Who Are The Demon-Possessed?
5th Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Romans 10:1-10; Matthew 8:28-34; 9,1
The Gospel story today is about the demon-possessed, or rather, about the healing of the demon-possessed by Jesus Christ. If we consider the demon-possessed to be crazy, insane people, then this Gospel story has no practical significance for us, since it is a long-gone event. Nowadays, people who are insane are in hospitals or similar institutions.
But insane persons are people with damaged minds. The Gospel story, especially in Luke (8:26-39), tells of the sudden healing of a demon-possessed man when Christ freed him from an evil spirit. Similarly, the demon-possessed people in Matthew's Gospel account were freed from the dominion of evil spirits over them.
The evil spirit (or evil spirits) caused evil desires and aspirations of the person. When Jesus Christ freed the soul of the demon-possessed man from the evil spirit's dominion over it, the person became normal, calm, and the man “sat at Jesus' feet, clothed and in his right mind” (Luke 8:35).
This makes it quite clear that these were not crazy or insane people (two are mentioned in Matthew's account), but, rather, people with normal minds, but uncontrollably possessed by the desire to do evil. This is evidence of the dominance of demons, or evil spirits, over them.
There are such people with sound minds, but completely evil intentions, in our time. Here are examples from life.
1. A 24-year-old man in England was found guilty in court of the murder of two men, coworkers. He poisoned them. He also poisoned four other people, although they were saved; however, two died. Those people did not owe Graham Young (a stockroom clerk) anything; he did not have any personal hatred for them, but he wanted to kill people secretly by putting poison into their bodies. Any people...
It turned out that he had tried to poison his family members when he was still a schoolboy. He was kept in a psychiatric hospital for 9 years; doctors believed that he was finally cured... But that young man, when he was released from the hospital, immediately began to acquire poisonous chemicals and put them into his coworkers' coffee and food.
Graham Young had to be cunning to deceive normal, intelligent people in order to execute their murder. Moreover, he kept a diary in which he wrote down how much poison he had put in and how people writhed in pain...
Was that young man crazy, out of his mind? Obviously not. His mind was healthy, his brain was in order, but his soul was possessed by an evil spirit that wanted to cause people torment, pain, and murder.
2. A 16-year-old boy, Andrew Ellis, beat his 49-year-old mother so mercilessly that he beat her to death. However, it was reported in the press that the boy had consumed a lot of alcohol and took some drugs. Whatever the case, he always knew that it was his mother who was sympathetic to his weaknesses, the court heard. The young man was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but, as the judge also said, this was on the assumption that he would be imprisoned for at least 4 years, and that while he was imprisoned for those years, he would undergo compulsory treatment. (Globe & Mail, Toronto, Friday, 30.6.1972)
The consequences may be similar to the first case – the person was treated until doctors decided that he was healthy, and then released... If only physical and mental illnesses are treated, then this may be the appropriate approach. But when the treatment is comprehensive, and when a person is freed from the domination of evil spirits over him, then he will truly become normal and will do good for the glory of God.
Let us pray to our Lord Jesus Christ to heal those people whose souls are possessed by evil spirits.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
