called Abaddon in Scripture which means the destroyer. They are destructive. They were destructive to that man. They destroyed his personality. And they made him suicidal as he cuts and hacks at himself with sharp stones. And now it becomes obvious just how destructive they are. Verse 13 says, "Jesus gave them permission,"epitrepo means to yield. If He didn't let them do it, they couldn't do it. He's in total control of all demonic powers...let me say it this way...there's not one rogue, renegade demon in existence in the supernatural world who does anything that God doesn't want him to do, or doesn't allow him to do.
As always, they do what is destructive. So Jesus gave them permission. Why? Why? Well, for one, because when they hit the pigs it would be proof that they had left the man. And they don't want to leave the man. So Jesus is visibly making a demonstration of His ability to free a person from thousands of demons. Secondly, this proves the massive supernatural power that He has. And, thirdly, to do this puts on display the destructive purposes of demons because it doesn't take long for them to destroy the whole herd.
Verse 13, "And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea..." by the way, about two miles south of the old village of Gerasa, town of Kursi today, there's this kind of slope and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them, and they were drowned in the sea. And the theological term for his is sooey-side (laughter). Or maybe we could call it a swine dive, I don't know, but let's not get too theological here.
The destruction came fast, really fast. There's no comment by Matthew, there's no comment by Mark, there's no comment by Luke into why this happened. But it does reveal, as I said, the man's deliverance, but it does reveal, as I said, the man's deliverance. It does demonstrate the power of Jesus to deliver the man and it certainly manifests the deadly intent of demons.
They are chaotic. The pigs become violent, chaotic, mad, self-destructive like the possessed man. They've become what he was. I know PETA would be disturbed by this. They would probably conclude that two thousand pigs is worth more than one man. And the socialists and the liberals who write about this say, "Oh, ho, this is a horrible thing, this is an indication that Jesus was anything but God because He just destroyed the economy of the village."
Not really. By the way, in the whole story, Matthew, Mark, Luke, the owners of the pigs never say anything about their dead pigs. And if it was a village enterprise which it well could have been, they never complain about that either. It really didn't destroy the whole herd. They just had a premature pork sale. They had been planning maybe for those pigs to go on a little bit longer. Some of you who work with animals, I mean , how long do you have a pig before you're ready to make bacon and pork chops and all that?
What happened was, they probably developed a kind of an export business they had so much pork. They started moving in all directions making it available. Believe me, they were down at the water getting them out of there. It didn't destroy the meat, in fact it probably preserved it for a little while, you know, being in water and it was cool and nobody complained. They just didn't have that kind of plan for slaughter and marketing. But it was probably a more genteel way to take the life of a pig than to take his life another way, I won't describe for you. Anyway, those things aside, those are not the point, nobody seemed to complain about that. Everybody understood what was happening. This man was different and the pigs were acting like that man.
Who is the man that did this? They don't know Jesus. This is Gentile area. Who's doing this? Well the instant response in verse 14, "The herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country." And Luke says the same thing, reported it in the city and in the country which means they just went all over every place. The people living in the city, the people living in the rural areas and they moved as rapidly as they could to spread it around. This leads me to think that it's probably a village enterprise, maybe it wouldn't be one person or a couple of people who owned this vast a herd but rather the whole village and everybody was in on it, the people in the area.
Nonetheless, the people all came to see what it was that had happened. In fact, Matthew says in Matthew 8:34, "The whole city came out...the whole city came out." Everybody, all drawn by the bizarre testimony...What happened? The violent man that everybody would have known...what? He's bowing down and the pigs all dove into the sea? This is beyond comprehension for them. They come to find out what happens. Nobody demonstrates anger over the pigs being drowned and nobody sadly demonstrates joy over the maniac being subdued. And they had gone to great efforts to try that, chaining him up repeatedly and he always broke the chains. And that's not the issue. The issue of the maniac being subdued and the issue of the pigs being drowned, isn't the issue.
