“Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them…” (NRSV, Luke 8:37)

The healing of the devil-possessed man in the country of the Gerasenes stands out for its strangeness from all other of Our Lord’s miracles.

Jesus and his disciples had just crossed over from the Jewish side of the Lake of Galilee to the heathen district on the eastern shore. A pair of eyes had been watching the approach of the boat, so that when its keel grounded in the sand their wild owner was waiting there. For years this weird figure had lived in the tombs and vaults that dotted the hillside, and on still days and nights his shrieks would be carried on the breeze to the neighbouring town, uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

The modern reader of the Gospels is struck very forcibly by the prominent part which is assigned in them to demons or evil spirits. It has been suggested that many of the cases of possession recorded are susceptible of a normal medical explanation, and that Our Lord when confronted with people who believed they were possessed, did not waste time in arguing but tacitly accepted the patient’s belief in order to effect a cure without complicating the issue.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Jesus himself believed in the existence of the Devil and he regarded the expulsion of demons from those possessed by them as a triumph of moral good over moral evil, and as evidence that the sovereignty of God was being established.

And on the fringe of the heathen territory to the east of the Lake of Galilee Jesus at once came upon evidence of the activity of the forces of darkness, for this was no ordinary case of possession. When Jesus asked, “What is your name?” he replied “Legion”. A legion was the largest unit in the Roman army with a nominal strength of 6,000 men.

The demons had well established themselves in the locality and were loth to leave. They therefore pleaded to be allowed to take possession of a large herd of swine that was feeding nearby – another sign, incidentally, that this was heathen territory since, of course, the pig was an animal forbidden to the Jews. Directly Jesus gave the demons leave, the herd broke into a stampede which carried them down the steep hillside into the Lake below where they were drowned.

We have here a miracle of destruction which is paralleled only by Our Lord’s cursing of the fig tree in Holy Week. Why, then, did he allow the destruction of the herd? Most of the animals were being kept until they were ready to be slaughtered for food and so the principal loss was the economic one which their owner would incur.

Against that loss, however, must be set two factors. The first concerns the man who had been possessed and who was now cured, for as he watched the swine stampede he had dramatic evidence, unforgettably imprinted on his mind, of the fearful evil from which Jesus had delivered him. And secondly, it was necessary that he should know that, because Jesus forthwith dispatched him to be his missionary among the people to the east of the Lake. Thus it was through him that Jesus was able to prepare the way for his own later extended visit to the district when, we read, he was well-received (Mark 7:31-37).

We have therefore to set against the loss of the herd the man. No longer possessed, but sitting clothed and in his right mind, and soon to tour the district proclaiming how much Jesus had done for him.

The effect of the incident on the local population, however, was very different. When they saw the man sitting there cured, and heard what had happened to the swine, they “…asked Jesus to leave them…” (NRSV, Luke 8:37). Since they must already have had enthusiastic reports about Jesus’ miracles on the opposite side of the Lake one would have thought, that now he had visited them, the last thing they would have wanted was to get rid of him as quickly as possible – especially as the man he had just cured had been a violent person of maniacal strength and a menace to every passer-by (Matthew 8:28), so that numerous though unsuccessful attempts had been made to chain him.

The chief reason why the people wanted to see the last of Our Lord was that he was a disturbing element. It was not so much the loss of the herd, which would have affected for the most part only the owner and his employees. No, it was the healing of the man who had been possessed. They had grown used to him and he was by way of being an institution. Without him the place would never be the same again. He gave the neighbourhood – their neighbourhood – a morbid interest, so that many of them would prefer to see him chained rather than cured. And now Jesus of Nazareth had come along, uninvited and stopped it all.

Our Lord always is a disturbing element – especially when it comes to that moment of decision when we are faced with the choice – our choice – either of making him the effective Master of our thoughts and words and actions, or of letting him have no more practical significance so far as we are concerned than a name printed in a book.

There is always that spiritual tension within one’s heart all the time that Our Lord, like a magnet, attracts us from one side, and our lower unworthy self is pulling us away on the other; when we are not averse to visits from him in time of trouble but do not really want him, in his own words, to make his home with us (John 14:23) – because if that were to happen, there would have to be a radical redirection in our thinking, and in our whole attitude to God, to ourselves and to other people.

It would mean adopting his standards and framing our life accordingly; it would mean casting out everything that was incompatible with his presence within us.

The folk on the east side of the Lake would have welcomed Our Lord if only he had allowed the evil to remain in their midst. People are the same today – hence the preference for a religion that does not interfere with one’s personal liberty by concerning itself with one’s personal sins and one’s private thoughts.

For the principal reason why people refuse to embrace the Christian religion is not the intellectual but the moral; not that they cannot accept its doctrines such as the Resurrection and the Divinity of Christ but that they will not embrace its way of life by following his example and by taking his character as the pattern on which to fashion their own.

For the central fact of the Christian religion is that God was crucified to save us from the evil within us, and that therefore the renunciation of one’s personal sins is the start of one’s life as a Christian; and no amount of heartiness or sentimentality or mental dodging can alter that uncomfortable fact.

What a contrast there was between the disciples who had Our Lord, and those people who were content with, and a little proud of, the man possessed with devils! In their fear of losing more they could not realise what they had to gain by having Our Lord with them. To them he was a disturber of the peace, yet peace was the very thing they did not have and which he could give them; whereas the disciples who lived with Our Lord had an inward spiritual peace which those people never knew. So it is that no one can find peace of soul – which is something deeper than peace of mind – all the time that he or she is unwilling to give Our Lord a home and, as a necessary preliminary, to have done with everything that keeps him out.

As St Augustine found after his conversion, “…thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee”. (1)

Reference

1. St Augustine (354-430) Confessions, Book 1, Chapter 1. Available from: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.iv.html (Accessed 16 June 2016) (Internet).