Palestine time- 8:1-3

On the whole the crowds don't get a good wrap in the gospels. They take superficially instead of deeply. When the blow torch is applied they are gone. Yet here they stick around for three days, I presume mostly listening. I wonder how Jesus did this- Morning session, break for morning tea (though by the sound of it, food was scarce) then a late morning session to lunch... (again, perhaps with no food). Or did he just go all day, and a mesmerised crowd stuck with him? I get the feeling they didn't do time the same way we do. For a start, this was not a planned event. There was no big conference in six months time, here's the program, sign up now, type of thing. Very much Jesus is rolling with the punches, within a greater strategical mission. He has a date in Jerusalem that is getting closer- apart from that (a big that) there seems to be great fluidity- Things are getting a bit hot here- I'll head north. I judge things should have cooled off a bit, I'll come back south- but via west and down to the decapolis. The crowd is eager here, I'll spend a good amount of time speaking with them- they would not have had the same opportunities as my Jewish brothers. And the crowd seem fairly closely alligned with this way of dealing with time. That man Jesus is in the area- the one who healed that 'Harold' who used to wander the tombs around Gerasenes, He's just healed the Smiths family's nephew, the one that can't talk- let's go and check him out, put the closed sign up- back at our earliest convenience. And they go, perhaps with a packed lunch (what would that be?) and a water bottle?. They get there and he's saying intriguing things- far more pressing than the need to have every meal they normally would at the normal times.

Jesus has compassion on them- because they have been with him three days and don't have anything to eat- and some have come from a great distance, and he thinks many could faint on the journey home. They certainly don't seem to do time in the same way we do- but I imagine this was pretty unique for the crowds as well. When else would they have gone to listen to a rabbi and spent three days without food as they did this?