07 GERASENE DEMONIAC OCT 27 2024

2 Corinthians 9.6-11

Luke 8.26-39

The Gospels proclaim the mystery of God becoming historical as Moses, the Psalmist, and all the prophets foretold. Each moment in the Gospel history of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, opens onto the invisible, eternal God. And, in the mystery of the Church, each moment in time opens onto the eternal God who became flesh and has filled all things with His eternal Spirit.

We read the Gospels of the holy Evangelists as icons of the Icon, Jesus Christ (Col 1.15). Reading this morning’s Gospel according to this hermeneutical principle, then, the LORD Jesus Christ coming to the land of the Gerasenes is an icon in history of the spiritual reality in which each of us is living today. What is the invisible, spiritual reality of our life that is being drawn for us by this morning’s Gospel icon?

Our epistle this morning continues the theme of the Sower sowing His Seed that was our Gospel parable a few Sundays ago. Read according to our epistle this morning, our Gospel this morning of the LORD Jesus coming to the demoniac living in the tombs in the land of the Gerasenes shows the Sower, Jesus Christ, coming to the hard, stony ground on which some of His Seed has fallen, viz., on the soul of this demoniac living in the tombs. He comes to till the hardened ground of this demoniac’s soul, and to transform it into ‘good earth’ in which His Seed can grow and bear a rich harvest.

In this light, it is all the more noteworthy how the LORD Jesus comes to the land of the Gerasenes in our Gospel this morning. He comes with His holy disciples, it says, in a boat. The boat is an icon of the Church. In this morning’s Gospel, it carried Christ and His holy disciples to the land of the Gerasenes from Galilee across the sea. As they were sailing across the sea, it says, the LORD fell asleep. A violent storm came up. The boat began filling with water and the disciples feared for their lives. The LORD awakens and rebukes the winds and the waves. A great calm descends on the sea, and the disciples are filled with fear and awe, wondering just who this man, Jesus, is.

Can you see in this trip across the Sea from Galilee to the land of the Gerasenes that took place at a particular time in history an icon of the LORD’s Holy Pascha? The LORD rises from sleep; an icon of His rising from the dead. He rebukes the winds and the waves. They are subdued, and the boat reaches the shore of the Gerasenes safely as having come from the Tomb of the LORD’s Holy Pascha.

Well, are you not disciples of Christ? When you died with Christ at your holy baptism, you were raised up out of the Font and into the Boat of the Church. You became a member of the Body of Christ in which He has destroyed death by His death and given life to those in the tombs.

We have come to Church this morning, as we do every Sunday morning, as we do anytime we come to the Church, from the tomb of our baptism, where we were united with Christ in the likeness of His death and resurrection. And this morning, we are in the company of the disciples stepping onto the shore of the Gerasenes with the LORD Jesus Christ. How can it be, then, if, according to this morning’s Gospel, we find ourselves in the tombs, met by this mad-man possessed by a legion of demons? Didn’t we just come from the tomb?

Remember the words of St Macarius the Egyptian (4th cent) that I have quoted many times: ‘When you hear of tombs and sepulchers, don’t think only of physical ones. Your own heart is a tomb. When you permit the prince of wickedness and his angels to walk into your mind and thoughts and make their home there, are you not a tomb, is not your heart a hell’ (Hom 11.11), from which proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, as the LORD says. [Mat 15.19]

We died with Christ in our baptism. But where have we been living our life since? Have we stayed in the boat, or have we drifted back to the city with the townspeople? Have we become, again, whitewashed sepulchers who appear beautiful, even Orthodox, on the outside, but inside we have allowed a legion of demons to return and our heart, again, is full of dead bones and all uncleanness? [Mat 23.27]

If we do not stay in the boat of the Church, not just outwardly but also inwardly, we will fall right back into the stormy seas of the passions, and we will be driven by them right back to the tombs like this morning’s demoniac. There are the big passions like gluttony, lust, greed, envy, vanity, anger, sloth, pride, despair. But there are countless little ones: sulkiness, self-justification, blame-shifting, cynicism, bitterness, impatience, holding the grudge, unkindness, and so many others. Perhaps like the townspeople binding the demoniac, we try to keep our passions under guard, chained with different social restraints so no one will see them, like Dr Jekyll seeking to control his Mr. Hyde. But our Mr. Hyde, like this demoniac, is too strong, too wild for us. He easily breaks whatever restraints we put on him to return to the dark shadows of our minds and thoughts, back to the tombs outside our ‘home’ in the city, where he can indulge the wild pleasures of his passions with no one seeing him.

So, let us take note that, according to our Gospel icon this morning, when we step into the boat of the Church, the LORD takes us to the tomb of our heart as He took the disciples this morning to the tombs in the land of the Gerasenes. For, in the Church, we are always, every year, on a journey to the Tomb of the LORD’s Holy Pascha.

Can you see how we are the city folk if we are following Jesus outwardly, but inwardly we are living in the tomb of our passions? But if we stay with the LORD’s disciples in the boat of the Church that we were raised up into at our baptism, well, we will find ourselves following Christ into the tomb of our heart to put our death to death, and to free us from the passions that are killing us. In the tomb of our heart is where we meet Him as we truly are, as Mr Hyde and not as Dr Jekyll. And that is where our Mr Hyde is transfigured, but he is not transfigured into Dr Jekyll. Dr Jekyll is a fake. Our Mr Hyde is transfigured into the likeness of Christ, for he is found seated at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.

The hard, stony ground of the demoniac’s soul has been broken up somehow by the LORD Jesus and transformed into good earth in which the Seed that was sown on it can yield a rich harvest. The rich harvest is what we see when we see the man cleansed of the demons and now sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.

He is clothed in the Robe of Light, the Robe of his Baptism, for he has put on Christ. He is found in his right mind, the mind of Christ, not the mind of the city, sitting at the feet of Jesus, not in front of the screens; he is found in the tomb of his heart that has been emptied of the demons, just as the winds and the waves of the stormy sea were subdued at the command of the Christ risen from sleep, risen from the dead. The tomb of our heart is now the gate, the icon, that opens onto the Door of the sheep, and those who hear His voice enter the Garden of His Resurrection in the green pastures of the Heavenly Father.

In the fear of God with faith and love let us draw near with the demoniac in this morning’s Gospel. Let us follow Him into the tomb of our heart where the LORD has come in the mystery of His Cross and burial to meet us at the root of who we really are, and let us fall down before Him and beg Him to have mercy on us, that He would hallow our bodies, cleanse our thoughts, sanctify our souls, set aright our minds, so that with this morning’s demoniac we may be found clothed in our baptismal Robe of Light, in our right mind, in the Mind of Christ, seated at the feet of Jesus Christ, Our LORD, God and Savior to whom are due all glory, honor and worship together His Father who is from everlasting, and His All-Holy, good and life-giving Spirit. Amen!