NOTES for Mat 8:28-34

Perhaps the hardest thing in today's reading is demons. Many people do not know what they are, many shift their own guilt onto them, and others see only them everywhere. How should we relate to this extremely difficult concept in Scripture? After all, even in the Lord's Prayer we say, repeating after Jesus: "...deliver us from the evil one." This means that understanding what this power is and recognizing its existence is a necessary condition for praying the Our Father consciously.

The first and main thing to understand here is this: demons, whatever mental form we give them, are creatures, just as we are. In this sense they are on the same ontological level as we are, or even lower, for we are in some measure joined to God and to His true being. Therefore, in any case, they are not stronger than we are, and there is no need to fear them. On the contrary, they fear God and in fact are subject to Him. This is shown to us very clearly today in the story with the Gergesenes: we see how obediently they are ready to come out when they see the true power of Christ. The apostle James says this exactly: even the demons believe, and tremble (James 2:19).

The second important observation, and it is visible from today's reading, is that they recognize God faster than ordinary people do. Why? This is very easy to understand: they are the ones who resist Him, and for that very reason they know Him well. So one should not simply recoil from the mentally ill, fearing them as if they were lepers; at times one must listen very carefully to what they say, because amid delirium one can discern flashes of meaning that are inaccessible to us.

And finally, when we are afraid and it feels as if demons are tempting us, we must call upon Christ in all simplicity, and that alone will be enough for them to fall silent, because they fear Him greatly. Better still, do not let go of the hem of His garment at all. Then, when asked whether we know demons, we will be able to answer with a clear conscience: no, we are not good with demons.

The incident described by the evangelists, when the residents of an entire city asked the Lord Jesus Christ to leave because His presence frightened them and interfered with their occupations, that is, their "business," could seem exotic. Of course, this is the reaction of pagans, and it is hard to expect anything else from them...

But in essence almost every person experiences something similar at certain moments. Fortunately, we do not always behave as the Gergesenes did, but temptations of this kind hardly pass anyone by. It must be said that history developed in such a way that, after the 3rd century A.D., almost no one dared openly ask the Lord Jesus to leave.

Instead, according to the "pattern" described by the evangelists, "nominal" or "three-time" Christianity is born in us. That is when a person meets God three times: at his baptism, wedding, and funeral service. It is important to keep in mind that nominalism is only secondarily a social and religious phenomenon that afflicts society. First of all, it afflicts the individual person, and the evangelists' account helps us see this not so much in others as in ourselves.

The demon-possessed men did not live in burial caves by chance, for submission to the will of dark powers is already a path toward spiritual death. Therefore the casting out of demons from the two unfortunate Gergesenes meant not only the healing of specific people, and not even only the triumph of God's power over the powers of darkness. It was another foreshadowing of Christ's coming victory over death.

It would be too simple to see in the fear of the local residents, shaken by the circumstances that accompanied the casting out of the demons, only displeasure at the death of the pigs and therefore at material loss. No, the people of the Gergesene region sense that the One standing before them is able to change their whole life. But this is exactly what they do not want, because familiar life is so understandable.

So often we too, indignant at evil that has become familiar, do not want to notice that we ourselves have grown together with it so completely that if someone tries to free us from it, we become uneasy. But if we choose Christ, we must be ready to accept what he brings us. Even if, as a result, we lose something like a herd of pigs.

Much has been said and written about the world's reaction to Jesus' witness to the Kingdom that He brought into the world, just as much has been said and written about its reaction to Him Himself. And yet the brightest illustrations of this reaction are precisely the Gospel stories, despite the brevity often characteristic of them.

Such is also the story of Jesus' healing of the possessed man. In itself, from a spiritual point of view, such a healing was an outstanding event, even apart from the fate of the particular person freed from the burdensome power of the dark forces over him. But the inhabitants of those places were pagans, and in those times this meant practical irreligion. It is hard to say what they thought about the possessed man living not far from them, but in any case his healing, it appears, did not impress them very much. Something else impressed them instead: the loss of an entire, and probably rather large, herd of pigs.

Of course, the first reaction of anyone reading the Gospel to such indifference will be surprise, and perhaps indignation. But if one thinks about it, the reaction of the inhabitants of a typical pagan city was completely natural for pagans. Pagans are simply people who live by the laws of the untransformed world and know, or do not wish to know, any others. And in the untransformed world, inertia, worldview stereotypes, and behavioral patterns play an enormous role. People who live by its laws feel truly comfortable in it, and it never occurs to them that this comfort is deficient by definition.

The abnormality of the situation is emphasized by the constant presence beside the inhabitants of the city of a herd of pigs: from the point of view of the Torah, pigs are unclean animals, defiling the place where they live and the people who come into contact with them. Accordingly, the pagans in the Gospel story live in a state of uncleanness that is normal for them, just as it is generally normal for the fallen world. And all their behavior, all their reactions are "tuned" to this fallen world. The spiritual dimension in the proper sense of the word does not exist for them, while they understand very well what material loss is. And therefore the presence of Jesus frightens them.

Of course, trouble can be expected from Him, especially if the trouble is the very presence of the spiritual dimension in one's own life. And the townspeople honestly, with all the frankness characteristic of man, ask Him to leave. And He leaves: the Kingdom is not imposed by force; it can be accepted only by free will.

Today's reading brings us back once more to the main theme of all four Gospels: the theme of the Kingdom. Before us are two stories: the stilling of the storm (vv. 23-27) and the healing of the possessed, the demon-possessed (vv. 28-34). The events appear very different, since in one case Jesus is dealing with a force of nature, and in the other with people and dark powers. But in essence, in both cases the point is how the Kingdom of God, which Jesus bears in Himself, transforms the world around Him.

To those around Him it appears that He possesses some superhuman abilities or some special powers given Him by God, and that for this reason He can work miracles that no one else can work (v. 27). But in fact the issue is not powers or abilities. The world around Him is being transformed; that is why the storm grows calm and the demons cannot endure it and run away (v. 32). No power, not even the power of God, affects the world in this way: it can, of course, change many things in it, but in this case the point is no longer simply change, but complete transformation, so that the very laws of creation change. According to the laws of the untransformed world, a storm cannot grow calm without a cause. Strictly speaking, in that world it does not grow calm, but in the Kingdom there is no storm; and then everything depends on which reality the person in the midst of the storm becomes a participant in: the reality of the fallen world or the reality of the Kingdom. And here everything is determined only by faith, by trust in the One who brought this Kingdom into the world (v. 26).

But if there is no faith, even manifestations of the Kingdom by themselves will not replace it. This was the case with the Gergesene demoniacs: the manifestation of the Kingdom was plain, and the demons, naturally unable to endure it, felt this very quickly (v. 29). But with the people everything turned out to be less simple. It was hard not to believe the eyewitnesses' story (v. 33), but this story clearly made a paradoxical impression on the local residents: they asked Jesus to leave them in peace (v. 34). And the point was hardly that they felt sorry about the lost herd.

Of course, the inhabitants of those places were pagans and hardly thought much about the Messiah or the Kingdom. But they did understand one thing: Someone had entered their life and had brought in Something with which living as before would become impossible. If He remained among them, their whole life would change radically. And this, evidently, they did not want.

Here Jesus encountered the chief obstacle on His path: people's unwillingness to receive the Kingdom that He offers them. And then He leaves. For if a person refuses the Kingdom, the Savior has nothing more to give him.