Mark 9:14-27
Proper 19(b)
J. J.
May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable in Thy sight,
O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
“It’s unbelievable”
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our lesson starts with a curious phrase, “and when they came to the disciples.” So, who is the “they”? Just before this Jesus had gone up on a mountain with Peter, James, and John. There he was transfigured before them in glory, and Moses and Elijah appeared. Now Jesus and the three are making their way down the mountain, and joining up again with the other disciples. And so, when they came to the disciples, they found them in an argument with the scribes. The scribes, you will remember, were the ones who copied the scriptures, and they were closely associated with the Pharisees. Since they spent so much time with the scripture copying it, they also learned a lot of it, and were considered as authorities of a kind. Let us say, at the least, the scribes were opinionated.
So the crowd of people who were hanging around the disciples and the scribes see Jesus coming, and they run up to Him before He can reach the disciples. So Jesus asks tthe crowd, “What’s going on here? What is this argument about?”
And out of the crowd a man speaks up. “Teacher,” he says to Jesus. “I brought my son to you, because he has an evil spirit, so he cannot talk, and it attacks him and gives him convulsions.” But, as we know, Jesus was not there when the man first came, because Jesus was up on the mountain. “So I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they were not able to.”
“Bring him to Me.,” Jesus said. They are bringing the boy, and the spirit sees Jesus, and it causes him to have a seizure and foam at the mouth, and become rigid, and stiff. Jesus then asked the father, “How long has this been going on?” “All his life, and it tries to burn him and drown him, too. So, please, if you can do anything, have mercy on us.”
“If I can do anything?” Jesus replied. “All is possible for the One Who believes.” Thinking Jesus is talking about him, the father says, “I believe, help my unbelief.”
It sounds mixed-up doesn’t it?: “I believe, help my unbelief.” But it’s right. It’s true. The man did believe. Remember, he had brought his boy to Jesus to be healed. We see his faith in action, by what he did. He certainly wouldn’t have brought him to Jesus because he didn’t believe. So, he believed. Then Jesus isn’t there, and he lets the disciples have a go at it. Or, they might have insisted on having a spin. And although the disciples had cast out demons before, remember Mark chapter 6, Jesus sent them out, and they did miracles and cast out demons and healed many people. But now, here, today, they cannot.
When the disciples cannot do it, then the father of the boy, who had been believing, is discouraged. And because in those days the ability and inability of a disciple was a reflection on the teacher, he thought that since the disciples were not able to cast out the demon and heal his son that Jesus might not be able to, either. So when he is finally in front of Jesus, and asks Jesus to heal his boy, the father added, “if you can” to his request. “If you can, have mercy on us, and heal him.” So doubt and unbelief had overcome him.
This is why Jesus responds, “What do you mean, if I can? All things are possible to the one who believes.” The father instantly understands that Jesus had seen his doubt, his unbelief. So he cries out, “Yes I believe,” and now, instead of asking for asking for healing, the man asks for faith. “Help – heal, cure – my unbelief.”
We get it, don’t we? We get it how the man had belief and unbelief at the same time. We have had doubts, moments and times of not believing. We have been there, and not done that: not believed that is. What times? Oh, the trying times. The times when life is hard. The times when we are at odds with our spouse and we hope that the Lord will keep us together. The times when the month and the money aren’t equal, and we can neither shorten the month nor stretch the money, and we wonder not only how the Lord will provide, but whether He will. Or when we hear that report of the doctor. We believe, yes, but … Or when our loved one is not with us, and the ache and the pain, and … ?
We are believing with our heart and doubting with our mind, or believing with our mind and doubting with our heart. We get it. Belief and unbelief. And we don’t know how to fix it.
Which, you see, is the point. Some would try to tell you, and you may have heard something like this, that when Jesus said, “All is possible for the one who believes,” that Jesus was talking about the man’s faith, his believing and his doubts. And so they say, this is also about our believing and our doubts, and that what we need to do is get busy and get with it, and just believe God. Believe harder, believe deeper, or believe more. Because, they say, if we believe, all will be possible. And when it doesn’t turn out, when things don’t end well, we think, “oh, if only.” “If only we had believed, if I had believed, stronger, harder, or more.” But that is not so. That is just rubbish.
The boy’s father knows that it’s rubbish, too. He knows that it is useless for him to try that stuff – believe harder, stronger, more. He knows that he does not have the ability to believe. The only way He is going to get rid of his doubts, his unbelief, is to call to Jesus, to turn to Jesus. So he does.
Faith comes from Jesus. Paul says, in Romans, Chapter 12, unto every one God has given the measure of faith. God gives us faith. Faith is not something we create, we do, something we work up. We are unbelievable. We cannot believe on our own, just like the man. Turn in your hymnal to the Small Catechism, Third Article of the Apostles Creed, and read with me the first sentence of the explanation: What does this mean? “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my lord, or come to Him.” Likewise, in Hebrews 12, we are urged “to run the race, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Or the foundation and the finisher of our faith. Faith is a gift from Christ Jesus. And notice that Jesus does not give us faith, and then say, now go on, you do all the believing. He is both the author and the finisher. The starter and the completer. He is the perfecter of our faith because our faith is imperfect. He is repairing it, patching it, fixing it up. He is working faith in us. Oh yes, we are participating with Him in our believing, but it is not our work, but His. Just as horse pulls a wagon. The wagon must participate with the horse, but all the work if from the horse, not the wagon. Well, Pastor, if it is not our work, then why does Jesus say, “all is possible to the one who believes,” if He didn’t want the man to believe more?
Jesus is not talking about the man – the boy’s father – nor is He talking about us. What? Really, Pastor? Are you sure? I mean, I have heard this a lot. It’s important to look carefully at what Jesus says – and at what He doesn’t say. What does He say?, “All things are possible for the One Who believes.” The One Who – singular. If He had mean that to apply to us, He could have said “all who believe,” “everyone who believes,” or “whosoever believes”, like He did in John 3:16 – “whosever believeth shall have everlasting life.” But He didn’t. He said “the One who.” Well, then, who is that One? The boy’s father? You? Me? No. The One who believes is Jesus. And all things ARE possible for Him.
What then, does this mean for us? That when we find ourselves in those times of belief and unbelief like the boy’s father – and those times will come – that when we find ourselves there, that we should not fall into despair.
We should not despair about our doubts or unbelief, nor worry and struggle to overcome them. As if that all depended on us, and our strength and our doing. We need only fix our eyes on Jesus. He gave us the faith, and He is perfecting our faith. We need not despair about our ability to believe. As if our belief is the “magic spell” that makes things happen, that puts God into our control, so that God must do what we want. When you put it plainly, and call it what it is, we can see how silly such a false teaching is.
Second, we should not despair our trying situation. All is possible for Jesus, the One Who believes. That does not mean that things will be peachy keen. Was the boy healed instantly? No, look carefully. Jesus commanded the spirit to leave, and the boy looked as if he were dead, but Jesus took his hand and raised him, and he stood up.
There may be a day when we shall appear dead. The world, like the crowd, will even say we are. But we shall be only sleeping. And Christ, who gave us our faith in baptism, and who sustained us in the faith through the trials of life, will take us by the hand, and raise us up, to live in under Him in the world to come. The One Who started our faith will finish our faith. He is the One Who believes and for and in Him all things are possible.
For Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ shall come again. Amen.
S. D. G.
