In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
Congratulations to you, dear brothers and sisters, on Sunday. Today during the service we heard the Gospel story about the healing of a possessed man in the land of the Gadarenes. A madman, driven out by the help of the devil from human habitation, who went to live in tombs, in burial caves, in the realm of the dead. In a realm where there is no joy and love. He left the caves of the dead only to instill fear, pain and horror in people passing by these places, and he himself suffered because of the help of the spirit of evil, who became “a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth” (John 8:44), and who goes around “like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The evil spirits not only harmed this man, causing him unspeakable torment: they established their kingdom in him – his mind became darkened, his heart became darkened. The people around him responded to his tragedy with rejection. They bound the possessed man with chains, but he turned out to be stronger than the chains. Then they let him go into the realm of abandonment and loneliness, into the realm of darkness and dead bones. As soon as the possessed man saw Jesus passing by, the evil spirits that were in him, knowing that the Savior could cast them out, cried out: “What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me” (Luke 8:28). It seemed that this man was screaming, begging not to touch him. But the Lord did not confuse the man with the evil that held him. He separated the man – the victim from the misanthrope, the devil, who had taken possession of the unfortunate man. Christ asks the question: “What is your name? — What is the name of that regiment of death that has made living men dead even to temporary life? “Legion,” the demons answer (Latin: one hundred thousand) and pray to the Savior not to return them to the terrible abyss, but to let them live in this man until the Last Judgment, where they will be forever imprisoned in hell. The Savior sends the demons, at their request, into a herd of pigs. Why didn’t Christ chain them in the abyss? Why did he fulfill their request? In answering the question posed, we must know that for the Jewish people, a herd of pigs meant filth. According to the law given to the Jewish people by God, a Jew could not touch pork. Christ shows and makes it clear to everyone around him that a demon belongs to filth, to that which cannot be touched. The herd of pigs, into which the demons entered, went mad, threw themselves off the cliff into the lake, as into an abyss, and drowned. People who saw all this could have understood that the possessed man, whom they rejected, cursed and sent away from themselves, was a victim of evil. An unfortunate victim who needed to be freed by love and God’s power. They should have seen and understood that evil leads to irrevocable destruction, to the abyss. That is why the Son of God appeared, to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). People should have thanked God for healing the man when they saw that the one they called possessed was in his right mind at the feet of Jesus. But the inhabitants of this area did not do so – they were afraid for their property, they were afraid of God. They were afraid of God’s intrusion into the world of evil that they themselves had created. They did not notice the salvation of the man whose healing did not touch their souls, and they asked Christ to leave the borders of their area. This Gospel story tells us about what often happens to us, in our world – when God, merciful, loving, forgiving, enters our lives – envy, malice and fear prevent us from rejoicing in the healing of the sick. They prevent us from accepting the love of God, which exceeds the laws of our world, the order we have established. Let us remember the words of the Savior that we must first seek the Kingdom of the Most High, and all else will be added to us (Matthew 6:33). Let us allow God into our insane and frenzied world. Let us destroy the power of evil spirits over the souls of people sick with sin by prayer and fasting (Mark 9:29). I congratulate all of you, my dears, on Sunday and wish that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ will remain with each of us, admonishing us, edifying us, strengthening us for many years. Amen.
