Profoundly invigorated from their recent trip up the mountain, Peter, James, and John were wholly unprepared for the chaos below. It hadn’t been like this when they left. Things were a mess. The crowd gathered around their fellow disciples was agitated, murmuring among themselves, posing questions, airing concerns. Something unpleasant had happened. Obviously. Angst and confusion hung in the air. Disappointment was nearly palpable. And the scribes were there. Unfortunately. Smugly ecstatic to be present. Exacerbating the issue. Perpetuating the confusion. Vigorously arguing with the disciples. Bullying. Badgering. Backtalking. The usual bag of tricks. They always had something to say. Nothing useful. Nothing helpful. Nothing compassionate. Always something. They certainly weren’t attempting to rectify this situation. Quite the opposite. They were making it worse. Highlighting failures. Underscoring weaknesses. Doing their best to undermine the authority of the message of Jesus when Jesus Himself wasn’t present to debunk their theories. Except He was.
Unexpectedly wading into the crowd and raising his voice to be heard over the cacophony, Jesus calmly queried what had caused the intense argument. It hadn’t been like this when He left. Not that there had been peace between the disciples and the scribes. There hadn’t. There never was. The scribes were continually trying to discredit their teaching, undermine their efforts, and confute their arguments. This time was no different. Latching on to an evolving situation in the crowd, the scribes were doing their best to make Jesus’ disciples look like imbeciles. It seemed to be working. Until Jesus came.
In answer to His question, a man approached with his son in tow. His heartbreaking story poured out in a torrent of verbal anguish. As a child, an evil spirit had rendered the boy mute. Over the years, the same spirit would periodically plague him, throwing him to the ground, completely rigid. His teeth would audibly grind. Foam would come from his mouth. Sometimes it would throw him into fire or water, endangering his life. It was utterly terrifying. Worse, there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing the father could do for his son to stop those episodes of horror. He knew. He had tried everything. Nothing helped. Nothing changed. He felt helpless and hopeless. Until he heard about Jesus.
With flickering hope, the man quickly packed his knapsack, took his son by the hand, and set out in search of Jesus. Desperation filled his heart. He had to find Him. Had to ask Him. It was his final option. His only hope. Hope that he continually tempered with human reality. This might not work. Jesus might not be willing or able to help them. He might not have time to hear their story. He might not be interested. There might be too many other people who needed Him. Someone whose situation seemed more dire may steal His attention. Someone more important might push to the front of the queue. As much as he believed the accounts he had heard, believed Jesus was capable of doing what he was asking, the father curbed his expectations to limit his own disappointment in the event that Jesus said “No.”
Acknowledging that he would never know the outcome if he never asked, the man elbowed his way through the crowd. Bursting through to the center, he tugged his son forward only to be met with deflating disappointment. Jesus wasn’t there. It was only a handful of His disciples. Teetering in indecision, he started to turn away. Then he stopped. He hadn’t come all this way to give up. He had to try. For his son. For himself. For everyone who knew and loved them. Bravely stepping forward, the father asked Jesus’ disciples to help him. Implored them to cast out the evil spirit. Begged them to make the madness stop. Literally.
They tried. Really. They did try. It didn’t happen. They couldn’t make it happen. No matter what they did or said, nothing changed. The boy remained mute. The evil spirit continued to plague him. The father sat in his helplessness. His doubts doubled. If the disciples hadn’t been able to free his son, what were the chances Jesus could? Still, they had made the effort to find Him, they might as well ask Him to try. If He would. (Mark 9:14-21)
In words wrenched from a heart struggling to believe through the onslaught of doubt crowding his mind, the father stood before Jesus and pleaded, “If you can do anything. If you can do everything. If you hold all power over heaven and earth and things under the earth, surely you can find it in your heart to show compassion to a tormented boy and his anguished father.” (I Chronicles 29:11-12; Psalm 24:1-2; Mark 9:22; Matthew 19:26)
His words, intentionally or not, were offensive. And revealing. A spotlight shining into the unbelieving corridors of his own heart, making it impossible to miss his lack of faith. And Jesus noticed. Addressed the issue. Immediately. Bluntly. Necessarily. In plain speech, Jesus challenged that father to believe. For his son. For himself. Believe when things look impossible. Believe when he knew the hoped-for outcome was improbable. Believe when everything he ever believed in had failed. Believe now. Today. Because all things are possible for those who believe in the power of God to do anything, do everything, do this one thing. Right here. Right now. He simply had to believe Jesus had the power to free his son. And that He would.
Perhaps that was the rub. Believing that Jesus would do what He was able to do. We all have that problem. We believe Jesus can do things. We hope He will do them. But we anxiously hold back, wait, refuse to allow our faith to fully expand. We are cautiously optimistic yet carefully realistic. We temper our expectations by reminding ourselves that things might stay the same in spite of our tears, our cries, our prayers. That is what the desperate father’s words said. He was there asking a favor because he believed Jesus had the ability to do it, but his faith wasn’t strong enough to believe that Jesus would definitely do it. He had braced himself for the possibility that Jesus might not do anything. He was reluctantly prepared to return home the same as he came–the tired, hopeless father of a helpless son. He had to be. Because he didn’t truly believe. Not completely. His fear of rejection, of repudiation, of renunciation was too strong. It held full belief captive. And his lack of belief was standing between his son and salvation.
It was the first thing Jesus addressed. His faith. Knowing the man’s son was standing there, likely to go into another fit at any moment, desperately needing freed, Jesus took the time to talk to the father about his faith. He needed that lesson. He needed to understand the weight his faith carried with Heaven. He needed to know and believe that placing his faith in Jesus’ power and authority meant nothing was off the table. Everything was possible. Anything was possible. His son’s healing today and his needs tomorrow could all be made possible through complete confidence in the power of God. He simply had to step out in faith and fully believe. (Mark 9:23-27)
Admittedly, it is more difficult than it sounds. So often we come to Jesus swallowed up in outrageous circumstances and horrific situations with the well-intentioned, yet rather glib, words of others echoing in our heads. “Just believe.” “Have faith.” We try. Really. We do try. But it is hard. Believing in something we can’t see or feel or hardly imagine is emotionally taxing and spiritually strenuous. Blindly trusting God to work in our best interest feels like walking a tightrope across the Grand Canyon. Especially when we have to wait for things to happen. That is the hardest part. The waiting is when bad things happen. Our minds play tricks on us. We grow concerned. We question. We doubt. We look for alternative options. We forget that in the silence, in the waiting, God is working. In our situation. In us. In the time between the asking and the affirmation, God is busy doing business with our souls and building our belief in the promise that all things are possible to those who believe.
That is the lesson Jesus was trying to impress on this desperate father then and on our frazzled hearts today. Believe in God. Completely. Unrestrainedly. Hold nothing back. As you stand before him, the shattered pieces of your broken life lying around your feet, asking Him to put them back together, don’t let doubt and fear curtail your ability to fully believe and trust in the power of God. He knows you. All about you. He knows you are weak and frail and human. He knows your mind conjures up a thousand reasons He might not answer. He knows the evil one will present you with alleged evidence cautioning against full faith in His promise. He knows you feel impotent and insignificant, helpless and hopeless. Still, in the face of all that, Jesus is asking you to believe. In Him. When you have exhausted all the other options, when there is nothing else you can do, rather than do nothing, find the courage to do something. If you can do anything, find the strength to believe. (Psalm 37:5; 55:22; 103:14; Jeremiah 17:7; Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 26:3-4; Romans 8:28; I John 5:14-15; Hebrews 11:6; Matthew 11:28-30; James 1:5-8; John 6:29; Mark 11:22)