Step 27

Mark 9:14-29 Can't do; Can do!

About Mark: Mark's Gospel was written and circulated when the Christian movement rested in the hands of the disciples and their successors. Like other earlier incidents, encounters with people possessed with evil spirits remind us of our impotence in a "can-do" world. The frustrated inability of the disciples in this incident confirms that the real power lies with Jesus.

The remarkable signs done by the disciples in the early years of the Christian movement gave credence to their claim that the risen Jesus was with them. As they said after the first of such miracles, the healing of someone crippled from birth, "Why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power and piety we had made him walk. .... God has raised Jesus from the dead .... and by faith in him, he himself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him health in the presence of you all" (Acts 3:12-16).

Of course this is beyond the scope of Mark's present work, but the inclusion of this story allows him to make the same point.  

Bible: Mark 9:14-29, The Healing of the Boy with a Spirit

14 When they (Jesus with Peter, James and John) came to the (other) disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. 15 When the whole crowd saw him, they were immediately overcome with awe, and they ran forward to greet him. 16 He asked them, "What are you arguing about with them?" 17 Someone from the crowd answered him, "Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; 18 and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so." 19 He answered them, "You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me." 20 And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21 Jesus asked the father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. 22 It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us." 23 Jesus said to him, "If you are able! --All things can be done for the one who believes." 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out, "I believe; help my unbelief!" 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!" 26 After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, "He is dead." 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand. 28 When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" 29 He said to them, "This kind can come out only through prayer."

Comment: CAN'T DO; CAN DO!
AFTER the mountain, the valley. The disciples were depressed when they could not cast out the demons from this possessed boy (18). Earlier they had cast out demons as a matter of routine
(Mark 6:13), and the boy's father had come asking them for help.  

The sayings of Jesus within the story focus on faith. "You faithless generation (species), bring him to me!" Had Jesus discerned an insincere scepticism behind the whole encounter? There is a tone of doubt in his interchange with the father. Says the father, "... if you are able ..." (22), and Jesus retorts, "If you are able! - All things can be done for the one who believes" (23). Recognising he was a beginner in believing, the man cries out, "I believe, help my unbelief!" 

And in answering the later question of the disciples Jesus again emphasizes faith, "This kind can only come out through prayer." Earlier translations add "and fasting", which is not in the best Greek manuscripts. In Mark's Gospel, faith is an attitude which recognises that God has the controlling power over things out of our control . And prayer is the foremost way we admit our limitations and express faith in God's power. When we pray we are deliberately recognising God's controlling power over human affairs. In prayer we thank God for what we have enjoyed from his grace, and we place our concerns "into his hands" recognising the outcomes are more in his control than ours.  

This incident also reminds the disciples that power in their ministry is not automatic. There will be occasions and cases in which the success of former efforts will not be present. This kind can come out only through prayer - by the intervention of the one who has the power to deliver, Jesus himself!

Discipleship today:
By prayer we enter the realm of God's will and not ours. Prayer is not a means to get what we want, but of submitting to his sovereignty. 

 It is a healthy reminder that God is the eternal and all-powerful one. It is healthy because we so often think we control our own destinies. Decay and death eventually shatters that false illusion. But Mark is a realist, not hoping that eventual reality will be reluctantly forced upon us, but rather that we will gladly be drawn to God, that we will willingly submit to his sovereignty, and follow in faith and prayer as the natural and normal expression of our humanity in a world made by God.