A Word for the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

Today’s Gospel reading tells of the Lord’s casting out of demons from two demon-possessed men, who came out of the tombs of the country of the Gergesenes, so fierce that no one dared pass that way. Here is this Gospel in the Russian tongue. At that time Jesus Christ arrived at the other shore of the Sea of Galilee, in the country of the Gergesenes, and behold, He was met by two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, that is, out of the caves, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way. And behold, they cried out, saying: what have we to do with You, Jesus, Son of God? You have come here to torment us before the time. Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. So the demons begged Him, saying: if You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine. And He told them: go. So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine. And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water. Then those who kept them fled, and went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region. So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city (Mt 8:28-34,9:1), that is, Capernaum. Here ends this Gospel reading.

So then, the Gospel speaks of demon-possessed men, of the casting out of the demons, of their entering, with the permission of Jesus Christ, into a herd of swine, and the destruction of the herd in the sea—of the request of the citizens of the city of Gadara that the Lord depart from them, and of His crossing back to the other shore, and His arrival in Capernaum. The account is clear in itself. It tells of two unfortunate men, possessed by evil spirits. This means that, contrary to the stubborn unbelief and false conviction of certain half-educated, misguided people, evil spirits do exist in the world, and do their ruinous work, which consists chiefly in the destruction of people and in causing them various vile harms. Jesus Christ Himself, the Only-Begotten Son of God, came into the world in order to destroy the works of the devil and to conquer him with all his host. For this the Son of God appeared, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1Jn 3:8), says the Apostle John the Theologian. The half-learned clever men will not persuade us that there are supposedly no evil spirits; for to deny their existence is to deny the whole of Holy Scripture, to deny Christianity, to consider the faith of Christ, and the coming to earth of Christ God, and His whole divine dispensation, as though needless; and finally, it is to deny plain facts; for evil spirits did harm and destroy people in former times, and now too they do harm to people in various ways and destroy the careless, by the permission of God—and just as they were once cast out of people by the Lord, or, by His grace, by holy men, so they are cast out now too. So then, demons and the demon-possessed existed then, and exist now. What kinds of demon-possessed people, then, are there today? There are demon-possessed people of two kinds: the true demon-possessed, of the sort mentioned in the Gospel, who are shut up in madhouses—the demonically afflicted, whom the demons torment especially when such sick people are brought to some holy object, or when the Cherubic Hymn is sung in church at the Great Entrance—and the demon-possessed under the guise of those who are agitated, darkened, and driven mad by various passions: anger and malice, envy, strong fleshly passion, drunkenness, or a passion for gain, for hoarding money and increasing it with interest, pride, ambition and vainglory, and the rest; to a special kind of the demon-possessed must be reckoned the so-called liberalizing people—that is, those who think too freely, contrary to Christian and to all sound sense, the so-called nihilists, who deny the Christian faith, and Christ, and the Church, prayer and the Mysteries, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, judgment and recompense according to each man’s deeds; among their number there are such evil demons in human form that they set themselves the goal of overthrowing the order of the state, of overthrowing the thrones of kings, of sacrilegiously attacking the very lives of God’s own anointed, whose life and safety ought to be inviolable; of setting fire to houses and every kind of structure, of destroying people’s property, and of turning the earth into a hell, a place of tears and groaning. Such, then, are the demon-possessed of our own time—demon-possessed knowingly, by their own free will, by their own evil heart. O may the Lord deliver us from these evil creatures, for whom the eternal fire is kept, together with the devil! And let us guard ourselves against another kind of possession—puffed-up pride, envy, anger, malice, hatred, irritability, fleshly passion, drunkenness, gluttony, foul speech, love of gain, hardness of heart, the oppression of one’s neighbors, abuse, quarrels, strife, despondency, despair, and the rest of the passions, which estrange us from God and cast us under the power of the devil.

Let us take note, too, in today’s Gospel, of the insolence of the demons, and of their own acknowledgment of the eternal torments prepared for them. When the demon-possessed men met Jesus Christ, the demons that were in them cried out: what have we to do with You, Jesus, Son of God! You have come here to torment us before the time (Mt 8:29).

See what diabolical pride and insolence! What have we to do with You? they say—as though they were not subject to the dominion of God, which extends even over the whole satanic kingdom! Yet soon, feeling an unbearable torment at the presence of Jesus Christ and His invincible power, they lower their tone and say: if You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine — a fitting request: the unclean ask to enter the unclean; it seems that the demon-possessed men too had fallen under their possession for an unclean life. The Lord commanded them, and they entered the herd of swine, and drowned it all in the water. And what if they had been permitted to do the same to men? They would have destroyed all men in an instant. But they dare not do this to men; instead they torment them, by God’s permission, only so much as to bring them to their senses. The Lord permitted the swine to be destroyed in order to show the ferocity and fierceness of the demons, and so that the idolatrous inhabitants of the Gergesene country might know what awaits them, if they do not repent and believe in Him, in Jesus Christ—namely, that eternal torment together with the demons awaits them. It is remarkable that the demons themselves expect eternal torments, and tremble—while some people do not believe in them, and do not tremble before them, and are not afraid to sin. And indeed, the inhabitants of the Gergesene country did not believe in Him, and asked Him to depart from them: and He crossed over to the other side. Ah, brothers and sisters, woe would be ours, eternal woe, without Jesus Christ, without faith in Him, without His grace, without good works, without unfeigned repentance. A man who lives without faith in Jesus Christ, without repentance and good works, becomes a plaything of ruinous passions, each more tormenting than the last—a house full of demons, like the demon-possessed men just mentioned, liable to eternal torment, fuel for the eternal fire. Let us live in repentance and virtue. Let us always be with Jesus Christ. Amen.