NOTES for Mat 17:14-20

Life is brought about by the word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Whoever wants to live must listen. That is why the most important prayer of the Old Testament, which we read today, begins with the words: “Hear, O Israel.” In today’s Gospel episode, the disciples were unable to cast out the demon and give life back to the afflicted boy. Probably this was because they spoke THEIR OWN words rather than God’s. If the words we speak are to be words from God, we need a constant connection with Him, the connection that the Gospel calls faith.

The Lord Jesus Christ’s words about the power of faith cannot not astound, because we immediately understand that we are not even close to this level. But the question is: the Lord wants to tell his disciples only this? He answers their questions why couldn’t they heal the obsessed boy, and Christ’s answer concerns the whole human’s life. A Victory over the spirits of Celestial wickedness is won says the Lord, by the power of faith, prayer and fasting. So, all human’s life can be a weapon to fight against evil.

And it’s also very important for us to realize that Christ’s words to the last turn are rebuke to the disciples and us, men of little faith. On the contrary they can be incentive for a person to search faith. Faith, evidently, is God's gift, it can’t be educated, it can’t be taught, it can’t be imposed – it can only be requested. But we should first of all really wish this gift if we want to get it. And we shouldn’t think in any case that we have everything okay at this point. After all, if we really believed as the Lord wishes – we could have Remove Mountains.

The Lord Jesus Christ’s words about the power of faith cannot not astound, because we immediately understand that we are not even close to this level. But the question is: the Lord wants to tell his disciples only this? He answers their questions why couldn’t they heal the obsessed boy, and Christ’s answer concerns the whole human’s life. A Victory over the spirits of Celestial wickedness is won says the Lord, by the power of faith, prayer and fasting. So, all human’s life can be a weapon to fight against evil.

And it’s also very important for us to realize that Christ’s words to the last turn are rebuke to the disciples and us, men of little faith. On the contrary they can be incentive for a person to search faith. Faith, evidently, is God's gift, it can’t be educated, it can’t be taught, it can’t be imposed – it can only be requested. But we should first of all really wish this gift if we want to get it. And we shouldn’t think in any case that we have everything okay at this point. After all, if we really believed as the Lord wishes – we could have Remove Mountains.

Having come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, Christ again plunges into a world where the forces of darkness overpower the suffering. But those to whom He gave power to resist darkness do not cope with the ministry entrusted to them. And so the man whose son is tormented by an unclean spirit appeals directly to Christ. Of course, Christ does not leave the request unanswered and drives out the demon. But He did not choose the disciples so that they would retreat before the forces of evil.

Here, immediately after the Transfiguration, we see the contrast between what is manifested by Christ and what the apostles do, or rather cannot do, in His absence. And then we see His anger directed at the disciples.

On the pages of the Gospel we encounter more than once episodes in which Jesus' appearance looks stern. For someone whose idea of Christ was once formed by sugary pictures, the reality of the Gospel may seem inelegant. But Christ's love is not sentimentality; it is real love that takes upon itself pain for the beloved. And often cries out from pain.

Meanwhile, His remark about fasting and prayer forces us to suppose that the disciples tried to act in some other way, perhaps by some "folk" methods, or, simply put, by methods far from genuinely biblical ones. If so, the angry rebuke of the disciples for their unbelief is all the more understandable. (Note that by calling the disciples a faithless and corrupt generation, Christ almost repeated the definition He had earlier given the Pharisees: an evil and adulterous generation. Thus the disciples were likened to the Pharisees.)

But after giving them a "dressing-down," He does not send the disciples away; He continues patiently to teach them.

In this story we encounter a calamity that human strength has failed to overcome. This often happens to us. What are we to do? “Bring him to Me,” says the Saviour. The Lord shows us the way when it seems that we have exhausted every means and that nothing else can help. The disciples ask why they themselves were unable to cast out the demons. “Because you have little faith,” or “no faith,” as some manuscripts say.

This answer makes us reflect on what our own faith is and how its measure is to be taken—whether it is small or great. Recalling the Saviour's following words, “I tell you, if you had faith even the size of a mustard seed, and if you said to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ it would move,” and seeing that nothing moves at our words, we are often inclined to belittle our faith. But we must not forget the distinctive language of Jesus, full of symbols, hyperbole, and vivid poetic images. In rabbinic literature, teachers capable of interpreting the most difficult passages of Scripture were called “movers of mountains.” When we say that faith works miracles, we must also understand the “miracles” themselves in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel, not the spirit of our sinful desires.

The Resurrection is the very heart of the Good News, but it is also the news hardest for us to grasp. When the disciples heard Jesus predict His death and Resurrection, they were "deeply distressed"; they heard only the words about death, and did not understand the words about the Resurrection.

This is not surprising: death and decay form the basis of our life experience; destruction, illness, and grief reign everywhere around us. So we do not doubt that death touched Christ as well. That is easy to believe, because it touches everyone. The Resurrection is harder: we are not always able to know this reality by experience. It seems too good to be true. It entered the lives of the apostles only when they saw the risen Christ with their own eyes. It can enter our lives in the same way it entered theirs: through the Paschal encounter, by faith and love.

