Preparing for the season of healing: a homily for the Second Sunday before Lent

‘Clothed and in his right mind’: preparing for the season of healing

At the early Eucharist on the Second Sunday before Lent, 2022

Luke 8:22-35

Luke’s account of the healing of the Gerasene demoniac may sound very far removed from our respectable, rational twenty-first century lives.  

He lived naked among the tombs; he would break the shackles placed on him by the local community, so disturbed were they by him; he would go out into the wilderness, there tormented by his demons.

And we are left in no doubt that the profound disordering of this individual’s life was because of the influence of dark spiritual forces. 

“Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him.”

When those demons are expelled by Jesus, they enter into the nearby herd of swine, who rush into the lake and are drowned. For respectable, rational people it all sounds a bit too much.

Except that behind our respectable, rational appearances, we can be much closer to the story of the Gerasene demoniac than we might want to acknowledge. In this man who lived among the tombs, the place of death, his life disordered and shadowed by dark forces, his relationships shattered, we can see ourselves. 

Those of us who have experience of the destructive, disordering consequences of addictions - we can see ourselves here. 

Those of us who know how malice, resentment, hatred, can disorder and shadow our heart and our relationships - we can see ourselves here. 

Those of us who know how greed, pride, envy, anger can destroy love, joy, peace - we can see ourselves here.

When Jesus liberates the man from the dark forces and they enter into the nearby herd of swine, sending the herd crashing over the ravine and into the lake to drown - it is not legend or folklore, but a very real reminder of just how destructive dark forces are.

Luke continues: “When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind”.

Here is the gospel of Jesus Christ summarised in one encounter. In Jesus Christ, we are restored, renewed, as those created in the image of God, those who are sons and daughters of God, those called to share life in God …

Liberated from the dark, destructive forces which seek to mar that image, to overturn our identity as children of God, to keep us amongst the tombs, rather than in the light and glory of life in God.

We are reading this Gospel account of healing and restoration on the Second Sunday before Lent.  It is a reminder of how the approaching season of Lent is a time of healing and restoration, of healing the wounds of sin, of restoring the identity given to us in our Baptism as children of God.  

So may we prepare to enter into Lent, repenting of that which is destructive and disordering in our lives, clothed afresh in the healing, restoring grace of God in Jesus Christ.