“O faithless generation,” the Lord Jesus asks, “how long shall I be with you?” This question that the Lord posed during His ministry in the first century still rings true today, because the source of His frustration is valid for us twenty centuries later. As we read throughout the Gospels, faith was in short supply back then just as it appears to be today, and without faith we cannot complete the mission that Christ has set before us. In today’s reading our Lord teaches us what we need to acquire “mountain-moving” faith (Matt. 17:20).
So who is the “faithless” that Christ is rebuking in this morning’s Gospel reading? Was it the boy’s father or the disciples who could not drive out the evil spirit? Who has the ability to drive out the evil spirits that torment us and those we love? We would certainly expect the disciples, those men of God and followers of Jesus, to be able perform this task, but they could not; they had much to learn about developing their spiritual strength. But a thoughtful reading of the account indicates that the rebuke was directed at the boy’s father, not at the disciples; it was the father who Christ chided for his lack of faith at not being able to drive out the evil spirit from his son. This understanding gives us a clearer picture of the work of faith in dealing with the spiritual problems that we encounter in our own lives.
From this morning’s account we learn that the evil spirit plaguing the young man has been with him since childhood: it was a condition that the young man—and the father—have endured for his entire life. A cursory reading of the symptoms would lead us to believe that this illness is what we would call today grand mal epilepsy, and that the ignorant superstition of ancient times labeled the cause of the young man’s fits to be a “mute evil spirit” inhabiting his body. But if we stop at this point in our analysis we will lose the essence of the account. It is true that the young man was healed, but the question is: Healed of what? Healed of epilepsy? The original symptoms and the end result might cause us to believe that this was the problem that was brought before Christ and His disciples. And whose problem was it? Was it the young man’s, or the disciples’, or the father’s problem?
We read in the account of a father who was desperate to find a cure for son, so desperate that he brings the young man to the disciples who are unable to provide the remedy that the father is seeking. When the father brings his son to Jesus, rather than praising the father for his persistence, Jesus rebukes him for his lack of faith. This is the clue behind the meaning of today’s Gospel message. If we look at the account allegorically, we might see that the evil spirit plaguing our children is not a physical but rather a spiritual illness, one that is often mute but always destructive. The malady may be caused by our consumption with the passions. We learn from the Holy Fathers that our passions are more deadly to our physical and spiritual wellbeing than any other disease because it is the spiritual illness that will prevent us from unification with God. Part of our ascetic work, and certainly the focus of our Lenten Journey to Pascha, is to strive towards understanding and taming our sinful and destructive passions.
It is easy for us to believe that the realm of the holy is reserved only for a select few. We may think that only the clergy of the Church have the ability to participate in God’s miraculous works. Spiritual healing, as some people may believe, falls in the realm of the Church along with God’s special agents ordained by divine orders to work these types of miracles. We may believe that the strength needed to resist the pull of the passions is only available to those holy few who are able to isolate themselves from the world and its evil influences. But we see by Christ’s response to the young man’s father that the ability to drive out evil spirits is not reserved only for God’s chosen few: all of us have the capability of driving out those passions that seek to enslave and destroy us, but only if our faith in God is stronger than our passions. When the father of the young man came to Jesus he told the Lord: “I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not” (v. 18). The father appeared to be placing the blame for his sons continued suffering squarely at the feet of Jesus’ disciples, delegating the problem to them. But Jesus’ reply, as so often observed in the Gospels, is not what we would expect to hear: “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? (v. 19) The rebuke was not directed towards any of His disciples who were unable to drive out the spirit; instead, it was directed at the father of the young man. Jesus seems to be almost lamenting that His message is not getting through to those to whom He had been sent to teach the message of salvation. His comment, “How long shall I bear with you?” is rhetorical in nature, since later in this same chapter of Mark (verses 30—32) He will again foretell His own death and resurrection. Jesus understood that He would not be there in human form forever. At some point we, His followers, will have to stand boldly and maturely as full and faithful member of the Kingdom of God.
Again, looking at these verses through an allegorical perspective, we can see that the Lord is saying that each of us must fight our own fight against the passions—the evil spirits—that seek to enslave and destroy us. Yes, Christ is with us always just as He promised, but we must do our part as well in the fight for our spiritual lives. This is that synergia that we hear about, that cooperation between us and God that is required for our salvation. We cannot drop our problems at the feet of the disciples and expect the problems to magically disappear; we have an important part to play in our own salvation as well. We see this further in the dialogue between Christ and the father of the possessed boy, where he explains to Christ that he has been plagued by the evil spirit since childhood. The boy’s father ends by saying, “But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us” (v. 22). At this point it is obvious that the boy’s father has his doubts about Jesus’ ability to end his torment. It seems that the whole act of bringing his possessed son was more out of desperation than faith. And while desperation is a great motivator for seeking God’s spiritual healing, it will not drive out the evil spirits. Everyone at some point is desperate but it is only the person who approaches Christ in faith who will receive spiritual healing.
We are told that Great Lent is a journey of personal preparation for the Holy Pascha of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. Two of the important ascetic disciplines necessary for a successful journey are prayer and fasting. These two elements were revealed by Jesus to His disciples when they asked Him why they could not drive out the evil spirit. Maybe they, like the possessed boy’s father, felt that mere proximity to holiness was enough to do battle with the enemy of the soul. But here Christ demonstrates that to do the work of His Kingdom we must be properly prepared.
The disciplines of prayer and fasting are so important that St. John Climacus includes them both as two of the thirty steps on The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 14 concerns “Gluttony”, which St. John describes as the “prince of passions”, a gateway that leads to greater and more destructive sins. Because we must eat to survive, gluttony is a passion that is easy to acquire but hard to destroy. The Church Fathers teach us that if we can successfully control our stomach then we can control all the other passions. St. John teaches us that anyone who can achieve victory over the vice of gluttony will hasten his ascent towards “dispassion” and “total chastity.”
Step 28 on St. John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent is seeking union with God through prayer. He describes prayer as “… by nature, a dialogue and a union of man with God. Its affect is to hold the world together. It achieves reconciliation with God.” The ultimate goal of every Christian should be unity with God. We should all desire that pre-fall relationship that Adam and Eve had with their Creator, a truly intimate Father-child relationship. But it is important that this dialogue is indeed a two-way communication path, where we not only talk but more importantly listen to what God has to say to us. Pure, unceasing prayer is our direct line to the heart and will of the Father, and when we come in the presence of God we have no choice but to be spiritually changed.
So, as Christ teaches, both prayer and fasting are necessary disciplines for conquering the passions, those evil spirits that enslave and destroy us. True faith cannot be acquired without the life-changing struggle that these two works demand, but once acquire, we too will be able to drive out demons and move mountains.
God did not become Man simply for the purpose of healing the physical body: if that was His sole purpose then the incarnation would have been a waste of time, since even those healed by the Son of God would eventually experience bodily death. Instead, Christ used the physical healing to promote the healing of the eternal human soul.
In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.