Day 8: Healings, Disciples, Storms and Demons

8:1 When he came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 8:2 Behold, a leper came to him and worshiped him, saying, “Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean.” 8:3 Jesus stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, “I want to. Be made clean.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 8:4 Jesus said to him, “See that you tell nobody, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

8:5 When he came into Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking him, 8:6 and saying, “Lord, my servant lies in the house paralyzed, grievously tormented.” 8:7 Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 8:8 The centurion answered, “Lord, I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof. Just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8:9 For I am also a man under authority, having under myself soldiers. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and tell another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and tell my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 8:10 When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to those who followed, “Most certainly I tell you, I haven’t found so great a faith, not even in Israel. 8:11 I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, 8:12 but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 8:13 Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way. Let it be done for you as you have believed.” His servant was healed in that hour.

8:14 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 8:15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She got up and served him. 8:16 When evening came, they brought to him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick; 8:17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He took our infirmities, and bore our diseases.” 8:18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes around him, he gave the order to depart to the other side.

8:19 A scribe came, and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 8:20 Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 8:21 Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.” 8:22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

8:23 When he got into a boat, his disciples followed him. 8:24 Behold, a violent storm came up on the sea, so much that the boat was covered with the waves, but he was asleep. 8:25 They came to him, and woke him up, saying, “Save us, Lord! We are dying!” 8:26 He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. 8:27 The men marveled, saying, “What kind of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

8:28 When he came to the other side, into the country of the Gergesenes, two people possessed by demons met him there, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that nobody could pass that way. 8:29 Behold, they cried out, saying, “What do we have to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” 8:30 Now there was a herd of many pigs feeding far away from them. 8:31 The demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of pigs.” 8:32 He said to them, “Go!” They came out, and went into the herd of pigs: and behold, the whole herd of pigs rushed down the cliff into the sea, and died in the water. 8:33 Those who fed them fled, and went away into the city, and told everything, including what happened to those who were possessed with demons. 8:34 Behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus. When they saw him, they begged that he would depart from their borders.

I would break down this chapter in the following way:

• A Leper is Healed


• The Healing of the Centurion’s Servant


• Healing the Sick


• The Cost of Discipleship


• The Wind and the Sea Obey


• Casting Out Demons: The Gadarene Swine

A Leper is Healed

Perhaps the first thing here that is remarkable is our Lord’s response to the leper’s request to be healed. Not only does Jesus desire to heal this man; He touches him. Now, although the term used in the biblical texts that is translated as “leprosy” should, perhaps, be translated, “an infectious disease of the skin” – which category would include Hansen’s bacillus (leprosy) – but also much more. The key point here is that the condition, whatever the cause, is contagious. The Law provided that persons having such a condition be examined by a priest, and then isolated outside the settlement for a period of seven days, and was considered to be ceremonially unclean, and so barred from entering the Temple. After the seven days of isolation, the person was again examined, and pronounced to be either “clean” or “unclean.” If the person was clean, there were sacrifices as offerings of thanksgiving specified in the Law; while if they remained unclean, they went back into quarantine. Anyone who touched anything that was unclean became themselves ceremonially unclean, and had to wait the seven days, and then be pronounced clean, and wash themselves and their clothing, and bring the sacrifices to the priest for the offering. Thus, touching the leper was a serious action, one with strong implications.

I had been a priest in the Episcopal Church for less than a year when I was sent by the rector of the parish in which I served to visit a man in the hospital. He was, I learned, dying from the onset of the complications that accompany the AIDS virus. During my summer of clinical pastoral education in seminary, I was assigned to the cancer ward of the hospital, which is also where the patients with the most serious cases of AIDS were treated. The medical staff would almost always wear a surgical mask and gloves – if not the full sterile suit – when visiting these patients, and so I did the same; but we were told later that this wasn’t necessary for us when making pastoral calls. As such, on this day, I entered the hospital room as if the man only had a bad cold: no goggles, no gloves, no mask. We spoke for a while, and prayed; and then his “partner” came into the room and said that the patient needed to be turned, and asked if I would help. I did so; and as we shifted the patient, I felt that he had been sweating – and that his partner was wearing surgical gloves. As soon as I left the room, I found a place to wash my hands. He died a day or so after that visit; and I spent more than a few years where, every time I started getting sick, I wondered about that day, and whether I might have been exposed to the virus.. As such, it helps me to see our Lord reach out in love and touch this “untouchable” leper as part of the way the man was healed. (It’s 18 or 19 years later; I don’t worry about it as much any more…)

