MARK 9:22-32 healing concluded
R E LANGFORD JR
For some reason, unknown to me, I cannot enter the chat room today. I've been trying, off and on, for over a 1/2 hour. Ah well! Here are the notes I prepared to help remind me of what I wished to write. I hope they prove helpful, or of some use to someone.
Blessings,
RELjr
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Let us pray:
O LORD God our
Father, your wisdom sets in order all things in heaven and in earth: By your
grace and mercy put away for us all things hurtful to us, and especially those
thoughts, words, and deed which hinder our ability to grasp and hold, firm in
faith, the good news that Mark the evangelist seeks to help us learn; grant that
we may receive those things the Holy Spirit considers beneficial for us. We ask
this through our LORD Messiah Jesus, your son, who lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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Our bible
study for today concludes the passage on healing begun last week. MARK 9:22-32 =
22
“The
spirit has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do
anything, take pity on us. Please help us.”
23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is
possible for the one who believes.” 24 Right
away the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe! Help me overcome my
unbelief!”
25 Jesus saw that a crowd was running over to see what was happening. Then he ordered the evil spirit to leave the boy. “You spirit that makes him unable to hear and speak!” he said. “I command you, come out of him. Never enter him again.” 26 The spirit screamed. It shook the boy wildly. Then it came out of him. The boy looked so lifeless that many people said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand. He lifted the boy to his feet, and the boy stood up.
28 Jesus went indoors. Then his disciples asked him in private, “Why couldn’t we drive out the evil spirit?” 29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”
30
They
left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know
where they were. 31 That was because he was teaching his
disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to
be handed over to men. They will kill him. After three days he will rise from
the dead.” 32 But they
didn’t understand what he meant. And they were afraid to ask him about it.
[NIRV]
A truly intriguing message is included at the opening of this
fragment of the healing cameo. The “if you can do anything” comment is the clue,
what the spirit that possesses the son in varied attempts to kill him becomes a
side issue. In that sense the entire action in the periscope is rather like a
“set up” for what Mark the evangelist would have us comprehend about who Jesus
is, and what his attitude is toward those who ask for help. Let us take this
jewel of clear teaching ad
seriatim.
MARK 9:22 = 22 “The spirit has often thrown him
into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us.
Please help us.” Notice that the father of the spirit troubled son does not
appeal only for the young fellow. He says, “take pity on us.” In the plural.
Then as a kind of doubling for emphasis he again uses the plural, “Please help
us.” From this episode I take it that any persons interceding for another human
ought carefully and self-critically include themselves in the request for aid.
The Savior seems to recognize this willing subordination of the father in his
request. In any case, Jesus immediately picks up on the ability of the father to
credit just who it is that he is asking for help.
MARK 9:23 = 23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for the one who believes.” It’s as if Mark the evangelist wants to pound home a point already made. Jesus is the God who promised to come and set right everything warped, twisted, and corrupt by the sin of Adam. It’s as if Jesus said, in today’s manner of speaking, “If I can, you ask? Who do you think is standing here in front of you? There is nothing I cannot do, there is nothing I will not do, for those who ask respectfully in confidence that I will act on their behalf, because I put my trust in God.” More than that, Jesus says plainly that everything is possible for someone who has his or her faith anchored in his Father in heaven. We can almost guess the father’s now famous response.
MARK
9:24 = 24 Right away the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe! Help
me overcome my unbelief!” “Right away” = another of Mark’s “immediately”
connectives, as he hustles us along toward the end of his tale. The boy’s father
is an astute believer, imo.
He knows that faith and the lack of faith are intertwined. Belief, for us
sin-filthy, corrupt humans, is never clear, pure, undiluted, clean, and firm.
Belief is always mixed with unbelief! The father in this cameo is sharp enough
to know that the issue is not whether or not Jesus had the compassion and
capability to heal his son. No, for the father the question at issue is whether
or not he, himself, has the necessary modicum of confidence in Jesus. Such a
person will set no limits on what God can do. And, my dear fellow students and
friends, once again MARK gives us a glimpse of the God who hides himself in the
flesh and blood of our Savior, the Messiah Jesus. Faith is never perfect; faith
is always adulterated by an admixture of un-trusting. As the translators of NIRV
put it: I do believe! Help me overcome my unbelief!
