Today I’d like to focus on one of the more unusual events described in the Gospels: Jesus’ trip across the Sea of Galilee to visit the region of the Gadarenes on the eastern shore of the sea.Note: Once again, you will need to do a little reading in your Bible today, so I ask that you have it handy while you read this reflection.
This visit by Jesus to the Gadarenes, unique in His public ministry, is a remarkable incident in so many ways. It’s always good, though, to read a passage like this, indeed every passage, in context. In other words, read that which comes before and that which follows. This will help us come to terms with what took place and its effect on those involved.
First, then, I ask you to open your Bible and turn to Chapter 8 of the Gospel According to Matthew. Take some time, all the time you need, to read all of Chapter 8, which concludes with Jesus' visit to Gadara, but also includes brief descriptions of the events preceding it.
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Why did Jesus make this visit? Well, as we will see, there were good reasons then. But Jesus acts for more than the present; He acts for all times, so there are reasons that apply to us today as well.
Let’s turn our attention first to the disciples. By now they had been with Jesus for a while and had grown accustomed to huge crowds of people coming to Jesus for healing and instruction and forgiveness. They had encountered so many people begging for His help, for His mercy, that it had probably become almost routine for them. That previous evening, Matthew tells us:
"...they brought Him many who were possessed by demons, and He drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick" [Mt 8:16]
Just imagine the effect of all this, not only on the disciples, but also on all those who had witnessed Jesus performing these many exorcisms and cures. Day after day, all who came to Jesus, hundreds of people, were healed. In other words, if you came to Jesus, or were taken to Him by another, this manifestation of even a small kernel of faith was enough to bring healing, a healing that led each person to the salvation God wants for him.
And then, to add to their amazement, earlier that same day a Roman centurion -- a Gentile! -- had approached Jesus, and in total humility, explained his need:
"Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully" [Mt 8:6].And Jesus didn’t hesitate to answer the plea of this Roman soldier:
"I will come and cure him" [Mt 8:7].What a shock that must have been to the Jews, including the disciples. For Jesus had just agreed to go to the house of a Gentile, something no Jew would ever do – and not just any Gentile, but a centurion, an officer of the despised occupying Roman Army.
Yes, indeed, Jesus was more than unpredictable; he took the old rules and tossed them aside, demonstrating to the disciples the new path they would eventually be called to follow as they worked to fulfill Jesus command to “make disciples of all nations.”
From the Gospels it’s apparent that Jesus spent the vast majority of His public ministry among the Jews, and only seldom interacted with Gentiles. This encounter with the Roman centurion was one of those rare occasions. But one senses it wasn’t particularly traumatic for the disciples. The centurion came in humility and asked Jesus for help. But in a display of deep faith, he also accepted that Jesus could work miracles at will, with no restrictions.
"Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed" [Mt 8:8].
Yes, the centurion was a “righteous Gentile” whom Jesus praised to His disciples, so they wouldn’t miss the lesson:
"I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith" [Mt 8:10].…and that includes you, apostles.
Then, presumably the next day, Jesus boarded a boat with his disciples and there, on the Sea of Galilee, "he gave orders to cross to the other side" [Mt 8:18]. During the crossing a violent storm arose and the disciples, too, plead for Jesus’ help:
“Lord, save us, we are perishing” [Mt 8:25].
Now, afraid for their lives, the apostles begged for help. But unlike the many who came to Jesus for healing, their faith was weak. One would think that having witnessed the divine power Jesus exercised every day, their faith would tell them to set aside fear. But no, they fear nature more than they trust God.
Our Lord calms the storm and chastises the disciples for the weakness of their faith, so unlike that of the Gentile centurion. They continue on, cross the Sea of Galilee, and enter the province of Gadara, a place populated largely by pagans. But Gadara isn’t just pagan territory. It is depicted as a district especially under the sway of the Evil One: God’s name is not invoked there, His law is not obeyed, and so we shouldn’t be surprised to find demoniacs dwelling there in their natural habitat.
These are not righteous Gentiles coming out of the tombs. No, they are instead men possessed by demons who have driven them into savagery. Just imagine the effect these demoniacs had on the disciples. Indeed, we can only imagine because in their bewilderment the disciples who have accompanied Jesus say absolutely nothing during this visit to Gadara. It’s as if they’re not even present; and yet, we know they are. They are silent, fearful witnesses to this strange encounter.
The disciples had heard many cries for help from those who came to Jesus. But they’d never heard anything quite like this:
What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time? [Mt 8:29]
Two remarkable questions from these demons. How darkly urgent was their need to separate themselves from Jesus. And how did they do it? By denouncing him as the Son of God! And in spitting out their hatred, their poison, they proclaimed the truth, at least some of it. The tiny remnant of goodness in their nature was exclusively intellectual. They recognized Jesus, and knew He possessed divine power. But their souls were so totally disfigured that no moral order remained. This acknowledgment, then, of Jesus’ identity escaped from them just as everything else did, with destructive violence: What have you to do with us?
