If the journalist fond of sensational from today had lived in the times of the Saviour, much would have been written about the miracle with the healing of the demonized from Gadara.
The event would have been the subject of breaking news at an hour of maximum audience which would have condemned the abuse of a spiritual leader against some poor defenseless demonized men and of course it would have been debated the matter of compensation of the pigs owners
I think it would be more useful to try to establish a connection between the narrative thread of the evangelical parable and the reality of the present state of facts of the contemporary society.
Let`s start with the deeds. Two demonized live isolated from society behaving exactly as we would expect: they make a lot of noise, go naked, sleep in tombs, don`t allow anyone to approach them. The inhabitants of the city stopped worrying about their fate being content with the idea that they didn`t have to deal with them anymore.
Christ comes there and He breaks the armistice healing the demonized. Moreover the demons expelled from the two men go in the herd of pigs and throw it in water. What else remain for the `healthy` people of Gadara than to invite Jesus to leave their land? This would be the brief presentation of the facts. But as always the Scripture has more to offer than it shows at the surface of the narrative.
The Gospels offer in fact, beyond the historical event they present to the readers at first sight, a permanence beyond history applicable to any age. The demonized may be any suffering men the society pushed to the edge considering them incurable and leaving them to die in their pain. They may be sick of AIDS or cancer or maybe homeless children or babies abandoned by their teen mothers or lonely elders from foster care sanatoriums, people who are isolated because they can`t integrate where nobody wants them. These are matters we approach in a whisper and many times we leave them to ferment in their own juice in the hope that they might be solved by themselves without doing anything. Other times on the contrary out of a deformed civic feeling we take attitude against their pain and out of love for men we want to end their torment by euthanasia and abortion
In the evangelical parable from today Jesus Who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (Timothy 2, 4), heals the two non grata persons for reintegrating them in the middle of those who rejected them.
The miracle presents the false balance of the society which isolates and ignores its members who are suffering. It is not the first time when Jesus makes such a deed. All His miracles generated indignation exactly because He revealed their falsity and hypocrisy.
Like other times the present miracle is not enough for breaking the shield of self sufficiency of the people from Gadara. Although impressed by the miracle, they are upset much more because of the loss of their pigs than they are glad for the healing of those in pain. The encounter with divinity scares them and they prefer to retreat and remain in the shell of the status quo of their futile life, with its segregations and frustrations instead of opening their minds and hearts to the new choice of life brought by Christ.
Gadara rejects the Saviour because in fact they did not understand God anymore as they should. The pig breeding is the expression of this kind of mentality. Thei raised pigs despite the law because they put themselves above the law thinking they knew the law better than others.
The law is already old, they said, what is the use of all the food interdictions and customs from the past when we have a new understanding of the law which suits perfectly the world from today? We better chase away this One Who comes to reveal our sins and in this way we are absolved from any guilt. Crucify Him! Crucify Him!
The citizens of the contemporary world which is more and more secularized shout the same that the Church is not good anymore and it has never been anything else than a means of controlling the people, an invention of some people who want to take advantage of those who are foolish. The cloud of testimonies of Christ`s saint martyrs doesn`t impress them and they continue to ridicule anybody who tries to contradict them. By rejecting Christ they think they are absolved of the responsibility for their deeds. An attitude similar with that of the ostrich who hides his head in the sand but keeps the rest of his body exposed outside. It is as if someone decided from his own power that the rule of law and the responsibility of following the penal code don`t exist anymore hoping by this he would not go to jail.
Others who are wolves in sheep`s skin come and rejecting the Holy Traditions of the Church try to teach us how to read and interpret even our Holy Scriptures.
Their wish as that of those before them is to justify their immoral acts by reinterpreting the law. A murder remains a murder even if it is attempted to be called euphemistically abortion or euthanasia.
Nolens volens all people inherit the fallen nature and all need the healing brought by Christ. The healthy people of Gadara were in fact sick. They and their descendants from today suffer of a subtle disease which is hard to diagnose and which is called a superiority complex
The problem of any superiority complex is that it hides by definition a repressed inferiority complex.
Source: http://ziarullumina.ro
