Scripture Daily

Context No. 1164 of 4322 · Mark

Context · Reflection

Mark 9:22-27: in context

22Often it has cast him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” 24Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, “I believe. Help my unbelief!” 25When Jesus saw that a multitude came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!” 26After crying out and convulsing him greatly, it came out of him. The boy became like one dead, so much that most of them said, “He is dead.” 27But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him up; and he arose.

The desperate father of the boy with the destructive spirit makes his plea: it has often thrown him into fire and water to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have compassion and help us. Jesus catches the hesitant phrase and turns it back: if you can? All things are possible for one who believes. And the father cries out, at once, with tears: I believe; help my unbelief. Jesus rebukes the spirit, commands it out, and after a violent convulsion that leaves the boy looking dead, takes him by the hand and raises him up.

The heart of this scene is the father's raw, honest cry: I believe; help my unbelief. He does not claim a confident, settled faith; he admits that faith and doubt are tangled together in him at the same moment. He believes, really, and he also does not quite believe, and rather than pretend one or the other, he brings the whole mixed thing to Jesus and asks Jesus to help even with the unbelief. That is one of the honest prayers in scripture, and one of the reassuring, because it shows that Jesus does not require a pure, doubt-free faith before he acts. The father's faith was real but shaky, mixed with doubt, and it was enough; Jesus healed the boy. Faith does not have to be flawless to be genuine; it can be a struggling, half-doubting thing that still turns to Christ and cries help. And notice that even the man's ability to believe is something he asks Jesus to give: help my unbelief, treat my very doubt, work faith in me where it is lacking. The honest admission of weak faith, brought to Jesus, is itself a kind of faith, and it is the kind he answers.

Can I pray the father's honest prayer, I believe, help my unbelief, bringing my mixed and struggling faith to Jesus rather than pretending it is stronger than it is?

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