Mark 9:14-29
Today the Word of God that engages us is from Mark chapter 9. In the middle of these verses is one God-Inspired phrase that has been a real help to me on my own journey of faith. Words spoken first by a man who had the courage to be truly honest with himself, and honest with God. Stripped of all pretense, or piety, or posturing he speaks so plainly, “I believe, help my unbelief!” This is real, raw, gut wrenching truth, and it speaks to life in a real, raw, and gut wrenching world.
The statement itself is loaded with tension. There is present in this man faith and unbelief. But he doesn’t hide it. And I’m glad that he doesn’t. Because don’t we all live with this kind of tension in our lives? We live as those who have the saving blood of Jesus poured out for us, and giving us the promise of forgiveness, life and salvation. And yet, don’t we still live with the daily struggle against sin? Don’t we still live in a very real world full of very real disappointments, and failures, and temptations? The truth is, in this world, we don’t always win.
What I love about the account of Jesus healing this boy is WHERE we find it in Scripture. You have to understand that each of the Gospels is organized a little differently. One Gospel may have a very chronological approach, while another is grouped according to different themes. Sometimes there is a regional focus, or an emphasis on either reaching Gentiles or Jews. But in each of the first three Gospels, this story is found in the exact same place.
It’s important that we understand that this account is always found immediately following the Transfiguration of Christ. Why does this matter? Well, the Transfiguration of Jesus is where we are transported, along with Peter, James, and John to witness a sneak peak, a preview of the heavenly reality that is waiting for those who have been redeemed by Christ’s grace. And it is an awesome sight. Jesus is physically changed. He still has a physical body, but it is different, glorified, shining whiter than anything known to man. And on top of that, Moses, and Elijah are by his side in glory as well.
It is such an awesome sight that Peter doesn’t want the experience to end, and graciously offers to build tents for them all to live in on that mountain. It’s the very picture of the other-worldly, and we don’t want to leave, even as we just read about it. But here’s the deal. At the VERY TIME that all this is going on, something very different is happening to the 9 guys who didn’t go with Jesus up that hill. It wasn’t other-worldly, it wasn’t heavenly. It was harsh reality, the dregs of living life in this world, and experience drenched not in longing to stay, but rather in strife, and disappointment..
The men walked down the mountain of Transfiguration, “And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them.” A heated argument is raging all because a man brought his boy to be healed of a demon possession, but the disciples were unable to help. So the scribes rushed in to take advantage of the situation, to make the disciples look silly, and trivial in front of this big crowd. It had to be a truly crass scene.
Grown men, holy men, shouting at one another. Men throwing theological arguments back and forth, all the while, one man in the crowd can hardly watch. You see, his heart had been broken once again. He knew the feeling well. But yet it never seemed to make it less raw and dark, no matter how familiar he had become with the disappointment after so many years. If he were just fighting to help himself, and for his own problems, he would have given up years ago. But he wasn’t fighting for himself, he was fighting for his son, trying to help his boy. He would allow himself to get his hopes up, knowing that more than likely they would be dashed, because his son needed him to, so he would always try one more time.
But so far, nothing had worked. So far, he had no reason to have faith that anything could work. It’s not that people didn’t want to help, it’s that no one knew how. His son’s problems weren’t normal. He had demonic, epileptic like fits. They were malicious in nature and on more than one occasion, this father had seen this messenger of hell try to kill his son from the inside. We read some verse from the lesson. Listen and imagine how devastating this must have been for this dad:
And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 19 And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20 And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him.
It only makes sense that this man had a bruised faith. His faith had a fresh wound on it when Jesus comes because he had gone with hope to the disciples, who like the others failed to make any kind of difference at all. The evil spirit still gripped the boy as tightly as ever. It takes courage for him to even ask Jesus to help, and in his pain, you can see why his request of Jesus starts to guardedly: “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” If you can…
Jesus responds to the heart of the matter in the next verse: And Jesus said to him, ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” He says, the question isn’t about what I CAN do, the question is, “do you believe?” He doesn’t say this to be mean, or to challenge the man. Jesus says this because he knows what it will bring out of the man is something beautiful. A powerful confession of sin and a wonderful confession of faith. Both being exactly what this man so desperately needs.
Desperation is the right word. The years of emotion well up from deep inside; all of the hopes that fell down so hard, all of the nights of being too worried to sleep, all of the helplessness, and tears, are forced to the surface, through his vocal chords, and come crashing out of his mouth: Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
It was the only thing he could say. It was all he had left in him to say, all that was left of his battered faith. All he had left laid bare, unadorned, unrestrained, in just a handful of words, “I believe, help my unbelief!”