Verse 15, "They came to Jesus and they observed the man who had been demon possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind," sophroneo is the Greek verb, it means to be sane, sensible, in control. There he is clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion. And look at the response? They became frightened. Strange. They used to be frightened, they wouldn't come near this guy without being frightened, right? He was so violent, he scared them all, he scared them to death. Now he's clothed and not naked, the transformation is total, he's seated, not rambling aimlessly, restlessly. He's harmless, not dangerous. He's quiet, not screaming. He's among the living, not the dead. He's peaceful, not tormented. And now they're frightened? Who's frightened them?
They're frightened of Jesus. They're scared out of their minds. Phobeo, phobia, it means to be terrified. They're in a continual condition of terror because they now know spiritual, supernatural powers greater than anything they had ever experienced is present. It's the same trauma of holiness that you have throughout Scripture. When people come into the presence of God, believers, or non-believers, and are terrified. You see it with Manoah when he comes home and tells his wife we're going to die. She says why? Because I saw the Lord. And if I saw Him, He saw me, I saw holiness, He saw sin, we're dead. It's the same experience that Ezekiel had when he had a vision of God, went into a coma. Isaiah had, pronounced a curse upon himself, "Woe is me, I'm cursed, I'm a man with a dirty mouth." It's the same experience John has in Revelation when he has his first vision of the glorified Christ moving in his church and he falls over like a dead man, terrified.
It's not been a long time since we saw this reaction. If you go back to chapter 4 verse 40, just across the page there, when Jesus was on the boat with the disciples, they were afraid. They say in verse 38, "Teacher, don't You care that we are perishing?" They were very afraid. And then in verse 40 when He stilled the storm, He said to them, "Why are you afraid?" Because in another one of the accounts it says they were afraid when the storm came and they were exceedingly afraid when the storm stopped. It's more frightening to have the God of the universe in your boat than the storm outside the boat...terrifying to be in the presence of divine power. The disciples were frightened after the storm was stilled, frightened of the presence of Christ because they knew they were exposed. And so it with these Gentile pagans. They know they're in the presence of one who is supernatural, who is divine, and they are...and rightly so...frightened.
Now that brings us to the final power that's manifest here and it will just take me a couple of minutes to express this to you. We saw the destructive power of demons and the delivering power of deity, how about the damning power of depravity? Most of us would like to believe that that kind of miracle would cause a revival, right? We'd like to read that the whole town, Oh my, said, "Sir, we don't know who You are, by the way, what's Your name? And could You please tell us who You are and where You come from and tell us, can You deliver us from the powers of Satan? Can you deliver us from the powers of darkness? Can you...can you change us? Can you transform us? What is Your message? What kind of person are you? Where did You come from? Tell us, please tell us. We've seen Your power, we want to know Your power in the way this man has experienced Your power. We want to know what this transforming power is."
We would like to think that a miracle on this scale, so massive, so manifest would be convincing. That's now how they respond, however. Verse 17 says, "And they began to implore Him to leave their region. Go away, Sir." By the way, Luke says, "All the people said it." It is a universal cry, "Go away." Shocking. Instead of wanting to hear more, their depraved, sin-hardened souls, not only the terror of holiness, terror of divine presence as they see as far more dangerous to them than this perverted lunatic, and all the demons in him. They're more afraid that God may be in their presence than they are that Satan is in their presence. They're comfortable, to a degree, with Satan. There's not a word of thanks from anybody for the deliverance from the terror of this violent man. There's not a word of thanks. There's not an expression of joy. There's not a query about who He is and where His power comes from. They would rather be terrified by Satan, frankly, than by God, cause Satan doesn't impinge on their sinful behavior.
They're more comfortable with Satan than with God. They're more comfortable with sin than holiness. Such is the nature of depravity, that's how all sinners are. It is more comfortable to be in the presence of evil than to be in the presence of righteousness. That's one of the reasons that the world hates Christians. The massive forces of evil are more welcome than the mighty power of God. A son of Satan far more welcome than the Son of God. Such is the deadly power of depravity to damn the sinner. And you can do a miracle that is beyond all contradiction and that miracle with all of its power cannot overcome unbelief, cannot change the heart.
