Post-feast of the Dormition; the Transfer from Edessa to Constantinople of the Holy Icon ‘Not Made with Hands’ of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, also Called the Holy Veil, and the Holy Martyr Diomedes (284-305)
2 Corinthians 6:11-16; Mark 1:23-28.
Read Mark 1:23-28
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
We hear an account of Jesus’ authority over all things, including unclean spirits. This story is placed early on in Mark’s Gospel, in its very first chapter. The possessed man cried out, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” (Mk. 1:24). The unclean spirits recognized Who Jesus was, and they made it clear that they wanted to be left alone and had nothing to do with Him.
The unclean spirits’ profession of Who Jesus is reminds us of St. Peter’s: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16). St. Augustine of Hippo writes on this similarity in his Homily X on I John V:
This Peter said, this also the devils: the words the same, the mind not the same. And how is it clear that Peter said this with love? Because a Christian’s faith is with love, but a devil’s without love. How without love? Peter said this, that he might embrace Christ; the devils said it, that Christ might depart from them. . . . With love, the faith of a Christian; without love, the faith of a devil.
The unclean spirits in today’s Gospel reading recognized Jesus as “the Holy One of God,” but they wanted nothing to do with Him. They wanted nothing to do with God, Who is Love. The “faith” that these demons had was without love, but the faith of Peter was with great love. It is not enough for us simply to believe a list of doctrinal truths. If we do not have love in our hearts, we do not have God within us.