NOTES for Mat 8:18-34
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.