Jesus speaks words of tremendous power and authority
Who likes picnics? What's your favourite place for a picnic? By a lake? On a mountain? In the park? In Bible times, when Jesus was walking in Palestine, people liked to go out on a Saturday for games and a picnic – to the GRAVEYARD! It was like a little town with a wall round the edge: lots of little stone houses with columns at the front like the one in my picture. People used to believe that the spirits of their ancestors would be pleased to see them, and at the end of the day they used to leave food inside the family tomb, and wine, for the spirits to enjoy. These were pagan people living on the east bank of the river Jordan – where there were ten Greek cities called the Decapolis.
There was a wild man living there. He lived on the food and wine that was left in the family tombs. He used to rush around at night, shrieking. He had no friends. He was “ALONE” (paint it up). Nobody could help him. They had even tried tying him up and putting him in prison in chains so that people could go out in the fields again without danger, but the badness in him was so great it made him strong like Superman, and he smashed his way out of the chains and out of the jail. He shouted at them when they were at the graveyard having their picnics. They could see his MAD eyes staring at them. (draw mad eyes peering round the tomb). They were terrified of him. Nobody could help him. He was “LOST” (paint it up). (Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39, Matthew 8:28-34)
A beautiful Bible story written by Korky and Anni Davey (OAC ministries) with an easy to do painting. You can however also tell the story without a painting.