Our RCC friends have quite sensibly,
imo,
sometimes intruded this remark into the celebration of the Lord’s Supper or
Mass. It seems to me to make wonderful good sense at the precise spot in the
action where it is placed. That’s rather a side issue, however, for it does not
help us get at what MARK seeks to tell us, rather it only tells us how MARK
continues to inform our prayers and practices about two millennia
later.
MARK 9:25 = “You spirit that makes him unable to hear and speak!” he said. “I command you, come out of him. Never enter him again.” My own temptation would be to put commas around the word “spirit” in this verse. What’s important is not our modern diacritical marks that help us comprehend the original Greek, but two distinct points. #1. Jesus speaks directly to the spirit, and characterizes it in terms of its effect on the boy. We learned in verse 17 that the fellow cannot speak when possessed by the spirit, but suddenly we learn from Jesus himself that the boy cannot hear, for the same reason. #2. Jesus does not in this instance, as in many others, need to know the name of the troublesome spirit. He appears to recognize the spirit, and that is more than enough for him to address it with a precise command. “…come out of him,” is the first part of the command, and the second portion of the command is the death of the formerly enfleshed spirit, “Never enter him again.”
MARK 9:26 = 26 The spirit screamed. It shook the boy wildly. Then it came out of him. The boy looked so lifeless that many people said, “He’s dead.” Another translation says the boy looked like a corpse. So what’s the dynamic here? The spirit hears the “word of command” of God, as voiced by Jesus the Messiah, and knows it cannot help but obey. It screams. Does that mean that the boy screamed? I do not believe we can infer that, since MARK doesn’t tell us. Leave it that the witnesses present knew, how I cannot guess, that the spirit screamed. Then the spirit shakes the boy about wildly. Finally, it leaves. What’s the result? Jesus as a healer, if we did not know better, is like the notorious doctor who performs some surgery which is successful, but the patient died on the operating table. The boy looked so lifeless that many people said, “He’s dead.” In fact, God’s verdict resulted in the death of the spirit.
MARK 9:27 = 27 But Jesus took him by the hand. He lifted the boy to his feet, and the boy stood up. If the boy were actually, really and truly dead, then this counts as a tale parallel to that of the young man, son of a widow in Nain, who is raised to life by Jesus. It’s important not to read into the tale more than MARK tells us if we are to learn what Mark the evangelist has to teach. What’s the dynamic here? The boy is so lifeless that on-lookers comment, “He’s dead.” Jesus ignores such comments. He also ignores the prohibition about touching corpse, which is by definition unclean. Jesus takes the lifeless boy by the hand, lifts him to his fee, and the boy stands! This concludes the action of the healing of the boy and his father. It also ends the interaction of Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, with the crowd that included some who were arguing with The Twelve’s remnant.
Now begins a commentary on what happened in this periscope. MARK tells about what happened privately.
MARK 9:28 = 28 Jesus went indoors. Then his disciples asked him in private, “Why couldn’t we drive out the evil spirit?” An older translation, closer to the literal original has it: 27 And when he was come into the house, his disciples secretly asked him: Why could not we cast him out? [Douay-Rheims] I admit I prefer the older version because it highlights two features the modern translation glazes over. #1. “…into the house” has overtones of more than privacy. It includes overtones of being in the “house of the Lord.” I understand that to mean that a worshipful mood had overcome The Twelve; prayer, praise, adoration, and thanksgiving, all appropriate for witnesses to what just happened. #2. “…secretly” is far more descriptive than mere privacy. Our God is a God who likes to hide himself; as Dr. Luther writes, he is a deus absconditus. In verse 18 we had learned that the father of the spirit-possessed boy had asked the disciples to heal his boy, but they could not. Their question, privately and secretly, to Jesus was howcome?
