NOTES for Mar 9:17-31
17 And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; |
18 And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not. |
19 He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me. |
20 And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. |
21 And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. |
22 And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. |
23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. |
24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. |
25 When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. |
26 And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. |
27 But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose. |
28 And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? |
29 And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. |
30 And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it. |
31 For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. |
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In the story of the healing of the epileptic boy, the word "unbelief" is heard twice, so that it becomes a troubling refrain, simply the dominant note of the story. Jesus seems to address these words to everyone, not specifically to the boy's father, but still he is the main person on whom the whole weight of these words falls. And the father humbly acknowledges unbelief in himself, though just think how hard that must have been for him. For us, words about unbelief sound like something ordinary. We have already lived through the postmodern era with Hermann Hesse's words that faith and doubt condition one another like inhaling and exhaling, but then "unbelief" sounded frightening.
The risen Christ "rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart" (Mark 16:14). The Lord Himself equates unbelief with hardness of heart. And it is even worse than hardness of heart, because the apostle Paul asks: "What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever?" (2 Cor 6:15), that is, the faithful and the unfaithful differ as much as Christ and the devil. We must understand this and feel it in order to understand what the boy's father experienced, and what the disciples experienced, since these words were addressed to them too. For we have become used to an educated tolerance of belief, and in recent years in our country people have even begun to respect atheists in a special way, as those who have not joined the majority, the crowd, the mass.
But "if we are faithless, He remains faithful" (2 Tim 2:13). Therefore the healing takes place. These words draw attention to themselves: "And He said to them: this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." It is unclear what else they could have tried to use to drive it out. After all, Christ did not teach them medicine or magic, and everyone who heard these words understood that they had tried to drive it out by prayer. But He very simply, and in a way that allowed no objection, made them understand that not every prayer can be called prayer.
Readings for 23 January 2026
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