Luke 8:26-39
At that time, as Jesus arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, there met him a man from the city who had demons; for a long time he had worn no clothes and he lived not in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.” For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him; he was kept under guard, and bound with chains and fetters, but he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsmen saw what happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how he who had been possessed with demons was healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gadarenes asked him to depart from them; for they were seized with great fear; so he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but he sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our Gospel reading today presents us with Saint Luke’s version of the healing of the Gerasene demoniac. This man is possessed by not just a single demon but many; and this horde of demons is making life quite horrible for him. He lives among the tombs, naked, raving, tearing at his flesh with stones, endowed with such demonic strength that he can shatter chains, which renders him a terror to all who live nearby.
It is referred to by some as the miracle of the swine. This is because when our Lord exorcises the demons, they then possess a great herd of pigs, with the result that the poor creatures rush headlong down the hill into the lake where they are drowned.
The gentile owners of the pigs doubtless suffered a severe financial blow. This might explain why instead of celebrating the miraculous healing of the man, instead of being awed by the divine power our Lord has displayed, they instead beg him to leave.
The Jews who heard of these events later, of course, would have had no such reaction. For them, swine were unclean, and their deaths or the cost to their owners would have troubled them not at all.
But to the modern ear the fate of the pigs may seem jarring. Indeed, if you Google the topic, you will find a great many modern, usually non-Orthodox, theologians twisting themselves into knots trying to explain what happened to them in a way that appears more palatable to the current age.
Firstly, to introduce a little of reality with respect to this concern, it must be remembered that these animals were being raised for the table. Their destiny was always to be slaughtered, and their flesh harvested for food and their hides for leather. The same practises continue to this day. So, it is, perhaps, somewhat hypocritical to get overly sentimental over the fate of this particular herd.
Next, we must remember that Jesus did not send the demons into the pigs. Rather, as it states in the text, He allowed them to do so. They requested it. And our Lord, as the Fathers point out, permitted it, He did not command it. God’s Permissive Will, where He allows things to occur which we would consider to be evil, is something that men may often struggle with, but it is a necessary part of our Fallen world. Without it, there would be no free will. Without it, we would be puppets, not only unable to sin, but also unable to choose to do good.
And demons also have free will; if they did not, they would not have rebelled against God and would not have been damned along with their master, Satan. So, the demons here chose to do evil. First, they possessed the man. And then they possessed the pigs. God commanded neither; but He permitted both.
And often from the things that God permits, good arises. Consider the death of Lazarus, Jesus’ friend. When He is told of his sickness, He says ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.’ And then some days later He tells them ‘Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.’
So, what good, if any, came as a result of what happened to the pigs? We may consider here that when Jesus asks the name of the demons, the response is ‘”Legion”; for many demons had entered him.’ How many demons? Well, a legion was a unit of the Roman army. And the usual number of soldiers in a legion was five thousand. This could vary, sometimes fewer, sometimes more. But the key fact is that there were many thousands. Always. And this is the name the host possessing the man had chosen.
Jesus, as we see from the passage, is able to cast out the legion as easily as He casts out a single demon. It takes from Him but a word. But would those watching see that would let them know that what had just taken place was on a scale far beyond those other exorcisms? Well, to paraphrase what Joseph says in Genesis, what the demons intended for evil, God uses for good. It would be hard to imagine a more dramatic way of demonstrating the mighty act of power Jesus had just performed than seeing the huge herd of pigs – more than two thousand, as we read elsewhere in the Gospels – suddenly possessed by this vast host of demons and instantly driven mad and destroying themselves in the lake as a result.
Does this mean God cares nothing for the pigs? Not at all. We may recall here our Lord’s words recorded in the tenth chapter of Matthews Gospel: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.’ God cares for all of His creation.
Yet, there is a sting in the tail here for those who try to equate animals with people, those who try to claim that a cat or a dog or a pig have some moral equivalence to a man or a woman or a child. For this is not so. We know this because Jesus goes on to say, each of us is ‘worth more than many sparrows’. Of course we are, for each of us is made in the image and likeness of God.
So, the pigs, while they are under our Father’s care, as is all His creation, were not as important as was freeing the man from being possessed by the Legion, nor as important as the lessons that would be learned by God permitting them to choose to enter into the herd. God loves all His creation; but it was for man that He sent His only begotten Son into the world.
We lose sight of that, I think, when we start to worry too much about pigs and the like. Yes, we have a duty of care towards them and all other animals who live in in this with us. But we must not let that duty obscure the fact that we have a different purpose in God’s creation to them. Theirs is, of their nature, fleeting; ours is ordered towards eternal life. The demons possessed the man of Gerasene in order that they might frustrate that purpose. It would be equally pleasing to them if we allow ourselves to lose sight of that purpose for ourselves and thereby lose our promise of eternal life. Pray that it may not be so. Amen.
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