Do you remember the story of Moses receiving the law on Mt. Sinai? I was always amazed by that story for a couple of reasons: 1. The whole interaction between Moses and God is mindboggling. The mountain is lit up, Moses is engulfed in the clouds with God, the people tremble, Moses doesn’t eat or drink, and he gets the stone tablets. It’s awesome! 2. The people make a golden calf. I mean, seriously!? You got God meeting Moses on the mountain beside you, and this is how you respond when you get impatient? I never understood it. As you know, Moses is furious when he comes down and sees this.
I imagine that Jesus felt the same when he came down from the Mount of Transfiguration. He meets a faithless crowd and some little-faith disciples, just moments after his Father in Heaven met him on a mountain and reaffirmed all that he has been doing and is going to do (the cross).
Look at the story in Matthew 17:14-18:
14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
17 “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.
The situation is pretty simple. There was a crowd, like always by this point in the life of Jesus. A guy in that crowd has a son who is demon possessed. Some people get all worked up about this passage because of the connection between the boy’s physical ailments (sounds like epilepsy) and the demon. They wonder if all physical disease is caused by demonic activity, but I don’t think that’s what is going on here. Notice the destructive nature of this demon. It not only causes seizures, but throws the boy into fire and water. This is more than convulsions.
The disease isn’t the problem in the passage, though. It’s the lack of faith. This guy rightly expected the disciples to heal the boy, because they had done this before (Matthew 10). But they fail. So, Jesus calls everybody out. He calls the crowds “unbelieving” (faithless) and “perverse” (misunderstanding). They don’t believe in Jesus and they don’t understand who he is. Nevertheless, Jesus heals the boy and reverses the destruction of the demon.
This perplexes the disciples. Matthew 17:19-20 says:
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
They were thinking, “We’ve done this before, why didn’t it work this time?” Jesus answers by making a statement about their faith. The mustard seed is not a matter of amount, but a matter of direction and focus. Their faith can’t rest in past successes, some formula, or in their own power. Even the smallest faith in the right place can move a mountain. Some translations add, “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” That’s not a formula, but a matter of making sure faith is in the right place, or person.
This whole scene is one of correction for the disciples, a way for Jesus to clear up some of their misconceptions and misdirected faith.
There is one more corrective statement tied to this passage, one that is even more important.
Matthew 17:22-23
22 When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. 23 They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief.
For the second time, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, but this time he adds the idea of betrayal. The future sounds gloomier to the disciples who are filled with grief. Sometimes correction is hard to swallow, especially when it alters your expectations, hopes, and dreams, when it challenges your views of Messiah, faith, and exaltation.
Sometimes we need corrected too. We need reminded that the road for today and the journey ahead always includes the cross.
Is our faith directed in the one who leads us there? With him, nothing is impossible.
Jeremy Hyde
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