Witness the response not only of these Gentiles, witness the response of the whole nation of Israel. What did they say? "We will not have this man to reign over us, crucify Him." John 3:19, "Men love darkness rather than light cause their deeds are evil." "There's none righteous, no not one. There's none that does good. They're all gone out of the way. The preaching of the cross to them is foolishness. They're of their father, the devil. They're dead in trespasses and sins. They walk according to the course of this world. They're under the power of the prince of the air, driven by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life."
As powerful as that miracle is, the power of depravity is stronger. That miracle will not break the hard heart as the whole life and ministry proves. There has to be another miracle wrought and that's the regenerating power of God has to come into the heart and break the hard heart and replace it with a heart of flesh. They didn't want any more of Jesus. They didn't want any more of His holy presence.
So, He responded to their request, verse 18, "As He was getting into the boat," that's so sad, "got in the boat to leave." Never came back there again, I told you that last week. But He did go into Gentile territory later on, we'll see that in chapter 7 in a minute. But He left. Got in the boat and left. Just so sad. What an opportunity, what a demonstration of the wretchedness, the blindness and the deadness of the human heart.
On the other hand, verse 18, "The man who had been demon possessed was imploring Him that he might accompany Him." This man doesn't want to live another day without Jesus. I'm convinced that there was more conversation with that man and that he is not only delivered from demons, but he is now a disciple of Jesus Christ. I think he's committed to following Christ with all that he knows, with all that is in his heart, he's begging Jesus. He doesn't want to go another day and take another step unless it's in the presence of Christ. This tormented soul has been reborn into a fresh new sanity, sociability, purity for the first time he has desires to be with one that is holy. He wants to be with the living and not just the living but the one who has in Himself the life. He would never want to be anywhere but beside his eternal benefactor. That's what a disciple is, isn't it?
But there's another surprise here because in verse 19 Jesus responds to him in a way that we might think is a little bit odd. Verse 19, "And He didn't let him, He didn't let him." It wasn't appropriate for him to go with Jesus, but He said to him, verse 19, "Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you."
You mean, You're going to send this guy to be a missionary? Absolutely. You say, "He has no training." Humph, this is a good reminder, isn't it? How much do you have to know to be a missionary? How much do you have to know to be the only missionary in the country? This, by the way, is the first preacher Jesus ever sent out. He hasn't yet sent out the Apostles. He hasn't yet sent out the 70. This is the first person Jesus ever sent out to preach His name and he is a Gentile who had a really messed up past. And when he gave a testimony, it was like, "I don't how to tell you this but I used to be a naked maniac." Oh. Okay. "Living in tombs and..."
Go home, He says, go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you. Here He identifies Himself as the Lord. And how He had mercy on you. Oh, this is so wonderful. What does it take to be able to witness for the power of Christ? The fact that He's worked in your life, right? From the moment you were converted, from the moment you were transformed, you inherited immediately the responsibility to proclaim the name of Christ. Go to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you.
True faith shows itself in...what?...obedience. "And he went away, verse 20, and he began to proclaim in Decapolis." Decapolis...Luke says the whole city. Well that would be the first point. Mark adds Decapolis...Decapolis is a region of ten cities, hence deca, a league of ten Greek-influenced towns east of the Jordan. And he worked his way through ten cities. This man who knew nothing but a testimony that would be absolutely only possible to explain by the power of God in Christ.
Did his ministry have an effect? Look at chapter 7 for a minute. "A little while later, Jesus goes back into Gentile region of Tyre through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of Decapolis." Jesus makes a visit to the Decapolis region. "And they brought to Him one who is deaf and..." Wait a minute, why would they bring somebody to Him who was deaf? He didn't minister in that area. He had only been there one time, the encounter with this maniac.
Listen, the witness and testimony of that man had been going on in the months before Jesus came and they were bringing people to Him, people who needed to be healed. That's the wonderful story. And, of course, Jesus responded, touched the tongue and the ears of this deaf and mute person and healing came. Verse 1 of chapter 8, "In those days when there again was a large crowd."
The man's witness about Jesus Christ had let that whole region know who He was and when He came back, the crowds were there to receive Him. What a faithful man.
