The Demoniacs

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent

Today, beloved brothers and sisters, there was read the Gospel narrative from Mark concerning the healing by Jesus Christ of a demon-possessed youth who was deaf and mute, for whom his father pleaded—through the casting out of the most wicked unclean spirit, which caused the unhappy youth deafness and muteness. Mute and deaf spirit! the Lord said to the unclean spirit — I command you: come out of him, and enter him no more. And when the spirit had cried out and convulsed him violently, the evil spirit came out of him; and the youth became like a dead man, so that many said he had died. But Jesus, taking him by the hand, raised him; and he stood up. But listen to how wicked was the demon that tormented the youth. The father of this youth told the Lord that wherever the demon seized him, it would throw him to the ground—and the poor youth would foam at the mouth, grind his teeth, and grow rigid all over. The very same thing happened that time as well, when his father brought him to the Savior. And when the Lord asked the father, as though not knowing—although, as God, He knew all things: How long has this been happening to him? — the father said, from childhood; and he added that the demon had many a time thrown him both into fire and into water, seeking to destroy him; and he begged the Lord to have compassion on him and on his son, and to help, if He could do anything. Jesus said to him: If you can believe at all—all things are possible to the one who believes. And the unhappy father, weak in faith, cried out with tears: I believe, Lord! Help my unbelief. Do you see what power the Lord ascribes to faith and to the one who believes: all things are possible to the one who believes, He says. One who believes can cast out demons and heal every kind of illness. But how powerless and pitiable is the unbeliever! He cannot even gain mastery over himself, cannot overcome his own sins, but, like a slave, serves them and is tormented by them. And since the unhappy father had first brought his demon-possessed son to the apostles, and they could not cast this demon out of him, they asked the Lord in private: why could we not cast it out? To this the Lord said to them: this kind can come out in no other way than by prayer and fasting[1].

Here, then, is the Lord’s praise of fasting and prayer. Here is the Gospel foundation of fasting. Why, then, have those who style themselves followers of the Gospel banished fasting from our common life, as though it were useless! Have passions and lawlessness and demoniacs of every kind not multiplied among us precisely because some Christians have broken their union with the Church and rejected prayer and fasting as a superfluous undertaking, and live like the unreasoning beasts, guided only by their various lusts, while others, in their malice, with foam at their mouths like true demoniacs, have hurled themselves into every kind of crime: into murders, suicides, arson, undermining, explosions, and the like? Yes, beloved brothers and sisters, people like this have come to such terrible frenzy precisely from unbelief, from lack of self-restraint, from impurity, and from all the deadly consequences of that unbelief. The gentle faith of the Gospel does not preach murders, regicide, undermining, and explosions; it says: Let every soul be subject to the ruling authorities. For no authority exists except from God, and the authorities that exist are set in place by God, and that one must obey them not only out of fear, but also for the sake of conscience[2], and it commands us to pray for the Tsar and for all who are honored with authority, that we may live a quiet and untroubled life in all godliness and purity[3].

Lord, enlighten the eyes of the heart that malice has blinded in these wretched demoniacs of our ill-fated time, who rise up against the God-established authorities, so that they may come to see what a terrible abyss they are digging out beneath their own feet, and into what a terrible hellish chasm they are ready to plunge. In the ancient pre-Christian days, certain wretched ones among the Jews made an uprising against the established authorities—against Moses and Aaron, reproaching them for a supposed lust for power; they only murmured—and what befell them, what chastisement of God? The earth opened beneath them, and they went down alive into hades together with their households, while others, less guilty, were consumed by fire that came forth from the sanctuary[4]. Such is the gravity of the sin of rebellion against the authorities. What, then, awaits our nihilists—what judgment of God? One all the more terrible, the more of God’s gifts they have trampled underfoot. For who are our nihilists and terrorists? Baptized people—Christians—have sunk into such a frenzy, into such murders and suicides, into such satanic crimes! O, why were they ever born into the world? Why did they not perish in their mother’s womb? Better for them never to have been born. To trample so ungratefully, so wickedly, so madly upon the gifts of God—the grace of baptism, of chrismation, of the communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord—this is truly terrible! O, the wretched parents of such children! What disgrace they must bear.

Brothers and sisters! Let us hold fast with all our heart to the faith and to the Church of God, that only ark of salvation that delivers from the universal flood of fire, which will in its own time overtake all the lawless. Let us keep to the sacred ordinances of the Church, which lead us to salvation; let us observe the fasts and prayers unchangingly and be zealous for the divine services! The devil, the enemy of our salvation, does not slumber, but, like a roaring lion, walks about around us, seeking whom he may devour[5] — and how many he has devoured! Fasting and prayer, with diligence, with humility, with faith and with love, are a mighty weapon against the devil, against all the passions warring within us. Amen.