Mark 9:14-29 (2)

Jesus invites us to bring our deepest needs to him in faith. Let me say that again. Jesus invites us to bring our deepest needs to him in faith.

Here’s what’s amazing about that. We believe that Jesus is not just a teacher who changed the trajectory of human history because he showed us how to love and care for those in need. We believe that he is the Son of God. He is the King of the Universe, ruling at the right hand of God. Before the world was even born into existence, Jesus was there. He is capable of redeeming all that is lost and restoring all that is broken.

And he invites us to bring our deepest needs to him in faith. If ever there was a cause for hope and peace, it is that.

But I’m betting many of us struggle with the act of approaching Jesus in faith. We wonder, “How do I do that? What do I need to do when I come to him? How will Jesus respond to me? Is he going to accept me? Ignore me? Chastise me?”

There is a deep insecurity that comes over us when we interact with someone who is really important, or famous, or powerful or just highly respected. We get nervous about things that we normally don’t even think about. How should I introduce myself? Should I shake their hand? What do I do with my hands? What if they don’t like me? Have you experienced this?

When I was in high school, I was obsessed with the band called Ok Go. Whenever they came to Atlanta, I went to see them. One Skit Night at Band Camp, my friends and I reenacted one of their music videos. Wow, that was perhaps the nerdiest sentences ever to come out of my mouth. Skit Night at Band Camp. Wow. Anyway, so I was obsessed with this band. Well, one night after one of their shows in Atlanta, we were waiting outside the venue, because every now and then, the band will come out after the show to meet with some fans. And this night, after about 45 minutes of waiting, they came out! And we were right there! And I remember that rush of insecurity…like “be cool, Collin. Be cool. Don’t do anything embarrassing. Do not even think of mentioning Skit Night at Band Camp...”

But have you experienced something like this? What would you do if you were to approach someone really important or powerful? What would you do if you were to approach the President, or the Queen of England, or a 5-star general? Would you approach with confidence? Would you get quiet and timid? Would you be fearful?

A couple of years ago, my nephew loved firetrucks and ambulances. Well, lucky for him, his grandpa is an EMT - so one Christmas, Grandpa Ken took little Joshua to go see the firetrucks at the local fire station, where he worked. And we all thought Joshua was going to jump with joy at the sight of these big engines - but instead, he was terrified! Here we was in front of this thing that he loved, and yet he couldn’t approach it. He was filled with fear.

There is a variety expectations and reactions to meeting influential or powerful people. In our gospel reading today, we see a man approach Jesus with his greatest need - he needed his son to be healed. This man was desperate, he was hurting and fearful. He was discouraged because nothing has worked. But he approaches Jesus with faith and in humility, and Jesus meets him in that place of need.

Now, just before this passage, Jesus is up on a mountain with three of his disciples. And on this mountain something bonkers happens. Jesus is transformed before their very eyes - his clothes become intensely white, shining with the glory of God - and two of Israel’s long-dead heroes appear next to him: Elijah and Moses. And then they heard the voice of God the Father say, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” If there was any question whether Jesus was the Messiah or that he was the Son of God, this mountain top scene certainly squelched that for his disciples.

And then they leave the mountain top, and as they come down they see this crowd of people arguing with one another. And I love this image - because it reminds us that it is not in the character of Jesus to stay up on the mountain top in the pureness of his heavenly glory. Rather, Jesus leaves that place of glory and he enters into our earthly mess. He enters into what’s going on in our lives.

So let’s look at our passage in Mark 9:14.

And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?”

So here is Jesus, coming down the mountain after this amazing confirmation of his identity as the Beloved Son of God, and he encounters this crowd of people arguing with one another. And he cuts through the noise and asks, “What’s going on here? What’s the cause of this stress and frustration?”

Now, does Jesus ask this question because wants to be brought into the loop? Because he’s interested in keeping tabs on every religious squabble? Here’s the thing about pastors. When you get a bunch of pastors together, there is always one guy or gal who wants to talk about the controversial issue of the day. Every chance they get, they want to insert themselves into those issues. Is that what Jesus is doing with this question?

Or does Jesus ask, to invite this crowd to bring whatever is going on to him?

And someone from the crowd answered him, “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.”

So we now know what the crowd is arguing about. The great controversy is that the disciples of Rabbi Jesus cannot heal this man’s son. They’ve tried and failed. You can imagine the questions. What could that mean?

But do you see what Jesus has done? Jesus has just invited this crowd to bring the issue to him, and a man has responded to that invitation. He approaches Jesus, bringing with him his greatest need - which is that his son needs healing. His son is afflicted. He is at the mercy of this evil spirit that is causing the boy to harm himself. And no one has been able to do anything for him. Not even the disciples of Jesus. And the interesting thing about that is that a few chapters ago in the story that Mark tells, Jesus specifically gave his disciples authority over evil spirits. And yet, for some reason, which we’ll get to later, they could not help this child.

So in a desperate move, the man comes to Jesus and asks for what he needs.

Now at face value, this seems to be a story about Jesus healing a boy with an unclean spirit. In fact, in my Bible, there is a heading above this passage that titles this story “Jesus Heals a Boy with an Unclean Spirit.” Now, those titles are not a part of the biblical text, they have just been added by the translators to help us find particular passages. They can be helpful, but sometimes they can distract from the primary message of a text.

