Dear in Christ Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord!

In today’s Gospel reading we heard how Jesus Christ healed a demon-possessed man from the land of the Gadarenes. We heard about this miracle in July when we were reading the Gospel according to Matthew, and today we hear it again, this time from the Gospel according to Luke. In general both Matthew and Luke (we can also add Mark here) have very similar accounts of this miracle. One difference is that Matthew mentions two demoniacs, while Mark and Luke mention only one – the leader of the two, the one who was more frightening.

Mark and Luke also add a small but interesting detail about the healed person. They both note that this person wished to stay with Christ and asked that he be allowed to sail away from his homeland with Jesus and His disciples. This request is completely logical and understandable. After man years this man was freed from a host of ferocious demons and finally was able to calmly think and act. This was all thanks to the Lord. What would happen without His protection, no one could say. Whether the demons would return to torture and once again terrorize him was also an unknown. There was only one thing that was clear – that Jesus, who had saved him, could in the future protect him from any evil and misfortune.

Despite this, our Saviour doesn’t take this person with Him, and deprives the healed man of the chance to always be with Him. Christ’s reaction seems somewhat severe and not very loving, but in truth there is a good reason from this. The Gadarenes were so frightened by this miracle that they asked Jesus to leave them. In such a way they deprived themselves of the chance to hear Christ preach and to commune with the Source of Life. The Lord, who never tramples on the free will of man, leaves these people, but in no way deprives them of His teaching. As He prepares to set sail, Christ instructs the healed man: “Go home and tell everyone what has happened to you!” In these words we can understand the following thoughts of the Saviour: “The citizens of your home town do not wish to hear My message. Therefore I am leaving them, although I very much wanted to be with them, to preach to them and to heal their ailments! Since they will not accept Me , I will send you to preach to them. You wish to be with Me, you want Me to always protect you; therefore always keep My memory in your heart and spread the word about Me to all, and I will certainly remain with you.” Without a doubt Christ remained with this man and gave him grace-filled strength, without which it would have been difficult to do what he did – to preach Him not only in his own town, but throughout that whole territory.

Let us not deny ourselves the presence of Christ in our own lives, like the Gadarenes did, but instead, let’s emulate the healed man. Let’s beseech Christ to always be with us. Let’s diligently keep Him in our hearts through the reading and study of the Word of God. Let’s keep all of the Christian commandments, do good deeds, and live a humble life and, in such a way, preach Him everywhere.

priest Alexis