Afflicted

Posted on June 19, 2008
Filed Under Spirituality, Faith, Freedom, Prayer |

I was reading the ninth chapter of Mark today and just wanted to share my random thoughts about one of the stories in that chapter. Again, they will be random, disjointed and clumsy, but still . . .

Mark 9:14-26

14When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them.

15As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.

16“What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.

17A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech.

18Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”

19“O unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”

20So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.

21Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered.

22“It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

23” ‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”

24Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

25When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

26The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.”

27But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.

I guess I, for the first time, see this from the father’s perspective. As a parent, I can’t imagine how frustrated, helpless, angry, and hopeless this man must have felt having witnessed the torment of his own son. How many nights had he cried over his son’s predicament. How often must fear have ruled his mind upon seeing his son thrashing about and in harm’s way. How he must have longed to hear his mute son’s voice laughing, singing, talking . . . How many times did he go to the temple to petition Pharisees for help . . .

I don’t know how old the boy in the story is, but certainly he has lived years enough to be able to speak were it not for his hellish affliction.

So here this guy is with his broken son going to the disciples, this unlikely group of spiritual elite, mustering up his last bit of faith (and probably overcoming the embarrassment of having any left at all) only to find them, in spite of their growing reputation as supernatural rock stars, impotent to do anything about his son’s oppression. But . . . along came Jesus.

Trying to get a handle on what’s going on and discovering his disciples failure to help the man, Jesus asks the father about the boy’s affliction. The father, after a lifetime of caring for his son, loving his son, grieving for his son, but not quite giving up on his son, finally asks Jesus to do something to help his son, if he can.

“Everything is possible for him who believes,” says Jesus.

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief,” replies the father.

And, why wouldn’t he have unbelief? He knew everything this demon had stolen from him and his family. He, better than anyone, understood the pain and suffering they endured beneath the weight of such a trial. He totally got his own powerlessness to change things. And, undoubtedly, he recalled in that moment of asking Jesus for help how past attempts had failed miserably . . . with his son’s continued seizures a constant reminder.

Jesus, as he’s prone to do when we come to him, healed the boy. But not without a little bit of drama. There was shrieking, thrashing, convulsing, and the appearance of, well, death. “He’s dead,” the crowd said. But he wasn’t. Once Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, the boy stood up to begin his life, well, over, new, different, with some hope of normalcy, and free of his former and great affliction. This boy is a picture of salvation, of new birth, of being born again. He’s a picture of all of us who have come to Jesus in need of healing, repair, hope, and rightness and who find it when Jesus has taken us by his hand.

As for the dad, for whom I have great compassion and empathy, I identify with him in the most surprising way. There have been things, habits, beliefs, and if I’m being truthful there still are things, that I have loved, cared for and strangely nurtured in spite of their apparent brokenness and handicaps, that I have and still need to bring to Jesus, lay at his feet, and say “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” The truth is, like that father, I have become so accustomed to daily living with, accommodating and even providing for some of my inherited afflictions that I scarcely believe anything can be done about them. The limited way in which I see myself in God. The well-walled dreams that I’m afraid to even voice let alone act upon. The low expectation of the promises of God as manifested in my life. These are just a few of the afflictions that I care to mention here, but trust me, there are more. Yet, this father provides me a picture of hope, a picture of the possible . . . if we but come to Jesus and say uncle.

The broken thing that we give him may convulse in rebellion and fall down as if dead, but truly, when we place our junk in his hands, he gives it new life, new purpose, new promise. I, for one, am grateful.

“But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.” Hallelujah.

Peace and Blessings,

Nic