Reading 26
Help my unbelief
The reading
Mark 9:14-29
Coming to the disciples, he saw a great multitude around them, and scribes questioning them. Immediately all the multitude, when they saw him, were greatly amazed, and running to him, greeted him. He asked the scribes, “What are you asking them?” One of the multitude answered, “Teacher, I brought to you my son, who has a mute spirit; and wherever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth, and wastes away. I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they weren’t able.” He answered him, “Unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me.”
They brought him to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground, wallowing and foaming at the mouth. He asked his father, “How long has it been since this has come to him?” He said, “From childhood. Often 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.” Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, “I believe. Help my unbelief!”
When 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!” After 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.” But Jesus took him by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose. When he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we cast it out?” He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing, except by prayer and fasting.”
The companions
Psalm 42:1-11 (selected)
As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence. Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me. The LORD will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life. Why are you in despair, my soul? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
Habakkuk 3:17-19
For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The LORD, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places.
The note
Notice what has just happened to this man. He brought his son to the disciples and they could not do it. So his sentence to Jesus opens with a hedge: if you can do anything.
That is not theology. That is somebody who was let down an hour ago and is protecting himself.
Jesus picks the hedge up and hands it back. Then the father says the thing, and it is two contradictory statements in one breath.
I believe. Help my unbelief. He does not resolve them. He does not pick the half that sounds better.
Nothing in the passage suggests the mixture was a problem. The boy is healed. There is no interval in which the father is sent away to sort out his doubts first.
The disciples ask afterwards why they failed, and get an answer about prayer rather than technique. Their question is still open. The healing had already happened.
This week
Write down the sentence you would actually say, hedge included. Not the acceptable version — the one with “if you can” still in it, and the doubt named out loud beside the belief. Say it once this week, exactly as written, without cleaning it up first.
The father in this passage did not resolve his contradiction before he spoke. He said both halves in one breath and got an answer anyway.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered “the LORD” in the companions.
This page is made for paper too: print it and the reading prints clean, ready for the table.