It was a father’s nightmare — a nightmare that followed him into the daylight.
How many years was he made to watch this? How many years had he offered his prayers? How many years had his son battled this demon?
He felt what no father witnessing a suffering child can bear to feel: helpless.
How quickly did he set off with his son when the glorious stories first reached his ears? Even this Nazarene’s disciples possess power to exorcise demons? He tasted the heavenly dish he had gone so long without: hope.
He set off with his boy and caught Jesus’s disciples at the base of a high mountain. Jesus was not there, but any healing hands would do. The disciples began confidently. They spoke expectantly, rebuked earnestly, and ensured all onlookers that they’d done this before.
First attempt, nothing. Second attempt, nothing. Third attempt, nothing.
Failure.
Beads of sweat painted their brows. The crowd started to murmur. Scribes began to complain, then criticize. An argument broke out. The father and his son stood in the eye of the hurricane — alongside the demon.
That’s when they all saw him. The great crowd marveled and ran to greet him. A new contestant entered the arena, the disciples’ champion. What would happen next? Jesus would teach them (and us) an unforgettable lesson about faith.
Brought to the Master
“What are you arguing about with them?” Jesus asks when he arrives (Mark 9:16). Before anyone else can answer, the father can’t help but cry,
Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 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.
(Mark 9:17–18)
The Christ, having come from the heights of fellowship with his Father, Moses, and Elijah upon the Mount of Transfiguration, bemoans the sudden descent into doubt, uncertainty, and inability.
O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. (Mark 9:19)
The crowd parts, and the boy is brought forth. Upon seeing Jesus, the spirit tightens his grip. The boy convulses, falls to the ground, and rolls about, foaming at the mouth.
“How long has this been happening to him?” the Lord asks.
The father packs years of horror into a few sentences: “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us” (Mark 9:21–22).
His son is on a suicidal path, harassed by a demon. The disciples (along with everyone else) could not dislodge it. The father pleads, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
‘If You Can’
Jesus is amazing. As everyone else’s eyes are focused on everything else in this scene, Jesus fixes the camera on an unseen problem.
Our lens focuses on the desperation of a father or lowers to the dismal convulsing of his son. Some may swing the camera around to glance at the befuddled disciples, while others would capture the scowling scribes or the rapt crowds. But as a desperate dad hovers above his shuddering son, Jesus focuses the camera fully on the father’s faith.
The boy foams and shakes on the ground, the father stares pitifully upon his last hope — and Jesus responds by double-clicking on the wording of the plea. The father has let something slip. Read the petition again: “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Did you catch the issue? Jesus does immediately.
He quotes the father back to him: “‘If you can’!” (Mark 9:23).
This father, in the heat and frenzy of the moment, makes what seems like a humble request. Yet Jesus discovers it leavened with uncertainty. He detects unbelief under civility. The father blends deference with doubt, sincerity with skepticism, entreaty with incredulity. There’s a hornet’s nest beneath the flower bed.
Jesus sees it, sticks his hand in, and crushes it. He will entertain zero if you can’s. He is able. Always able. Do you believe this?
Help My Unbelief!
I, at least, am hit with the shrapnel of Jesus’s correction.
Can God do all things? Of course. But real life does not allow me to answer in the abstract or check boxes on the theology test. Generally, I believe God can do all things. But how about specifically? How about in those seemingly impossible circumstances in my own life — or, harder still, in the lives of loved ones? Have I really escaped Jesus’s reproof?
Haven’t I often given up faith’s expectancy, its optimism, its childlikeness in those places that make me wince? Those prayers I’ve grown tired of praying. Those circumstances that seem changeless. Those friends or family members who I doubt will ever know the Lord or be healed. Those relationships that feel cursed with thorns no matter how hard I try.
Young hope grows old. This father has seen things, hard things. Early prayers expected the breakthrough just around the corner, but then they grew tired, more calloused, more realistic. “I know you are able, Lord!” becomes, “If you can do anything, help us.” I know I am bringing the impossible to you, Lord, so just do your best. If you could just manage some of the symptoms, I would be grateful.
Does the father have defective faith or faith worn down?
For years he watched the foaming mouth, looked down upon the stiff boy rolling about, endured horrible moments seeing his son jumping into fire or submerging underwater. For years. His is not total unbelief, as he soon confesses (Mark 9:24). Perhaps he was calibrating his expectations to accommodate years of disappointment. Perhaps he was merely managing disillusionment. Perhaps his faith had atrophied. Perhaps he saw the length of the road stretching before him and realized that he just couldn’t keep sprinting anymore.
“If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
How Faith Thinks
Jesus is amazing. He doesn’t just retweet the father; he adds his unforgettable commentary. “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:23).
All things are possible for one who believes. In the Greek, it means: All things are possible for one who believes. Unbelief questions and then qualifies these words. It can’t seem to mean what it means. What about our experiences? What about unanswered prayer? What about my convulsing child of many years or the failed attempts by his disciples? What can Jesus mean?
He means, all things are possible for one who believes. Although not all things are guaranteed, nothing is outside of the realm of possibility for someone who believes in him and his Father — and faith thinks this way. Faith knows God is never deficient, never limited, and that any inability — wherever it is found — is never found on his side of the fence.
And this faith believes that God is not only powerful but predisposed to gladly give what we ask him in faith. All things are possible, and we can be optimistic about receiving them because ours is a God who loves to give generously. The conditional phrase — if you can — not only affronts God’s power; it ignores his good pleasure toward his people. But faith says, “He can always do it, and he is for me!”
All Things Possible
Oh, that we would repent of low thoughts of God as quickly as this father does: “Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’” (Mark 9:24).
The father goes from asking Jesus for help with his son to asking Jesus for help with himself. He follows Jesus in his redirection: from “Exorcise this demon from my son!” to “Exorcise these doubts from my heart!” He really believes; he’s come all this way and has some confidence that Jesus has cast out other demons. But he begs Christ to address the greatest issue in this scene: his lack of faith. The greatest obstacle to his son’s freedom is unbelief — not the epileptic symptoms or the demonic oppression or any lack in Christ’s power or willingness.
After the father’s repentance, Jesus meets the supernatural debilitation with supernatural deliverance, a perpetual harassment with perpetual healing: “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again” (Mark 9:25).
Have you begun to pray if you can prayers? Or have you simply stopped praying altogether? Has your heart determined that Christ can’t change this crisis? This relationship? This decades-long disaster? Doubt no more, dear saint: All things are possible for one who believes.
Desiring God