Mark 9:17-31

... in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.  Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.  Amen.  Glory to You, our God, Glory to You.

O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, You are everywhere and fill all things, Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life: come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us (three times).

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it is now, was in the beginning, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Mark 9:17-31

And one of the multitude answered and said, “Master, I have brought my son to you: for he has a dumb spirit.  Wherever[1] [the spirit] seizes him and tears him, he foams, gnashes with his teeth, and passes out.  I asked your disciples to cast out [the spirit]; but they could not….”

He answers him, and says, “O faithless[2] generation, How long shall I be with you?  How long shall I suffer you?  Bring him to me.”

They brought [the boy] to [Jesus]; as soon as He saw him[3], immediately the spirit tore him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.  So, [Jesus] asked his father, “How long ago is it since this [first] came to him?”  And he said, “Since childhood.  Often it has cast him into the fire, and into the water, to destroy him: but if you can[4] do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.”

Jesus said to him, “If you can[5] believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”[6]

Immediately the child’s father cried out, and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying to him, “You dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter into him no more.  And the spirit cried, rent him violently, came out of him, and he was [left] as one dead: insomuch that many said, “He is dead!”  But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.

Later, when He came to the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could not we cast him out?”[7]

He said to them, “This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting.”[8]

And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and He would not that any man should know it: for He taught His disciples, and said to them, “The Son of Man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill Him; and after He is killed, He shall rise the third day.”[9]

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[1] Wherever in preference to whenever, because where he fell when he passed out was of critical importance.

[2] Vocative: the crux of the problem is directed to the father, who is told that he is a member of a generation that has no faith.  This may be also obliquely directed at the disciples, who may be members of the same faithless generation.

[3] The antecedents are unclear.  Whether Jesus saw the boy or whether the boy, and hence the demon, saw Jesus is not a grave difficulty.  The incident is illustrative, so its present cause and timing is incidental to the point of the pending miracle, which is about faith, not about the demon’s particular current activity.

[4] If: the father, lacking faith does not understand the problem; he thinks he has come to a great spiritual healer, who can magically make his child well.  The father does not realize that he has come to God, Who alone is able to heal, and had he come to God sooner, he might not have endured such enduring agony.  Such is the nature of prayer: God expects us to pray; prayer is the signal indication of our genuine faith.

[5] If: a powerful play on words; the issue is not whether Jesus is able to heal; but does the father have enough faith to bother with prayer?

[6] The father does not believe.  Had he believed he would not have waited until now to bring his concern to God in prayer.

[7] Even the disciples have come to believe that this is some sort of magical power that resided with them.  They did not understand the gift of God.

[8] Jesus’ lesson is about faith.  Our society wants to make faith into something we conjure up: faith in faith.  You are not healed because your faith is not strong enough.  That almost looks like the point Jesus makes.  However, faith is not some magical talisman, a rabbit’s foot or genie’s lamp we can rub, whenever we don’t have what we think we want.  Faith involves real substance and real evidence (Hebrews 11:1-3).  What is lacking in this picture of faith is evidence and substance.  No sooner has the father asked for help that Jesus criticizes him and the generation around him for their lack of faith.

In Jewish society that would involve temple attendance three times a year, regular synagogue worship, the morning and evening prayers, fasting twice a week.  It is not that these things were to be done in drudgery, as the Pharisees did them: by regulation.  These things were the privileges of being a Jew, the response of gratitude, offered up in joy and love.  Such joy and love expressed in free and willing worship was intended to lift up the entire world to God, calling all to repentance and faith.

This incident indicates that few of this generation including the disciples and the father knew much about God’s spiritual relationship with them.  When the disciples ask, they learn that their faith is lacking in fasting and prayer.  The Jews were supposed to be experts at fasting and prayer, yet there is little evidence that they knew much about either: “This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting.”  We recall that on another occasion, the disciples had to ask Jesus how to pray (Luke 11:1).  They were anything but experts on the subject: prayer is something that priests and Pharisees do.

Jesus answer seems harsh until we realize that the Old Testament is packed full of lessons in prayer, fasting, and how to worship the Living God.  Neither the father nor the disciples had remembered why they were Jews.  Because of this, the disciples were sent out to them as “the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:6).”  The problem is that this generation wanted faith without putting any sweat into it, a sort of faith without works.  It just doesn’t work that way.

[9] We might ask, What does this have to do with the previous lesson.  Jesus uses the previous lesson as a teaching opportunity.  The defeat of Satan is accomplished by the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.  No amount of faith or works can measure up to these great accomplishments.  Our task as faithful disciples is to publish these great accomplishments by our joyous and loving worship.  That is the beginning and the ending of my Christian life in Christ.  This defines me as a person.  I am a baptized Christian, a member of the body of Christ; as a member of His body, I naturally participate in it.  That is what faith is and does.  Faith fasts and prays.  Faith enters into spiritual warfare.