Miracles of Our Lord

by George MacDonald

But who can imagine the delight of the man when that wild troop of maddening and defiling demons, which had possessed him with all uncleanness, vanished! Scarce had he time to know that he was naked, before the hands of loving human beings, in whom the good Spirit ruled, were taking off their own garments, and putting them upon him. He was a man once more, and amongst men with human faces, human hearts, human ways. He was with his own; and that supreme form and face of the man who had set him free was binding them all into one holy family. Now he could pray of himself the true prayer of a soul which knew what it wanted, and could say what it meant. He sat down like a child at the feet of the man who had cured him; and when, yielding at once to the desire of those who would be rid of his presence, Jesus went down to the boat, he followed, praying that he might be with him; for what could he desire but to be near that power which had restored him his divine self, and the consciousness thereof—his own true existence, that of which God was thinking when he made him?

But he would be still nearer the Lord in doing his work than in following him about. It is remarkable that while more than once our Lord charged the healed to be silent, he leaves this man as his apostle—his witness with those who had banished him from their coasts. Something may be attributed to the different natures of the individuals; some in preaching him would also preach themselves, and so hurt both. But this man was not of such. To be with the Lord was all his prayer. Therefore he was fit to be without him, and to aid his work apart. But I think it more likely that the reason lay in the condition of the people. Judæa was in a state of excitement about him—that excitement had unhealthy elements, and must not be fanned. In some places the Lord would not speak at all. Through some he would pass unknown. But here all was different. He had destroyed their swine; they had prayed him to depart; if he took from them this one sign of his real presence, that is, of the love which heals, not the power which destroys, it would be to abandon them.

But it is very noteworthy that he sent the man to his own house, to his own friends. They must be the most open to such a message as his, and from such lips—the lips of their own flesh and blood. He had been raving in tombs and deserts, tormented with a legion of devils; now he was one of themselves again, with love in his eyes, adoration in the very tones of his voice, and help in his hands—reason once more supreme on the throne of his humanity. He obeyed, and published in Gadara, and the rest of the cities of Decapolis, the great things, as Jesus himself called them, which God had done for him. For it was God who had done them. He was doing the works of his Father.

One more instance remains, having likewise peculiar points of difficulty, and therefore of interest.

When Jesus was on the mount of transfiguration, a dumb, epileptic, and lunatic boy was brought by his father to those disciples who were awaiting his return.

But they could do nothing. To their disappointment, and probably to their chagrin, they found themselves powerless over the evil spirit. When Jesus appeared, the father begged of him the aid which his disciples could not give: "Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son, for he is mine only child."

Whoever has held in his arms his child in delirium, calling to his father for aid as if he were distant far, and beating the air in wild and aimless defence, will be able to enter a little into the trouble of this man's soul. To have the child, and yet see him tormented in some region inaccessible; to hold him to the heart and yet be unable to reach the thick-coming fancies which distract him; to find himself with a great abyss between him and his child, across which the cry of the child comes, but back across which no answering voice can reach the consciousness of the sufferer—is terror and misery indeed. But imagine in the case before us the intervals as well—the stupidity, the vacant gaze, the hanging lip, the pale flaccid countenance and bloodshot eyes, idiocy alternated with madness—no voice of human speech, only the animal babble of the uneducated dumb—the misery of his falling down anywhere, now in the fire, now in the water, and the divine shines out as nowhere else—for the father loves his only child even to agony.

What was there in such a child to love? Everything: the human was there, else whence the torture of that which was not human? whence the pathos of those eyes, hardly up to the dog's in intelligence, yet omnipotent over the father's heart? God was there. The misery was that the devil was there too. Thence came the crying and tears. "Rescue the divine; send the devil to the deep," was the unformed prayer in the father's soul.

Before replying to his prayer, Jesus uttered words that could not have been addressed to the father, inasmuch as he was neither faithless nor perverse. Which then of those present did he address thus? To which of them did he say, "How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?" I have thought it was the bystanders: but why they? They had not surely reached the point of such rebuke. I have thought it was the disciples, because perhaps it was their pride that rendered them unable to cast out the demon, seeing they tried it without faith enough in God. But the form of address does not seem to belong to them: the word generation could not well apply to those whom he had chosen out of that generation. I have thought, and gladly would I continue to think, if I could honestly, that the words were intended for the devils who tormented his countrymen and friends; and but for St Mark's story, I might have held to it. He, however, gives us one point which neither St Matthew nor St Luke mention—that "when he came to his disciples he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them." He says the multitude were greatly amazed when they saw him—why, I do not know, except it be that he came just at the point where his presence was needful to give the one answer to the scribes pressing hard upon his disciples because they could not cast out this devil. These scribes, these men of accredited education, who, from their position as students of the law and the interpretations thereof, arrogated to themselves a mastery over the faith of the people, but were themselves so careless about the truth as to be utterly opaque to its illuminating power—these scribes, I say, I do think it was whom our Lord addressed as "faithless and perverse generation." The immediately following request to the father of the boy, "Bring him unto me," was the one answer to their arguments.

A fresh paroxysm was the first result. But repressing all haste, the Lord will care for the father as much as for the child. He will help his growing faith.