In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
At the beginning of the Gospel reading today, when our Lord meets the man who is possessed by the devil, He does not wait to be asked. Our Saviour immediately begins to cast the devil out. It was not merely one demon either ; it was many. That is why this man’s name was “Legion”. This man had many devils. No-one could hold him down. He was living wild in the graves among the dead. He could be described as a living-dead-man when he was possessed by devils. When a person is possessed by devils, who the person truly is becomes squashed down, and all these other personalities come in, take the person over, and turn the person into a marionette or a puppet. This is what it means to be possessed.
Ultimately, only our Saviour Himself can get rid of the demons, and put things back into their proper order. That is precisely what He did. He gave a few other lessons to people in the process about whether we should or should not be raising swine (because the Law said that it was not permitted to keep them). People were rather perturbed. That is one of the reasons, I think, that the people of the city asked Him to go away after they found out what had happened. However, this is not the only time that people were so overawed with the wonder of what Jesus was doing in their midst : how He was setting people free, how He was showing love to them, how He was giving them life, how He was changing everything. Other reasons scared them off, I suppose, because in other cases our Lord would be told, in effect : “Please go away from here” (see Luke 9:53). In another case, a man said to Him : “‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord’” (Luke 5:8).
Sometimes we are like that ourselves. When we are paying attention to our sinfulness, to our brokenness, to our fallenness, and we think we are unworthy to be in the presence of the Lord because we are ashamed, we ask Him to go away from us. When we are in His presence, we feel how we have betrayed Him ; we feel how we have caused His suffering ; we feel ashamed of our behaviour, of our betrayal. However, the Lord, in His mercy, does not go away from us. He never goes away from us. We are the ones who go away from Him from time to time. He never goes away from us because He loves us, and He wants us to live with Him always, ever, and unto the ages of ages. He never leaves us, no matter how many times we leave Him. We are like the apostles, who in the time of the Crucifixion, ran away. However, even though they ran away, He was still with them, and they came back to Him. We do the same : we run away from time to time because we are afraid. However, He is always with us, and He helps us to come back to Him. The Lord, the Giver of life, cares about what happens to you and to me. It is for us to allow Him to work this love in us, this life in us.
A primary priority for the Orthodox Christian is to express this love in thanksgiving, as we are doing here, now, today, during this Divine Liturgy. This is our thanksgiving all together to the Lord for His love for us, and for everything that He is doing for us. The more we love Him, the more we love being here with Him, not only on Sundays, but on any other day possible. I know that life is busy for many people, and there are many demands, but lately, when I have been coming here for Vespers, there have not been all that many people in church. Compared with the attendance on Sunday, it is few, and it is my responsibility to say that Saturday Vespers is an important service because it prepares you and me for today.
In fact, I was thinking as I came into the church this morning and the vesting began (and then the Divine Liturgy immediately began), that in the old days (when I was younger), when the bishop came into the church, he came in early, and then the Hours were read, and then the Divine Liturgy began. However, when I come in and the Divine Liturgy begins immediately (since the Hours are read ahead of time to make everything easy for everyone), it feels to me like a sudden start. The Hours prepare us. They get us warmed up. They get us going. The heart warms up while the Hours are read, and by the time the Divine Liturgy begins, it is easier to focus ; it is easier to offer this thanksgiving ; it is easier to glorify the Lord ; it is easier to be focussed about what we are doing, instead of simply jumping in, as it were. That is one of the purposes of Vespers : to help us to get ready for today. The hymns in the evening tell us more or less what is the theme of this Divine Liturgy : whose memory we are keeping, and what we are celebrating today. With reference to the saints and the feasts of the day, during the Divine Liturgy, the only texts that refer to them are the tropars and the kontaks (and sometimes the readings). In Vespers and Vigil, this preparation truly warms up the heart, and there are plenty of hymns that are telling us what is coming liturgically. It prepares us for today. I am encouraging you to try to make more room for this preparation. If I sometimes ask for the entrance of the bishop to be even earlier than it is now so that I can be part of the Hours, do not be surprised.
The Lord wants us to be with Him, and our place is here where He is in our midst. With our hymns and our songs, we tell the Lord that we love Him. He is giving us His Word of life from the Scriptures, and He is feeding us with the Body and Blood of our Saviour. He is with us, showing His love to us, giving His love to us, revitalising us with His love. The Lord never deserts us. He always keeps us on the right path (even though the evil one is from time to time, or always, attacking us). Therefore, let us ask the Lord to protect us and keep us going. Let us ask the Lord to renew the fire of love for Him within us so that as Saint Herman, the Elder and Wonder-worker, says : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, we will love God above all, and do His holy will”. In so doing, we will glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.