Few stories are more frightening than the Gospel episode for today. I know this is hard to believe, especially when there are lots of scary movie memories: Bela Lugosi with a black cape; Lon Cheney with electrodes in his neck; a dim shadow hovering just behind the shower curtain in a dive of a motel; maladjusted and dysfunctional guys wearing hockey masks and long fingernails; and always a nice girl in a long nightgown carrying a candlestick, and descending slowly, all by herself, into a dark basement, where the scary music should be telling her it is not a good idea to go any further.

But today’s story is even more frightening. I suppose that the first reason for this is because this story is true and the others are made up: they are so “over the top” that their fictional nature is comforting. These monsters are safely tucked away in imaginations and nightmares: we know we don’t need to worry about ghosts or vampires, Jason or Freddy or the Bates Motor Inn.

But today’s story about the naked man, wandering around a demon-haunted cemetery is true — and these monsters are known to exist.

There are all kinds of bad information about demons in modern thinking. The first falsehood is that demons do not exist. This is completely foolish. I understand that people would rather ignore them. I also understand that people would like to think that the world is just scientific, and that bad things like demons do not exist. But this sort of thinking is just wishful thinking: pretending that bad things don’t happen does not make bad things go away.

The second falsehood is tempting to Christians. This falsehood turns demons into cartoons and scary characters from TV shows. It depicts demons as wearing red-flannel Halloween costumes, looking oddly like the ridiculous character on those old deviled ham tin cans. Or, it depicts them as exciting and violent, like the monster in The Exorcist and all the B-grade movies that came in its wake. Or, it even depicts them as romantic figures that attract our sympathy, as Ann Rice and the vampire TV shows try to do.

I shouldn’t have to point out to you that all of these ideas are utterly false and foolish.Demons are real, and they prefer to work in secret. They love the passions of human beings, like anger, lust, gluttony, and especially pride. Consider passion as “demon food,” because demons are attracted to passions like flies gather to anything filthy or in decay (this is why the chief demon, Satan, is called “Beelzebub,” or the “Lord of the Flies”).

I think we should understand that the Bible and the Fathers, in Orthodox Holy Tradition, do not think that it is important to know much about demons — like their names or what they look like. There is a lot of foolish, insane stuff on TV and in heterodox churches where demons are interviewed and given an opportunity to put on a dramatic show. People are seen to writhe on the floor and shout and make unseemly spectacles.

There is no such thing as exciting spectacle in the Christian Church. St. Paul said that “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14.33), and “all things should be done decently and in order” (14.40). Excitement is for entertainment: peace and decency are for salvation. Divine Liturgy (and all the services) are deifying — it leads us into Peace and Paradise, not the adrenaline-rush of a funhouse.

I say all this to point out the frightening contrast that we see in the story of the demon-possessed man. Why is it so frightening? Because, contrary to what we are taught in the movies, the demons possessed the poor man because he invited them in. The more a man permits passion to govern his soul, the more “demonified” he becomes. Demons work through disorder, disorganization, demoralization and disintegration. They work through discouragement and distraction. They did their job so well on this poor man that in despair, he wandered off into the graveyards, ripped off all his clothes, and lived worse than a wild beast. He became, for all the world to see, frighteningly insane. Mad. Possessed. Exciting, I guess, in a cruel way, but certainly not entertaining. You would never buy tickets to go see a heartbreak like this.

The reason why this story is scarier than any Halloween movie is because it is true, yes: we’ve already said that. But scarier by far is the thought that this story could have been you or me. This story of Legion is a frightening possibility for all who permit passion to govern their lives.

This story is scary — but unlike the movies, this one has the only happy ending that is possible. Jesus Christ met the man and commanded the demons to get out of His creation: a human being was never meant to give shelter to such unclean and foul spiritual entities. The demons left. They tried to inhabit a herd of swine, in order to avoid going back to the abyss of Hades. But even the swine had better sense than human beings: they could not tolerate one moment of playing host to the death-plague-agents of the spiritual world: immediately, the pigs ran straight into the drowning waters of the Galilee.

When the swineherds and the townspeople arrived on the scene, they found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind (Luke 8.35). The once-naked man was now clothed. The once-possessed man, whose soul had been disintegrated and fouled, was now in his right mind.

And why? Simple. He was “sitting at the feet of Jesus.” Just like Mary did in the house of Lazarus, she who “chose the better part” (Luke 10.42). Just like the Theotokos, who shows us how to pray to and stay at the feet of Jesus.

We “sit at the feet of Jesus” by being Orthodox every Sunday, every day, every week and every year. As long as we remain under the Sign of the Cross in Orthodoxy, Jesus commands every spiritual enemy to flee: “Resist the devil and he will flee you,” so says the Apostle James in his epistle (4.7). The Cross is intolerable to the Evil One.

The only kind of clothing that we are interested in here is the baptismal robe of the life of Christ that we wear in obedience and faith. It is the garment of good works and love for God and each other. It is the armor of faith and the shield of righteousness (Ephesians 6).

Then we, like the ex-madman who was let loose from his chains, are in a “right mind.” And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4.7).

All scary stories can be made happy endings in Christ Jesus.In Christ, every nightmare — even Legion — evaporates in the Sunshine of His Grace.

For Christ is the Light, and Orthodoxy is always the morning.