What was the response to his testimony? Back to chapter 5 verse 20, the end of the verse, "Everybody was amazed, thaumazo, to admire with wonder. Here's the first missionary Jesus ever sent out. Does that tell you a little bit about grace? Remember Isaiah, he said, "Don't send me, I'm a man of unclean lips?" Well this man could have said, "Don't send me, whoa...I've got a terrible reputation. If I get anywhere near people, they're going to run." This is grace upon grace, is it not? Transformation changes everything. And he was obedient.
What did he know? You say, "Well, maybe I'd be more obedient if I knew more." Huh, what did he know? He knew he had been transformed. If you're a Christian, you know that, don't you? Then you're responsible to be as faithful as he was.
Well, we will end it there. Father, what a tremendous blessing to be there, to be there on the eastern side of the lake, to be eyewitnesses by Scripture of this incredible occasion, to kind of live through it. How wonderful is that? To see the glorious mercy of Christ to this horrendously tortured soul and to see him become the first missionary, first missionary in the New Testament, sent out by Jesus. What mercy and what grace. And what faithfulness he exhibited, so that there was a readiness to receive Jesus when He came. Would you remind us of our responsibility? And we can't shirk that by saying we really don't know enough. If we know enough to be saved, we know enough to tell somebody else how to be saved. Make us faithful in that regard. Again we thank You for this magnificent portrait of the glory of our Christ. He is always more wonderful to us, more astounding, more astonishing, more glorious with every glimpse. May we demonstrate our appreciation and our love for Him in our faithfulness, we pray, Amen.
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Update at 7 a.m. ET, Dec. 21: We're Still Here.
Our original post continues:
It is Dec. 20, 2012 — and citizens of Earth are panicking, consumed by the idea that the world will end Friday, something they say was predicted by Mayan astronomers. Of course, most people are not panicking, and Maya expert David Stuart says no one should. The calendar, he says, has plenty of room to go.
In an interview airing on Thursday's Morning Edition, David Greene asks archaeologist Stuart, who helped translate influential ancient Mayan hieroglyphs in 1996, if he thinks the world will end on Dec. 21.
"Absolutely not," is Stuart's answer, dashing the hopes of students eyeing a three-day weekend, and any consumers who maxed out their credit cards in the belief that all history — not just their credit history — would come to an end.
"The Maya never, ever, said anything about the world ending at any time — much less this year," says Stuart, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. "So, it's sort of bizarre to be living through this time right now, when so many people seem to be worked up."
And worked up they are. Apocalyptic rumors and doomsday preparations have preoccupied people on seemingly every continent. In Russia, citizens are stocking up on vodka; in China, nearly 100 people were arrested for spreading the rumors, which officials said were partly to blame for an attack on elementary students Friday.
In an international poll of more than 16,000 people, Reuters found that 1 in 10 respondents worried that the Mayan calendar could signal the end of the world. The poll, which was taken in May, also found that 15 percent of those responding said they "believe the world will end during their lifetime," Reuters reported.
The current panic has been bolstered by theories that might charitably be deemed "sciencey."
Under one scenario, the Earth would not survive a rare galactic alignment that would subject it to the powers of not only the sun but also Sagittarius A — a massive black hole in the heart of the Milky Way. In a related scheme, the planet's magnetic poles will reverse — possibly as a result of the alignment.
Some doomsayers even claim to know the exact time the bell will toll for Earth: 11:11 UTC — a nicely evocative time, yet one that the U.S. Naval Observatory says is off by one minute. If you're in the Eastern U.S. time zone, the facility says, you should expect the solstice to occur at 6:12 a.m. Friday.
The fuss stems from the fact that "an important cycle of the Maya calendar which is turning over," Stuart says, "called a baktun."
Each baktun represents 144,000 days — or nearly 400 years. The 13th (and, some say, final) baktun of the Mayan calendar is slated to come to an end on the solstice marked on Dec. 21, 2012.
"It's a big deal — if you're an ancient Maya astronomer priest," Stuart says. "But apart from that, they didn't say anything about ... what will be happening."
Stuart and other researchers have compared what's about to happen to the Mayan calendar to an odometer on a well-driven car: The years will simply click over. If the car's odometer runs past its complement of numbers, you can still drive it.
