Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus Comes to Set Us Free

In today’s Gospel from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus arrives in a place where two men are suffering terribly. They are possessed, living among the tombs, isolated from everyone around them, and so violent that people are afraid even to pass by. Immediately the demons recognize Jesus. They know exactly who He is and they ask something unusual: “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.”

We might wonder why the demons wanted to enter the pigs. In Jewish understanding, swine were considered unclean animals, but I think there is something deeper happening here. Jesus allows everyone to see visibly what evil is always trying to do. These demons had already been destroying the lives of these two men from within. Their freedom, their peace, and their dignity had been taken from them. The moment the demons enter the swine, the pigs rush down the hillside and destroy themselves. It is almost as if Jesus is saying to us: this is what evil does.

Evil never builds up. It never brings peace. It never leads us somewhere good. It always destroys. Yet sometimes in life we forget that. We can begin convincing ourselves that certain sins, habits, or ways of living are not really hurting us. But little by little, they rob us of the freedom God wants us to have.

The Gospel then takes an interesting turn. The townspeople come out and see what Jesus has done. Two men have been freed. Lives have been restored. Yet instead of rejoicing, they ask Jesus to leave. Why? Because His presence disrupted their world. The pigs were gone, something valuable had been lost, and somehow they became more concerned about what they lost than about the healing that had taken place right in front of them.

There is an important lesson for us in that reaction. We often ask Jesus to come closer to us. We pray for His help and we ask Him to change our lives. But what happens when Jesus begins removing something we have grown comfortable with? Perhaps it is a habit, an attitude, or a sin we have allowed to remain too long. Sometimes we want Jesus near us, but only if He does not ask us to change too much.

The truth is that Jesus did not come simply to make us comfortable. He came to set us free. Sometimes freedom begins when we allow Him to remove from our lives the very things we have been holding onto. Perhaps the question we should ask ourselves today is simple: Lord, is there something in my life that I have not allowed You to touch? Whenever Christ enters our lives, He does not come simply to visit. He comes to transform.