9.14-32 OIA

Observations

• Who: Jesus, Peter, James, John; disciples, scribed, great crowd, man and possessed son; spirit
• When: immediately after the transfiguration, and Jesus’ teaching on Elijah, and resurrection
• Where: down from the mountain
• What: argument with the scribes; crowd’s amazement; man’s crisis with son; disciples failure to cast our demon; Jesus’ exasperation with the ‘faithless generation’; conversation with the man as the boy is in torment; Man’s confession of belief/unbelief; Jesus’ comments on faith to the man; Jesus’ comments about prayer to the disciples
• Connections: people’s amazement; conflict with scribes; possessed child, without hope, like the demoniac or Jairus’ daughter or the woman; Again like Jairus and the woman, Jesus recognized, responded to, and strengthened faith; Jesus rebukes spirit; Jesus raises the boy by the hand, like Jairus’ daughter; privately teaching disciples
• Contrasts: mountaintop transfiguration/troubled real life; belief/unbelief; spiritual inability/prayer; boy’s hopeless situation/lifted up; crowd/privately;
• Responses to Jesus:
• Amazement
• Simultaneous belief/unbelief
• Spirit obeys after a struggle
• Boy is healed
• Disciples ask about their failure, and learn about prayer

Interpretation

• This story is reminiscent of Exodus 32 and 34 where Moses comes down from Mt Sanai; the disarray of the crowds and disciples may refer to the scene in Ex 32; the amazement may refer to Moses’ glowing face and the Israelites’ amazement.
• Faithless generation: the only other reference to generation is when Jesus says that some in this generation will not taste death…. Difficult to make sense of this saying: is Jesus referring to the disciples’ failure to deal with the demon? Or with the crowd? Or both? In part I think this comment continues Jesus’ teaching about his imminent death, emphasizing to the disciples that soon he will be gone, and then what will they do when faced with an impossible ministry situation?
• Why this conversation with the father while the boy rolls about on the ground? It seems that Jesus, while intending to heal the boy, is at the same time working on the father’s faith. As in the narratives about the sick woman and Jairus, Jesus uses a crisis to develop faith. Again Jesus acts to heal even though faith is not complete or perfect, responding to and strengthing faith simultaneously.
• In a few pages Jesus will again refer to God’s ability to do the impossible: when the disciples are amazed at the difficulty of the rich entering heaven; and in the reference to even a mustard seed of faith can move mountains.
• The coming stories refer to children several times: here, recivieng like a child, reference to the disciples as children…worth watching this theme develop!
• Why Jesus’ comments on prayer, that some demons come out only after prayer? I think that here Jesus is preparing the disciples for many ministry situations they will face after Jesus leaves, situations that are beyond their ability, that are impossible for them, where they try and fail: how should they deal with this? By prayer.
• So it is worth meditation on what Jesus means by prayer. In this case it seems to be more that reciting the Lord’s prayer; it seems to refer to a lifestyle of dependence, of realizing that only God can do the impossible, and that we must rely on him in our confrontation with ministry needs beyond our abilities or experience. We, like the father, can identify: we believe; help our unbelief. 

Application

• Jesus has authority to deal with the most hopeless of human suffering.
• Jesus can use crisis to act on minimal faith, and build that faith at the same time.
• God can do the impossible; we enter into the miraculous by prayer.