Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!

 And when He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them.  Immediately, when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to Him, greeted Him.  And He asked the scribes, "What are you discussing with them?"  Then one of the crowd answered and said, "Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit.  And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid.  So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not."  He answered him and said, "O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?  How long shall I bear with you?  Bring him to Me."  Then they brought him to Him.  And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.  So He asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?"  And he said, "From childhood.  And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.  But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us."  Jesus said too him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."  Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"  When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!"  Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him.  And he became as one dead, so that many said, "He is dead."  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.  And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?"  So He said to them, "This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting."

- Mark 9:14-29

Yesterday we read that following Peter's confession that Jesus is Christ, and Jesus' revelation that He would suffer on the Cross, after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them.  His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them.  And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.  Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles:  one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" -- because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid.  And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son.  Hear Him!"  Suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves.  Now as they came down from the mountain, He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead.  So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant.  And they asked Him, saying, "Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"  Then He answered and told them, "Indeed, Elijah is coming first and restores all things.  And how is it written concerning the Son of Man, that He must suffer many things and be treated with contempt?  But I say to you that Elijah has also come, and they did to him whatever they wished, as it is written of him."

And when He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them.  Immediately, when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to Him, greeted Him.  And He asked the scribes, "What are you discussing with them?"   The first thing we note is Jesus' attitude as He comes upon this scenario.  We remember He has just come from the Mount of Transfiguration (see yesterday's reading, above).  As He comes upon this scene, and sees the scribes disputing with His disciples, He does not question His disciples in front of the crowd.  Rather, He stands in for them, asking the scribes, "What are you discussing with them?"  This is Christ's leadership.

Then one of the crowd answered and said, "Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit.  And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid.  So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not."  He answered him and said, "O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?  How long shall I bear with you?  Bring him to Me."   Here Christ effectively points out the faithlessness of the man.  Although the disciples' faith was also weak, the greater lack of faith is in this man, and effectively, most likely in the crowds and the scribes who are already part of the chorus of criticism and doubt of Jesus.  What we're seeing is Jesus' defense of His disciples in front of the multitudes, although in private they receive a rebuke of their faith, as Matthew's gospel tells us in more detail (Matthew 17:19-21).  My study bible says that Jesus' attitude teaches us that we must correct people in private (see Matthew 18:15-17).  In Scripture, sickness is often connected to demonic activity.

Then they brought him to Him.  And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.  So He asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?"  And he said, "From childhood.  And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.  But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us."  Jesus said too him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."  Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"  When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!"  Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him.  And he became as one dead, so that many said, "He is dead."  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.  There are a couple of things to note here.  First of all is the destructiveness of the spirit.  The Scripture gives us the understanding of the destruction to innocent life (this boy) that is the effect of the demonic.  We note also the helplessness of the boy and his father.  When the father asks for Jesus' compassion, Jesus responds first with a word about faith.  The father's cry in response, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" is perhaps something we can all pray, and it emphasizes the importance of faith.  That Jesus heals the boy as the people come running together also indicates to us that He speaks to the man away from the faithless crowd in order to effect a healing.  That one of the crowd pronounces the boy dead (as in the healing of Jairus' daughter) teaches us once again about the perspective of the crowd.

And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?"  So He said to them, "This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting."  In private, Jesus corrects the disciples.  My study bible says that this kind refers to all powers of darkness, not only those that cause a particular illness.  The banishment of evil or the demonic requires faith, prayer, and fasting.  My study bible notes that there is no healing and no victory in spiritual warfare without all three.  Beginning with the Didache (the earliest Christian teaching document), it says, the Fathers have taught that both the person in need of healing and the person performing the healing must believe, pray, and fast.  We note that prayer and fasting are aspects of practice that shores up faith.

Again, Mark's gospel emphasizes faith and its central importance to our lives.  As we've seen, this has been repeatedly emphasized through the Gospel.  So what is faith exactly?  Faith, as has been discussed repeatedly in this blog, is akin to trust.  The word in Greek also means trust, it is the root of the concept of faith.  Trust implies faith in something.  This is not a blind trust in one's fortune, nor the cosmos as a kind of generalized reality, nor in a kind of fate.  This is trust in a Person.  It is trust in Christ.  And where Christ is, there is the Father and the Spirit.  There are the hosts of angels of the realm of heaven who are also present with us.  There is the communion of saints.  There is, in short, the kingdom of God - the whole of this spiritual reality He is here to bring in to the world, to bring close to us.  In Mark's first chapter, John the Baptist announces the good news:  "The kingdom of God has come near" (Mark 1:15).  Trust involves the heart, the fullness of a person.  It's not just an intellectual matter of judging a doctrine to be sound.  Rather it is a kind of perception that comes from a connection between persons.   It is linked to love.  As discussed in yesterday's commentary, this depth gives us a sense of participation, of communion, of union.   It is a kind of experiential understanding, something that moves us within. It is, in some sense, linked to the compassion that the man asks from Jesus.  Faith must be present for the compassion to effect a healing, to make a kind of connection that will work, that will energize in the language of the Gospel in its Greek original.  The word for compassion in the Gospels has at its root the Greek word for spleen; it is effectively to be moved in one's inward parts.  We can see how that is linked to the heart -- an even deeper center of perception, the place where faith really takes root and must be nurtured.  We understand the practice of guarding the heart:  watching our thoughts, what we choose to ally with in life, what we nurture within ourselves.  Jesus speaks of the kind of faith that requires also prayer and fasting in order to do this kind of spiritual battle in our inward-most heart.  Prayer and fasting are faith practices that teach us about true discipline; with God's help shoring up faith and keeping ourselves on that path of the struggle for faith.  We have strong help, but we also come to God in ways that allow God to work in us.  A friend of mine who is a priest in the Armenian Apostolic Church puts priority on prayer in his extremely busy schedule by prioritizing time for a very important meeting:  time for prayer.  That is just as we see Jesus do Himself:  His ministry is punctuated by the times He goes alone to pray.  If Jesus Himself sets the example for us, who are we to say we don't need it all the more?   Let us remember the discipline to which He calls us, so that He may be at work in us and in our lives.  There is no time like the present to pray, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"