Wednesday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 5, 2023

Matthew 8, 28-34

When Jesus came to the territory of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him. They were so savage that no one could travel by that road. They cried out, “What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?” Some distance away a herd of many swine was feeding. The demons pleaded with him, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.” And he said to them, “Go then!” They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned. The swineherds ran away, and when they came to the town they reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs. Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.

The location of several cities and towns mentioned in the Scriptures remain unknown today.  “The territory of the Gadarenes”, one such locality, is usually placed by scholars on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.  The names of certain towns in this direction have spellings that seem derivative of “the Gadarenes”, and if any of them is to be identified with the town St. Matthew mentions in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus and the Apostles would have had to sail almost due south and then east, length-wise across the Sea.  This would seem to be confirmed by St. Mark, who speaks of sailing through “the strait” to a land facing Galilee.

St. Matthew spends seven verses to report on this miracle, by far the briefest of the accounts written by St. Mark (20 verses) and St. Luke (13 verses).  This is likely because for Matthew, the miracles validate the preaching, which is more important to him because, as a Jew, he saw the Lord as the successor of Moses, whose Law completes the Law given to Moses by God for Israel.  And so he gives over a significant portion of his Gospel to accounts of the Lord’s preaching as well as several parables.  The miracles are important too, of course, but they serve a function in relation to the body teaching: that of signifying the approval of the Father for what his Son has taught.  Mark and Luke, with their different approaches, provide a great many more details.  Matthew gets to the essence of the miracle right away.

St. Matthew also speaks of “two demoniacs” while Saints Mark and Luke speak only of one.  This could be because this was how he remembered this event.  It was still dark, and he heard the words, “What have you to do with us, Son of God?”  Matthew may not have had a good view of what was happening and he assumed from the use of “us” that more than one possessed man was present.  It is also possible that there was one possessed man and he was thrashing about so wildly that it seemed to Matthew, who was witnessing this, that there were two men.  It could also be that Mark and Luke, listening to the accounts of eyewitnesses, thought that only a single man was possesses.  Due to the greater detail in their reports, however, it seems safe to conclude that there was only one man.

“Two demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him.”  Mark says, more specifically, that they/he “ran and adored him” (Mark 5, 6).  We might wonder why a demon would drive the person it possesses to the Lord rather than away from him, but at this point Satan still does not realize who Jesus is and desperately wants to find this out and defeat him, for whoever it is, he threatens his power.  The demoniacs were “coming from the tombs” because they made their home there.  The forces of evil, whether human or supernatural, are attracted to death and they engage in self-destructive actions, whoever else they harm.  “They were so savage that no one could travel by that road.”  St. Mark provides more detail: “No man could bind [them], not even with chains. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, [they] had burst the chains, and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one could tame [them]. And [they were] always day and night in the tombs and in the mountains, crying and cutting [themselves] with stones” (Mark 3, 3-5).

“What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?”  The demoniacs address the Lord as “the Son of God” in order to tempt him to reveal himself.  By “Son of God” they mean a prophet or other righteous man.  Satan could not conceive of a love so great that God would become man in order to save the human race and so it is beyond him that Jesus was divine.  The demoniacs also tempt him to reveal his mission to them by demanding to know if he has come to torture them “before the appointed time” — before the end of the world when their torment shall increase.  The Lord, however, treats them with the contempt which they deserve and does not answer them.

“Some distance away a herd of many swine was feeding.”  Traditionally, this had been the land allocated to the tribe of Gad at the time the Hebrews enter the Promised Land under Joshua, but the Israelites there had long ago been deported by the Assyrians and they never returned.  Other conquered peoples were moved there and remained afterwards so that the whole land was inhabited by the Gentiles.  This is how swine came to be herded in that place.

“If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.”  Matthew does not include how Jesus commanded the demon’s name and how the demon told him it was Legion, for many of them were present.  Legion pleads with the Lord not to send them back to hell where they will be mocked by the other demons for failing.  It would be better to inhabit the lowly swine than to be sent back.  “Go then!”  The Lord commands the demons to go into the swine in order to teach the Apostles the horror of the demonic power, which he prepared them for by allowing them to experience the power of the storm on the sea.  “They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned.”  Jesus had saved the Apostles who believed in him, thought their faith was weak, from the fury of the water.  Now he lets the swine who have been possessed by the demons be destroyed in it.  Thus, the Lord shows that he will save those who believe but allows those to be lost who are committed to evil. 

“The swineherds ran away, and when they came to the town they reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs.”  The day was dawning.  The swineherds gaped and then panicked, running the distance to the town.  They told what they had seen and heard in hurried, confused words, trying to make sense of it themselves.  As Gentiles, they had very little conception of demonic possession and they could not have understood what Jesus had done.  But the evidence of the two men sitting on the ground, coherent but as if waking suddenly from a hard sleep, and the bodies of hundreds of pigs in the water and on the coast, spoke to the violence that had taken place.  “Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.”  We do not know how these Gentiles came to decide that the cause of the stampede of the swine lay with Jesus.  The formerly possessed men, now in their senses, probably remembered little of the exorcism.  It does not seem likely that the swineherds could have known, from their field, what was going on between Jesus and the possessed men.  The Lord might have stepped apart from the Apostles to meet the oncoming crowd.  But once the crowd decided that Jesus had done something to terrify the pigs so badly that they went to their deaths in the sea, they begged him to leave.  They do not see the miracle of two men delivered from Satan; they feel threatened themselves.  They do not know Jesus, they have never heard of a messiah.  All they know is that some new and powerful force has come upon them.  

These townspeople are the Gentiles around us today. We pray for them as we bear them witness of Christ and his saving power that they may welcome him into their lives.