The Healing of the Centurion’s Servant

Let me hit you here with a $10 word from seminary: pericope. A pericope is a selection or an extract from a book. This particular pericope, verses 5 through 13, could also be called, “The Centurion’s Faith.” I wrote a long paper on this topic in seminary, so I’m going to do my best to be brief here!

We have already seen our Lord heal with a touch, and heal by the power of His word. These events took place among the people of God – that is, the Jews. Now a man who is not a part of that community approaches our Lord to ask for healing; not for himself, but for his servant, whose illness is such that he cannot be brought to the Lord. Jesus says, “I will go and heal him.” The centurion tells Him that it is not necessary; that it will be enough for the Lord to give the command to have the end accomplished – something the centurion knows from practical, personal experience. In response, our Lord praises the faith of the centurion, and points out how it has come from someone who is not an heir of the kingdom, as those who were truly members of the covenant with Abraham could rightly claim. But their unbelief in the One for whom they said they had been waiting is made all the more pronounced by the centurion’s faith; and his servant was healed at that very hour.

Casting Out Demons: The Gadarene Swine

This pericope is well known to those who attend church! There are a few points worth mentioning, I think, which have to do with what we might call the difference between “fact” and “truth.” (I owe what understanding I have of this to the teaching of Fr. Francis Martin, with whom, while in seminary, I took more courses in the New Testament than from the faculty of my own seminary. I will not do his teachings justice here.)

When presented with a report in the news media, we generally have the tendency to trust the report, unless something has happened that causes us to do otherwise. For example: yesterday, there was a horrific crash of two trains carrying commuters on the Washington, DC, Metro system. In the initial reports, two people were said to have been killed. Later, that number was increased to six people. Now, we recognize that this type of change in reporting takes place as the confusion surrounding the immediate event dissipates, and a slower, more careful investigation takes place. But what it, in a year’s time, without there having been any other reporting, that number of six people who were killed suddenly jumps to ten people? The change causes us to wonder, where previously we had accepted the story as being true that six people had died, whether or not the story is true; or, which story is true? When the facts do not agree, we wonder about the truth of the story. If something is true, the facts should be in agreement – shouldn’t they? This becomes an issue in this story: Is it “Gadarene” or “Gergesene?” Was there only one demon-possessed man, or were there two? In the Gospel accounts of St. Mark and St. Luke, there is only one; St. Matthew reports there were two. So, which story is true? Is the story true?

We need to be careful in asking contemporary questions of a text written from a different culture in a different time. We need to be careful about the expectations we have, and the way we analyze the text. To hear of a different number of men afflicted by the demons causes us to question the account; but more importantly, it causes us to miss the point. Eh? What’s that, you say? What is the point? The point is that someone with the power to command the demons has come into our midst. Not only does He have power over them; He has the authority to compel them to obey; and He terrifies them. “Behold, they cried out, saying, ‘What do we have to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’” They then begged Him to allow them to enter into the swine, which they then destroyed by causing them to rush into the sea.

Compare also the response of the villagers whose herd of swine – and what are Jews doing keeping swine? The pig was an unclean animal under the Law of Moses, and so the people of God could not eat them. Now, as the power of the kingdom of heaven has been demonstrated before them by the healing of those who had been possessed, and by the destruction of their animals, what do they do? Do they respond with the faith that the centurion displayed? No. Instead, they begged Him to go away and leave them alone!

Which begs the question for each one of us: Do you resemble the centurion? Or do you resemble the villagers?