MARK 9:29 = 29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by
prayer.” Prayer is something we, as baptized, believing, disciples of the Savior
do as a response to what God is doing. As such, it becomes a prime means of
exercising faith, a gift of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is not something God does as
a sacrament “for us,” rather we revise, get ourselves in line, and become
stronger in trust and confidence through our perfection of the faith that the
Holy Spirit creates in us. I think the disciples’ confusion arises because, in
good conscience, they tried to help the troubled boy, and never doubted their
ability to do what Jesus had suggested they do. It does appear, however, that
they simply bulled their way into the effort to heal, like the proverbial bull
in a china shop, and did not make a serious, conscious effort at prayer to God
as they did the healing which, of course, failed. Had they focused on their
faith in Jesus, or God the Father, betcha they’d have been successful, again
because Jesus tells us the boy was deaf. Their prayer would have exercised the
faith they’d been given, the power would have been fully potent or effective,
and have worked through their prayer. Care must be taken here, else one may get
the idea that “faith-healers” are correct in blaming their failures on a lack of
faith in the recipient of the blessings they seek to impose. The lack of faith,
I put it to you, is by Jesus’ own words inherent in the behavior of his
disciples. Their actions were defective!
Beginning at the subject of Jesus’ remark,
“this kind” seems to hint that there are a variety of kinds of spirits. There is
no hint that this is an evil spirit, nor that it is a matter of clean vs unclean
(in a societal sense) spirits. I suggest that the difference is that this kind
of spirit is one of a structural sort, especially as, prior to Jesus saying so,
no one noticed and MARK had not mentioned the boy’s lack of
hearing.
MARK 9:30 = 30 They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were. “They” means Jesus and The Twelve. They did not stop until they had passed through Galilee. MARK makes the point that Jesus wished privacy for all of them, together.
MARK 9:31 = 31 That was because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be handed over to men. They will kill him. After three days he will rise from the dead.” MARK “double taps” this point by saying explicitly that he was teaching The Twelve. Jesus’ ministry to the general region of Galilee is finished, and he is focused on teaching The Twelve as he rushes toward Jerusalem and the culmination of his mission. He has already discussed this (or something similar) with Elijah and Moses. Some few folks have wondered if the so-called Messianic Secret was the core of this teaching. I judge that they are correct. In what brief summary MARK provides, we find an outline of the Messianic Secret set out boldly. The ancient creeds of the church follow this same outline seen in MARK, I remind you, the earliest of the gospel tales. A second clue to the fact that Jesus prefers the title “Son of Man” (Cf. DANIEL 713ff) is here presented in a comment about what happens to the person The Twelve have admitted they consider to be the Messiah of God, even if such a one different from the one they hope for and expect. One might write the apocalypse was happening right under their noses, and they were missing it.
meant. And they were afraid to ask him about it.
This is a reflection and amplification of what was the experience of the “ring leaders” as they came down the mountainside. Even bold and brassy Peter didn’t know what to say on the mountaintop, so, commanded not to talk about what happened, the ring leaders are unable to ameliorate the lack of understanding, or enhance the lack of understanding either, as experienced by The Twelve. Just as a guess, I suggest that coming to faith in Jesus as Messiah (of the sort God chose) and as son of God (in distinction from the kind Caesar was) for them meant each one individually and as a group together needed to pass through the fiery gift of faith by the Holy Spirit. So ends our periscope, the healing cameo is concluded.
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I urge you to read again the Gospel according to Saint Mark. At least read again chapters eight and nine as preparation for our next pericope: MARK 9:33-37. This is a short but important insight about the way the in-breaking kingdom of God functions in earth as in heaven. Specifically, I think it says something to us about the way the institution of the church, the Una Sancta, is to be arranged in terms of leadership. More on that issue next time, yes?
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Let us pray:
Blessed LORD Messiah Jesus, you have caused MARK to be written for our learning and practices of an exercised faith in you: Grant that we may so hear this holy gospel, read, mark, learn, and take it’s substance and spirit to heart that, by the patience and comfort of your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of eternal life with you. We ask this in your name and for your sake, O our Savior God. Amen.
It's also a mess how ECUNET mucks up the quoining and spaces. Why these rascally machines cannot recognize and maintain the type faces and spacing I cannot guess! By the way, some idiot invented spelling programme continually changes my perfectly good word "pericope" meaning cut out snippet of a bible passage into a different word I did not write, "periscope." I pray you can tolerate the nonsense that is created! Curse the spell programmer who change what is written without asking permission!
The Rev'd R E LANGFORD JR, FAPC, ELCA pastor ! retired !
39.58°N by 75.98°W
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