The end of the calendar cycle is a cause for celebration in Guatemala, home of the famed Tikal Mayan temple. The country is already welcoming an influx of leaders from the region, as well as around 200,000 foreign tourists, reports the Prensa Latina news agency.
On his blog, Stuart has admitted that he inadvertently helped to fuel the 2012 doomsday movement when he labeled his analysis of a glyph found at Tortuguero as the "Tortuguero Prophecy," a title that fueled ideas of a revolutionary dawning of a new age. But in a recent post, he projects that the Mayan calendar has at least 2,400 more years to go.
"I think in our culture, too, or maybe globally — humans like to come up with excuses, sometimes, just to freak out," he tells David. "I think the Maya have become an excuse for something a bit larger. ... It's a reflection of a lot of tension, a lot of anxiety in our society. And Lord knows, there's a lot of real problems out there. But this isn't one of them. You know, the Mayan calendar is certainly not something we need to worry about."
So, David asked, how will Stuart spend Dec. 21?
"I'll be here in Austin that night," he said, "and probably raise a glass of wine to the end of the baktun, and the beginning of a new one."
But not everyone will be as relaxed as the professor. The website Off World Backup pokes fun at the trend of "doomsday preppers," offering what it calls "quantum bilateral encryption" and the assurance that "your data will be secure no matter what happens on Earth."
As the group's terms of service show, they're not taken in by the hype:
"I acknowledge that my files will not actually be backed up off world.
"I also acknowledge that it is silly to believe that the Mayans correctly predicted the end of the world will occur on Friday (especially since they don't even believe that).
"Furthermore, I acknowledge that no such thing as a multiphotonic phase inducer exists outside of this website and possibly Star Trek."
Anyone who needs further convincing may want to consider the Mayan calendar's start date: Aug. 13, 3114 B.C. While few people can say what happened on that day, it's doubtful that any of them would say it's when the world suddenly sprang into being — along with a handy calendar.
And Stuart says not to expect any major changes on Dec. 21, either.
"Nothing is really fundamentally going to change, in terms of the world coming to a standstill," he says.
"That is very reassuring," David tells Stuart. "I'm going to hold you to that."
Some of our earlier posts about another "end of the world" prediction are collected here.
It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
And I'm David Greene.
Well, it is here. Tomorrow will be December 21st, 2012. Some believe it's the day the ancient Mayan civilization predicted the world would end. Most people do not believe this. And yet, this idea of the apocalypse has stuck, helped in part by popular mass media, including this blockbuster Hollywood film from three years ago. It was called "2012."
GREENE: Strange to hear about a date that is finally here. Well, to learn exactly what the Mayans said and to try and hopefully put your mind at ease, we turned to David Stuart. He's the man who cracked the code that was needed to read Mayan hieroglyphics, and he joined us from Austin, where he's director of the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas.
Professor, thanks for coming on.
DAVID STUART: Hey, thanks for having me.
GREENE: Well, I guess, let me turn to a question that, in thinking about it, seems to carry some level of importance. Is the world going to end tomorrow?
STUART: Absolutely not.
GREENE: That's a relief.
STUART: Yeah. And thanks for playing that clip, by the way. You know, the Maya never, ever, said anything about the world ending at any time, much less, you know, this year. So it's sort of bizarre to be living through this time right now, when, you know, so many people seem to be worked up. And, you know, maybe they don't even understand anything about the Maya, but they still wonder: You know, where is this idea coming from?
GREENE: The Mayans never said anything about this. Where in the world did this idea come from, then? I mean, we've got a lot going on in the world.
STUART: Yeah. No, they never said...
GREENE: The Russians are freaking out. All sorts of countries are preparing for the end.
STUART: Right. It's global now, right. The Maya never said anything about the world ending. What's happening, basically, is that we have an important cycle of the Maya calendar which is turning over, a cycle called a baktun. And there are lots of cycles to the Maya calendar. And it's a big deal if you're an ancient Maya astronomer-priest. But apart from that, you know, they didn't say anything about what's going on, what will be happening.