Sure at face value this is a story about Jesus driving out a spirit, but it’s really a story about faith. Specifically, the faith of the man who brings his deepest need to Jesus, the faithlessness of the disciples who could not heal the boy, and the faithfulness of Jesus to meet us in our greatest need.

In verse 19, Jesus says, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “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.”

I love this interaction with Jesus. Here is the man, desperate for help. He has the courage to call out from this crowd and bring his afflicted son before Jesus, who is the only one with the power and authority to heal him, and all he can muster is, “If you can do anything…help us.” We wouldn’t call this heroic faith. It’s feeble faith. But in the words of Jesus, “Faith the size of a tiny mustard seed can move mountains.” And this man responds to the invitation and comes to Jesus in faith saying, “If you can do anything…have compassion on us.”

And just like this man, Jesus invites us to bring our needs to him in faith. But how do we do that? What does walking in faith actually look like? If we want to have a faith that can hold us no matter what’s going on in our lives: in good times and bad, when things are going well, and when, like this man, we are at the end of our rope - what does that kind of durable faith look like? What kind of faith can hold me up when I am enraged at the injustices I see in the world? What kind of faith can hold me up when I’m wrecked by my own personal failings or weighed down with life’s burdens?

In our passage we can see three pillars of that kind of faith. They are: believing in God’s power, humble honesty, and utter dependence on the Lord.

So the man has said to Jesus, “If you can do anything, please help us.” And Jesus says, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” I can’t confirm that this is what went through Jesus’ mind, but it would go through mine if I were Jesus. I would have been like, “Do you know who I am? I am the Alpha and Omega. I am the one through whom all things were made. I am the way and the truth and the life. Of course I can do something about your son!”

The first pillar of a durable faith is a belief in God’s power. It is refusing to set limitations on what can be accomplished through the power of God. Jesus wants this man who is going through the unimaginable, that there is no limit to his redeeming power.

Do we believe that God created all things? More than that, do we believe that God is actually involved in his creation? And more than that, do we believe that God is not just powerful, but he is good and merciful and compassionate? Our God who can do the unimaginable, loves us more than any earthly Father has ever loved his children. The first pillar of the kind of faith that can endure in every season of life is this belief in God’s power.

And some of us are in a place where we can say that we believe that. God can do all things. And I pray that the Lord would continue to strengthen that in you. But some us may not be in that place. And that’s okay: because the contours of faith are more than just this one pillar. And if we can’t stand on that leg, than we must rely on others.

After Jesus encourages this father that all things are possible for one who believes, in verse 24 we read: Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

And maybe this prayer resonates with your heart more. Maybe you are in a place where you pray, “Lord I want to believe that you are powerful and good, and I do believe that sometimes - but I also struggle with doubts. I struggle with fears. I struggle to believe that you can really meet my needs. And this is actually a pillar of faith. If we want to have a faith that won’t crumble under life’s burdens, we need to be honest and humble. We need to bring to the Lord our real selves, where we really are, with our doubts and fears.

Later in the story Jesus rebukes the disciples for their unbelief, but he doesn’t rebuke this man. Instead he heals the boy. Verse 25:

And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

Jesus rebukes the spirit, he rebukes the disciples, but he does not rebuke the man for his unbelief. Why? Because he has come to Jesus with a repentant heart. He has come to Jesus with humble honesty. “Lord I’m struggling to trust you. Help me trust.”

There are too few places in the church where we can question and doubt. We need spaces in our lives and in our church where we can ask the big questions that have no easy answers, where we can talk about our fears and struggles, where we can talk about the places that we don’t trust Jesus, where things don’t make sense, where we’ve actually lost our faith in the goodness of God. We need to create spaces in our church community, where we can bring those things to Jesus. He is not shocked or angered by our unbelief.

There may come a time when you struggle to believe that God is good or that Jesus can be trusted, and you lose hope. We have to create a space in the community of God where people can bring that out and lay it before God and His people, so that we can hold hope for you, when you cannot hold it for yourself.

This is what walking in faith looks like: living honestly and humbly before God. This allows us to press into God when things start falling apart. It allows us to say, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

So after the boy is healed, Jesus goes inside the house and his disciples pull him to the side and ask, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Now, the disciples were surprised that they could not help this boy because they had been given authority by Jesus to do that very thing. And they were doing it left and right in other places, so why couldn’t they do it here?

It’s because an attitude of self-confidence based on past success had settled in. This is a form of unbelief, because they began to believe that this gift from Jesus was actually in their control and could be exercised at their disposal. They had begun to trust in themselves rather than in God.

The last pillar of faith is a dependence on God. And Jesus models this for us. In John 14, Jesus tells his disciples that “ I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” Jesus is constantly acknowledging his dependence on the Father.

When we assume that the success that we’ve experienced in life, whether in ministry or in the workplace or in relationships - when we assume that we are the catalyst for that success, we will begin to rely on our independence from God rather than our dependence on the Lord. And what happens when that success dries up and we plod through a season of hardship or struggle? What happens when we experience a disappointment or loss? Our faith wanes - because we are not rooted in the Lord.

Believing in God’s power, humble honesty, and depending on the Lord produces a faith that is capable of withstanding all seasons of life. And Jesus invites us to come to him with our deepest needs in faith. To come to him with our doubts and concerns and insecurities. And he will be faithful. He will meet us in our deepest need.