But where this man was weak, he found that Jesus was strong. That Jesus still heard his cry, and responded to weakness of faith in strength of love: And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And 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.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
In the end, we see what really matters. What matters is that Christ is strong, not us. What matters is what God can do, not us. What matters is sometimes only seen when we come to realize that we can’t help ourselves, that we aren’t as in control as we thought, or a good, or strong, or as able as we had imagined.
Where are you today? To what corners of your life does your mind wander when you hear those words, “I believe, help my unbelief?” I ask you this because I happen to know something about you. You’ve had doubts. You’ve had hopes built up and then smashed. You’ve wondered at times if God even hears you when you call on him. How do I know? Because I’ve been there too. How do I know? Because you are real people, you live life in this real world, and you’ve experienced real pain, and real fear, and real heartache.
This man’s simple words strike us so deeply because they are our words. They are honest words, they are real words, the words we’d like to shout ourselves, but are maybe to afraid what others might think. (If I were Baptist, I would say, Can I get an AMEN!) The questions swirl in our minds, It is really OK that pastor is talking this way? It is really OK to admit that I have doubts? Is it really OK to say I need help with my faith? It is it really OK to be completely transparent about my struggles. The answer is YES!
This is life, and this is what the journey of faith looks like sometimes. I would love it if the path of the life of faith looked like you were baptized and launched out of a cannon in a straight line, and straight up to heaven. How great would that be! But that’s not how it goes for any of us. Look at the Bible and you will see how true this is. The people of Israel had a very jagged footpath of faith. They pleased God, then turned from him, and then were led by the Spirit to turn back to God and were restored, and then the did it all over again, and again, and again.
The same King David who wrote the first verse of Psalm 118, “Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Is the very same King David who wrote 108 chapters earlier, “Why, O Lord do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” He really struggled with faith sometimes, DAVID! He had questions, he was honest, and real, but he kept struggling, and kept asking, and kept seeking God.
Even the disciples in our Gospel reading had a hard time with their faith. They had been bold witnesses for Christ, they had seen him perform many miracles, they had walked with the master at this point for almost 3 years. And yet their understanding, and their faith languished and they couldn’t drive out the demons in this little boy.
This is what the real journey of faith looks like sometimes. Sorry, but it’s true. Actually, I’m not sorry. Not sorry at all. Because something important happens in these dark moments. In these dark places, in these shadowy corners of our hearts we come to an important realization: That faith can’t be all about us. We have to fix our eyes on something greater, on someone greater, we have to look up. As King David wrote in Psalm 121: “I lift my eye to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
Help, faith, salvation. These things aren’t rooted inside of us. They are gifts given to us from our God. They are gifts rooted in our rescuer, our Messiah, our Savior. They are gifts found in the bloody soaked sacrifice on the cross for our sins, they are found in the empty grave clothes that once wrapped the body of the killed Christ now risen. If you feel that all you have to offer God is a bruised, and battered, and beaten faith. It doesn’t affect at all, what he has to offer you. It doesn’t matter if you feel that you are on the edge of your faith. It doesn’t matter if you struggle with deep doubts. It doesn’t matter if you have doubts about how long you can hold onto your faith in the storm.
Because Christ will NEVER let go of you. Christ never has doubts about you. He never has questions about what you’re worth to Him. He knew what it would cost to make you his. He knew the price he would have to pay. He knew how far you’d wander from Him, he knew how much you would sin, he knew how much it would hurt. But he also knew he didn’t want to live without you. So he made your salvation real. As real as two wooden beams that made a cruel cross. As real as a cold stone tomb, a place of darkness and death, that he would turn into a symbol of light and life for you.
And he hears you, he knows you, he loves you. Even in those moments when all you can say is what that man said so many years ago, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” Understand that even this is amazing. Even this is a gift from God. Even this is a blessing. Even this is a confession of faith.
It takes courage to be that honest. To say out loud that things aren’t perfect, that my faith isn’t perfect, that I need God to intervene in my life, even now. Can you say those words? Can let down your guard? Can you trust that the cross is enough for you? Can you look past yourself to find comfort in the empty tomb, in what Christ has done for you? Let’s say it together: “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!”
Christ’s response is always the same. “I know, I love you, You belong to me.”
AMEN