GREENE: Well, I read about some monument. Did someone see something there that made them at least think that this end is possible?
STUART: Well, there's a site, a ruin, in Mexico called Tortuguero. And one inscription from there actually mentions the year 2012. And there's another one we found, actually, this year, the site in Guatemala that also mentions December the 21st, 2012. But there is no prophecy on either of those ancient texts.
What they're doing is they're just projecting forward to the end of this big cycle, because the ancient Maya were really into time. They were really into connecting their kings to these bigger cycles, these bigger kind of cosmic cycles. And, you know, that's really what it's all about. It's about ancient Maya politics when you come down to it, right. It's not about them predicting anything good or bad about our world.
GREENE: But where did the idea that this turn in the calendar was going to be the end of the world exactly come from?
STUART: It comes more from our culture. As far as we can trace it, you know, it goes back to, really, some ideas that started to get published in the 1960s with the beginnings of the New Age movement.
But I think in our culture, too, you know - or maybe globally - humans like to come up with excuses, sometimes, just to freak out, you know, and to have these ideas. You know, they crop up all the time. And this will not be the last one. There will be another one at some point. I think the Maya have become an excuse for something a bit larger that's, you know, way outside my area of expertise.
GREENE: Well, you definitely have me feeling a lot better, and I'm sure a lot of other people, too. And you have plans for the 21st, right? You're going to be traveling?
STUART: Yeah. I'm going to be Christmas traveling, holiday traveling. So I'll be on a plan, actually, from Boston, back to Austin with my son on the 21st. I'll be here in Austin that night, and probably raise a glass of wine to the end of the baktun and the beginning of a new one.
GREENE: Professor Stuart, thank you. Thanks for talking to us about this.
STUART: No problem. Thanks for having me.
GREENE: Professor David Stuart. He's director of the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas in Austin. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Jeffrey Lefstin
Professor Jeffrey Lefstin's scholarship on the pattern of dissents in Federal Circuit cases was cited by PatentlyO, the most influential patent blog (@patentlyo), this week in a posting by Jason Rantanen on the surge of dissents.
Professor Lefstin's research was the first to show that studies of dissent could quantitatively measure both the indeterminacy of particular legal doctrines, as well as the social norms that promote agreement or disagreement at an appellate court. His study, which was recognized as one of the most comprehensive and rigorous ever conducted on an intermediate appellate court, examined the legal indeterminacy of patent law doctrines and the changes in norms of uniformity at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Read more here.
Brian Gray
Professor Brian Gray co-authored an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee on how to create a special water market to meet the state's goals of ensuring a reliable water supply and protecting the environment during California's major drought. Read more here.
Joan C. Williams
"What Works for Women at Work" by Joan C. Williams and Rachel Dempsey continues to garner press, including a recent piece in Working Mother magazine.
"Workplace politics, quite simply, are different for women than for men— and more challenging for women," Williams (@joancwilliams) told the magazine. "Many times the strategies that women use to solve one problem create another problem. Women 'lean in' and all of a sudden, they're witches." Read more here.
Williams was also quoted by the New York Law Journal about the five AM Law 200 firms that did not make any women partners this year. "Implicit bias remains largely uninterrupted," says Williams, adding that "it is happening all along the line," to the point that when it comes time to decide who is eligible for partner, "often the jig is up." Read more here.
Morris Ratner
Associate Professor of Law Morris Ratner published an op-ed in the Recorder, "Stephen Glass, Moral Character, and the Enemy Within." Written in response to the California Supreme Court's decision to deny bar admission to Glass, who fabricated material for more than 40 journalistic articles,
Ratner writes: "Between the poles of morally fit and unfit stand the rest of us: flawed individuals doing our best to exercise sound professional judgment under difficult and often murky circumstances. We should take little comfort in the spectacle of Glass' failure to establish rehabilitation, for, as Cicero said, "the enemy is within the gates." Read more here.
Frank H. Wu
Read Chancellor and Dean Frank H. Wu's most recent column for the Huffington Post, "The Problem of the Two Sherlocks," here.