Yes, indeed, what can the spirit of evil have in common with the Son of God? In a sense, this question -- What have we in common? – is not unlike what the centurion said to Jesus when he uttered,
“Lord I am not worthy…” [Mt 8:8]
Inspired by the Holy Spirit – for the Spirit certainly brought him to Jesus – the centurion recognized the great gulf that separated the reality of who he was and Who Jesus is. He was, indeed, unworthy. But for the demons it’s not a matter of unworthiness; it’s rather a question filled with hollow pride. It’s as if they challenge Jesus: “How dare you come to us. Don’t you, Son of God, have better things to do? Leave us alone.”
Other differences become evident. The centurion saw his servant’s illness, the paralysis, as an evil from which he should seek divine help. But for the demons, the evil of possession was at the very heart of their existence, and they, therefore, hated Jesus and the healing He brought.
The centurion also understood that, for Jesus, time and space are not obstacles. Jesus acts in fulfillment of the Father’s will, whenever and wherever that may be. The demons realize time is not one their side, that their “time” to plague humanity is only temporary. In their hatred, they scream at Jesus, reproaching him for coming before the kairos, before the appointed season of definitive judgment and the expulsion of the forces of evil:
“Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?” [Mt 8:29]
How odd. While they clearly know who Jesus is, and hate him for it, they are truly misinformed about the extent of their authority. No “appointed time” limits the work of God in the world. He desires the salvation of all and to save is what He does. He acts in a constant “now” and is certainly not constrained by the false desires of either demons or any of His creatures.
Demons are also great liars. After all, their boss is Satan, “a murderer…a liar and the father of lies” [Jn 8:44]. But demons are unable to lie to God. In the presence of Jesus, the Son of God, they must reveal all, even their ignorance. Yes, the demons, along with so many people in our world today, are woefully ignorant of the authority of God. Like the demons of Gadara, too many have embraced evil and worked to establish a culture of death, filled with places of anti-life from which they think they have evicted God, places where they believe the Truth cannot be proclaimed.
But God will have none of it. Jesus didn’t just happen to stop by Gadara on His way to somewhere else. As Moses led God’s people across the sea to claim a Promised Land inhabited by pagans, Jesus made this trip across the sea to do the same. He left the Galilee of the Jews, His people, and went intentionally to pagan Gadara to claim this land for His Father, just as He will send His disciples to “go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” [Mt 28:19]. Jesus’ redeeming work knows no boundaries. The Word of God must spread throughout the earth, and no place is exempt.
The demons, of course, couldn’t accept this. Confused, they couldn’t understand why or how Jesus entered this place where evil believed itself safe from God’s Word. They had thrived there among the tombs of the dead, with the rotting flesh and bones and the unclean animals, and they resented this invasion of what they believe to be their sanctuary of evil.
In the Presence of Jesus, they resign themselves to being cast out, and accept that Jesus will free the men they have possessed. Interestingly, they ask to be sent into a herd of pigs, and Jesus grants their request. But “the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned” [Mt 8:32].
Once again, we encounter that which separates Jesus from the powers of evil that roam throughout the world. Jesus offers humanity healing and life – “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” [Jn 10:10]. – but there remains only one other choice: death.
A humiliated Satan, who was once Lucifer, the angel of light, is cast into a doomed herd of pigs by the mere Presence of the Son of God, who has embraced the nature and material body of these lowly humans. We see, then, that Satan is powerless in the Presence of Jesus. He can do nothing. When we accept Jesus Christ as the Lord of our lives, when we receive Him worthily in the Eucharist, when we accept His gifts of grace and forgiveness, He will “deliver us from evil.”
Our God, a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Creator of all, is omnipotent, but His power is always exercised for good. It is a power manifested in mercy, and forgiveness, and love beyond our imagining.
But when people and nations turn away from God, when a people decides that the presence of God is an embarrassment, that the name of God is an insult to their intelligence and freedom, they then create a vacuum that Satan is only too happy to fill. And we can be certain the forces of evil would love to turn us into a latter-day Gadara.
For most of its history, despite their sinfulness, the people of our nation openly and willingly turned to God for help and guidance. Much of our history is that of a people struggling to overcome their faults, and yet filled with hope for a better, more virtuous future. “In God we trust” is still embossed on our currency. And as we salute our flag, we still pledge ourselves as “one nation, under God.” I would hope that most Americans still embrace a culture of life and believe that our loving God is the Lord of History who continues to act in our sinful world, just as He did when He walked on the earth in Galilee, Judah, and, yes, even in Gadara.
Let us pray, especially today, that as a people, as a nation of free men and women, we will turn always to Jesus Christ as our sole guide, as our Lord and Savior.
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