Help My Unbelief Series

Monday of 7th week in course

The encounter Jesus has with the man, the boy, the disciples and the scribes, but most importantly, with the power of evil, happens right after the transfiguration of Jesus in Mark's Gospel. The little village at the bottom of Mount Tabor is still there—a Palestinian town that serves the agricultural area and has some taxi drivers who will drive you up the mountain. The problem Jesus finds there is a lack of faith. The townspeople, driven to distraction by the seizures of this boy, are wondering why the disciples can’t drive out the demon. The disciples wonder the same thing, but Jesus has the answer. The disciples are trusting in their own power, and they don’t have any. Jesus rebukes them for their lack of faith, the faith that can connect us to God's will and His power. In the letter of James, we see that meekness, self-understanding, is needed to make that connection. So from this encounter of Jesus and the demon, and His words afterwards, we can learn something about that faith and that meekness.

Notice the prayer of the human father to Christ: have pity on us and help us. It’s a liturgical prayer. It’s something that St. Mark’s community used in their worship, at their Eucharist. It is a prayer of faith. Moreover, it is followed up with a prayer all of us should use frequently, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” Faith has two components. First, we have to admit our weakness, our helplessness. Then we have to admit that only divine power can save us. The disciples thought they could drive out the demon themselves. How silly! They had to be shown that if we can do any mighty work, it’s only because Jesus is working in us. It is His power that gives us the grace of faith, and His power that enables us to do whatever we can do to help others.

There’s one more thing to notice about this story. The boy appears to have died in the process of being healed. And Jesus, having pity and helping him, raised him from death. Sometimes the power of God works in our lives in ways we don’t appreciate at the time. I remember in my own life praying for a certain management position, and not getting it. In fact, for a while it appeared that things got worse. Years later I saw that God had saved me from a career and ministry catastrophe by keeping me from that job. Our acts of trust in Jesus must participate also in His prayer—not my will but thine, Father, be done. That prayer may be excruciating for us sometimes, as it was for Jesus in the Garden. But we are called to make it our prayer next to the suffering Jesus, and to remember that an angel was sent to Jesus to comfort Him at that time. With that kind of faith, we can experience both death and resurrection as a healing for our good, just as we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus around this altar, until He comes again.