Robin Devaux
Robin Devaux, managing director of the Center for WorkLifeLaw, was quoted by the Associated Press in a story that ran in the Chicago Sun-Times and other outlets about bills in California and New York City that would protect caregivers from employment discrimination.
"It doesn't say people with caregiving responsibilities get to come in late or leave early," said Devaux. "What it says is if you let Joe leave early for his golf game, then you also need to let Mary leave early to care for her father. It's simply asking for equal treatment." Read more here.
Nate Cardozo
Nate Cardozo 08 was interviewed by NPR about a Justice Department deal that Internet companies that receive U.S. government requests for information about their customers will be able to disclose more details about surveillance than has been allowed, according to a deal announced today by the Justice Department.
"It is a big deal, but it's only a first step," says Cardozo (@ncardozo), staff attorney and online privacy advocate with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He adds, "We were really looking for an agreement where they could disclose the exact number of requests that they'd gotten."
Hilary Briscoe
Hilary Briscoe '13 published a personal essay, "Out to Africa," in the February edition of California Lawyer magazine about her adventure studying law in Cape Town, South Africa. She is studying for the New York bar exam. Read her essay here.
Jeffrey Herrera
Law Library Budget Coordinator Jeff Herrera appears with Karney Feb. 28 at Law Rocks at the Great American Music Hall. Karney is playing for the San Francisco Bar Association's Justice & Diversity Center. Players include Anna Karney on lead vocals and guitar, Michael Doyle on guitar, and Kimon Manolius on bass.
--Feb. 4, 2014


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While you can never predict what kind of crowd you'll get at a restaurant on any given night, a recent Friday night at Buon Appetito had a good mix. Families and friends came early, and later on, dating couples drifted in.
This is one of those quality places that doesn't intimidate you, providing a comfortable, pleasant atmosphere that doesn't make you feel like you ought to wear the best clothing you own.
That is until the food arrives, and you get bowled over with not only the flavor and quantity, but prices so reasonable you can fill up and still keep the mortgage to your home.
Considering the location at 906 Broadway is a short ride from downtown Jersey City or Hoboken, Buon Appetito is a good choice for anyone looking to avoid the parking issues of those places and still have a quality dining experience.
The place is full, but not overly crowded, a popular local eatery with several new features such as the sidewalk café tables outside that give the place a Hoboken feel. The interior is lighted by tiny crystal chandeliers that combine with the earthy colors of the drapes and paint to give the place a quiet luxury.
A diverse menu
The menu is remarkably diverse with ample dinner specials, a remarkable selection of fish, numerous sauce combinations, and pleasant and original appetizers.
While the menu has its share of meat items, it is particularly rich in veal dishes, including traditional ones as well as some unique to the restaurant.
Entrees range from $10.95 for eggplant rollatini to $36.95 for surf and turf with most items under $20, including a number of chicken items.
The menu offers a number of pastas and homemade raviolis, including rigatoni vodka at $9.95, homemade potato dumplings at $10.95, and stuffed rigatoni at $13.95.
The menu provides some of the classic appetizers including fried calamari with marinara sauce, and mussels with a choice of marinara or white wine sauce – a terrific blend of wine and garlic.
The calamari was very tender and the mussels were very fresh. Both sauces were richly spiced.
Other offerings include stuffed mushrooms, claims oreganata, stuffed eggplant and stuffed shrimp. Appetizers ranged from $8.95 to $9.95 with ample quantities.
Salads and soups range from $3.50 for soup of the day to $6.95 for fresh mozzarella salad.
The lobster bisque soup is buttery without being overly sweet, thick with bits of lobster.
Fish is the dish
Fish is one of the specialties of Buon Appetito, and Tony Stoebling, the owner, said he seeks the freshest fish he can find. But it also has to be high quality.
"If you use the good stuff, it comes out differently than if you use cheap stuff," he said.
Sneaking in samples of some special appetizers, the prosciutto wrapped shrimp was stunning, a complex combination of cured meat and extremely fresh shrimp.
The classic steak dinner was tasty and very American, a hearty dish that gives the diners yet one more choice in what seems like an endless variety of quality dishes.
The wine list is terrific. Recently expanded, it offers quality selections for each person's budget, providing selections from $16 a to $108 bottle, although most selections range between $16 to $18.
