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 to 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 six days after Peter's confession of faith and Jesus' revelation to the disciples that He will suffer and die (Thursday's reading), 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?"  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."  In Scripture, sickness is often connected to demonic activity.  Perhaps what we should consider in all of Jesus' healings is the possibility that conventional medical treatment, such as it existed, either had no means or had failed to resolve the problems that are brought to Jesus, such as was, for example, explicitly the case in the story of the woman with the twelve years' blood flow (see this reading). 

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 to 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."      Jesus' question ("O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?  How long shall I bear with you?")  is directed both at the nine disciples who remained behind as He took Peter, James, and John to the mount of the Transfiguration (yesterday's reading, above) and to the crowds.  But Jesus specifically rebukes the father for placing blame on the disciples, when it was his greater lack of faith that prevented the boy's healing.  My study bible points out that Jesus effectively defends His disciples in front of the crowds (and we note there were scribes disputing with them) but later rebukes them privately, which teaches us that we should first correct people in private (Matthew 18:15-17).  This kind, my study bible says, refers to all powers of darkness, not simply those which cause a particular illness.  To banish demons requires faith, prayer, and fasting.  There is no healing and no victory in spiritual warfare without all three.

One thing that is always striking about this particular story is the malice that seems to be evident in the demonic activity of this disease.  The father tells Jesus that from childhood, "often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him."   This deliberately destructive power is reflective of the demons who left the man called Legion and into a herd of swine, causing them to rush down a cliff to their destruction (in this reading).   There is a component to the illness, at least that we read about in the story, that implies malice, a destructive power at work, and thus we get a taste of spiritual battle involved here.  The antidote to this is Jesus' compassion, invoked by the father who says, "But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us."  We are dealing with a problem, even a force, against which this father feels entirely helpless to protect his child.  Even the disciples apparently cannot help him, and Jesus affirms the difficulty when He says that only prayer and fasting could help in such a case.  The power of faith, then, becomes the central issue here, as the conversation between Jesus and the rest implies.  Jesus' rebuke, "faithless generation," and His teaching to the father, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes," put us in a place where faith becomes the potent force that relieves suffering imposed by a cruel enemy.  The father's desperate (and tearful) reply, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!" then becomes a cry of humanity struggling against what we experience materially in order to put faith and trust in the more seemingly intangible hope of Christ.   There is the battle between what we think we're told by our senses in the world and the bigger truth given to us by a God of love.  We're caught in the middle when we can't see the way forward, when we struggle with baffling suffering that seems to have no cure, no fix.  There are times when the suffering can be amended and alleviated, and there are times when we are called to face and pass through suffering as we bear a cross in faith -- but both scenaria offer us the  power of faith to transcend our own limitations through that faith, through Him.  The struggle of life -- of the cross -- becomes the struggle of this father, the place in which we find ourselves needing help with our unbelief in order to confront and resolve our own limitation.  Christ's compassion is not only the help we need, but also the guidance for helping ourselves with tools such as prayer and fasting.   Modern medicine offers us many options not available to those who were ill in Christ's time, but compassion and faith remain always necessary and the struggle ever-present.