Did the disciples really not have faith even as small as a mustard seed, since they could not cast the demon out of the young man? But we have read that earlier they had succeeded in doing this: the Lord Himself gave them authority over unclean spirits.

Apparently, the strength of faith is not simply the degree of our confidence in one or another truth about God or the world. The Lord connects faith and prayer, that is, communion with God, into one whole. This means that the issue is not confidence, but nearness to God, inward unity with Him. It is no accident that the Lord mentions fasting: when fasting, a person draws life-giving strength not from food, but from communion with God, living by His life. Such unity is not given to us once and for all. Today we may be closer to God, tomorrow farther from Him, although this is not always determined by our subjective feelings. Therefore, what separates faith from unbelief is not doubt about God's existence, but inner closedness to Him: prayerlessness, a lack of striving toward Him.

It is not so easy to distinguish prophecy from prediction, and in response to the Lord Jesus Christ's words about the Resurrection, the disciples ask Him about Elijah's coming. After the disciples see Moses and Elijah speaking with Him at the Lord's Transfiguration, they remember Malachi's prophecy and ask the Lord Jesus their question. Perhaps the disciples understand the prophecy too literally. This is the first thing the Lord tells them, pointing out that this prophecy was fulfilled in John the Baptist, the prophet in the spirit and power of Elijah. This is how the disciples understand Christ, and this view was generally accepted in the apostolic age. Later interpreters, however, considered Christ's answer incorrect and began to insist that Elijah would come before the second coming, just as John came before the first.

But the main point in Christ's answer is something else. He shifts the conversation from what God was supposed to fulfill, and whether He fulfilled it, to how people receive His messengers. In modern terms, the problem is not whether God fulfilled Malachi's prophecy with enough precision, but that people did not recognize His messenger, did not receive his preaching, and killed him. The meaning of prophecy, then, is not literal fulfillment, but that we may become participants in the foretold work of God.

It is not so easy to distinguish prophecy from prediction, and in response to the Lord Jesus Christ's words about the Resurrection, the disciples ask Him about Elijah's coming. After the disciples see Moses and Elijah speaking with Him at the Lord's Transfiguration, they remember Malachi's prophecy and ask the Lord Jesus their question. Perhaps the disciples understand the prophecy too literally. This is the first thing the Lord tells them, pointing out that this prophecy was fulfilled in John the Baptist, the prophet in the spirit and power of Elijah. This is how the disciples understand Christ, and this view was generally accepted in the apostolic age. Later interpreters, however, considered Christ's answer incorrect and began to insist that Elijah would come before the second coming, just as John came before the first.

But the main point in Christ's answer is something else. He shifts the conversation from what God was supposed to fulfill, and whether He fulfilled it, to how people receive His messengers. In modern terms, the problem is not whether God fulfilled Malachi's prophecy with enough precision, but that people did not recognize His messenger, did not receive his preaching, and killed him. The meaning of prophecy, then, is not literal fulfillment, but that we may become participants in the foretold work of God.

“Elias truly shall first come...” This would seem to be a statement founded on knowledge of Scripture. Yet for some reason it does not enable people to recognize the coming of Elijah in the deeds of John the Baptist. Apparently the issue is that there are different kinds of knowledge of Scripture: knowledge according to the letter and knowledge according to the spirit.

It is noteworthy that Satan also quoted Scripture when he tempted the Savior. “The devils also believe” (James 2:19). This means that demons too can profess everything a good person professes. Yet there is some essential difference. It is immeasurably important for all of us to grasp what that difference is and understand it truly and deeply. For one of our most painful experiences is to encounter people among our brothers and sisters in faith who are in fact terrifying.

If Elijah and John are compared according to the letter, they may indeed seem to be two completely different people. Elijah kills pagan priests; Elijah is all storm and fire. We need only recall how Jesus' disciples James and John ask Him whether, like Elijah, they may call down fire to destroy the ungodly (Luke 9:52-56). John the Baptist, although he certainly speaks stern words of rebuke, nevertheless washes everyone who comes to him. This means that he grants forgiveness and acts through mercy, not violence. These two men would seem to be complete opposites. And yet Christ says that Elijah comes in John...

But consider the spirit of these two men. Clearly they are related and brought infinitely close by their very prophetic nature, with all its anguish over betrayal of God. Something else also unites them: both are human beings, no strangers to the torment of doubt. Elijah asks to die (1 Kings 19:4), while John too, awaiting death, suffers the agony of despair and doubt. If Jesus is not the One, then he must fight for his life, arrange an escape, and so on; if He is the One, then John must accept death. In essence, it is the same question of life and death.

It is noteworthy what Elijah says when he asks to die: “Take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” Such humility may be compared with the humility that moves John when he says, “whose shoes I am not worthy to bear” (Matt. 3:11). The self-understanding of both prophets can be joined in a single formula: “I am only human.”