Because Stoebling realizes that his place is attractive to families – many of those in the place looked like grandparents with their grandkids – he offers a kids menu that includes homemade macaroni and cheese, and other items that might appeal to the younger crowd.
If the main menu was a challenge to choose from, desserts were overwhelming, not only in choice, but in taste, from Italian-style cheesecake and sorbet to tortoni and the classic cannoli. Each dessert had a complexity and richness that made it stand out from the others, yet any one of them might have served as a signature piece.
Open for lunch, too
With a corner bar, the restaurant can easily become a quiet gathering place for couples later in the evening.
Open from 11 a.m. to about 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday, and 1 to 9 p.m. on Sundays, Buon Appetito offers provides a good daytime place for lunch as well as dinner, and is loaded with daily specials and intriguing offers. Offers include Thursday's free for kids with one paying adult, and Friday's seafood extravaganza. Saturday has a family-style menu which serves two to three people and includes a bottle of wine for $5.
Buon Appetito also offers free delivery and catering on and off the premises.
The lunch menu includes cold and hot sandwiches, usually in three sizes ranging in price from $7 and $8 for small sandwiches, $7.50 to $9 for medium, and $15 to $18 for large. The menu includes soups from $3 for a pint to $6 for a quart, except for lobster bisque offered on Fridays at $4.50 and $9. There is a rich selection of lunch time pasta dishes ranged from $7 to $12, and an all you can eat buffet on Wednesday and Sunday for $12 per person. As with the diner menu, the lunch menu has an ample selection of veal, chicken, and seafood sections as well as eggplant dishes.
For more information you can call the restaurant at 201-436-0043 or go-on line at http://www.buonappetitoitalian.com.


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The Suez Question
The Commonwealth and Suez
British Politics in the Suez Crisis
Dulles Over Suez
As an Opposition back-bencher, I was only the most minor of participants; yet the Suez crisis—with its days of savage uproar in the Commons, its monster demonstrations in Trafalgar Square, and its macabre background of Hungarian tragedy—was the most searing experience of my whole political life. Today, less than eight years later, the episode has receded into history. Here in Britain we politicians can placidly look back at this traumatic experience and re-examine it with something approaching clinical detachment.
In doing so, it is almost impossible to avoid the smoothest-worn clichés of the professional historian. If the Suez venture was not "a watershed" (we crossed that sometime in the course of World War II) it was certainly a "moment of truth" when it was suddenly and overwhelmingly born in upon every British politician—whether he was supporting Sir Anthony Eden or opposing him—that the United States was the boss in the Western Alliance and that we were living in a country which could no longer "go it alone."
Of course, the withdrawal from Port Said was not the cause of the collapse of the British and French African Empires that immediately followed it. What it did was to sound an imperial death knell so loud and sinister that Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle were driven to liquidate what each had pledged himself with fanatical conviction to defend. Within four years, Mr. Macmillan as Prime Minister was proclaiming in his "wind of change" speech the decision to wind up as quickly as possible that White African empire which, in 1956, he had been urging Anthony Eden to sustain, if necessary by force of arms. Within six years, General de Gaulle conceded that total withdrawal from Algeria which Guy Mollet thought he could avoid by allying himself with the Israeli in order to topple Nasser.
If the Anglo-French venture taught us our military and economic weakness vis-à-vis America—it took Mr. Eisenhower exactly three days of oil and financial sanctions to bring the British and French Governments to heel—it also shook us out of a mood of backward-looking nostalgia for a past imperial greatness, and made us reconsider the whole basis of our existence as independent nations and also as members of NATO.
Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that, apart from the tragedy of one man, Lord Avon, the Suez fiasco in retrospect can be seen as a disguised blessing to the whole Western Alliance. And if none of us feels much gratitude either to Mr. Eisenhower and Mr. Dulles, or to Lord Avon and M. Mollet, for the roles they played, this is because it is now so obvious that none of them was in control of the situation. This was a crisis precipitated by blindness and incompetence, in which none of the participants, with the possible exception of Colonel Nasser, rose…
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