THE WAR TO END ALL WARS
14 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. 15 As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.
16 “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.
17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”
19 “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”
Mark 9:14-30
We must never forget that these twelve men were serving their apprenticeship and that failure was an essential part of their learning experience. Their successes only strengthened their self-confidence and edged them towards self-sufficiency. Failure made them more aware of the lessons that came out of it and helped them to focus more on God and less on themselves. Since humility is one of the chief qualities of their Rabbi’s yoke, it was failure that made them aware of how much they needed God. The success and failure of their entire mission leaned on how closely they followed their Rabbi’s teaching and example under the companionship, tutoring, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
It would not be long before Jesus would undergo His final and toughest test of submission and obedience upon which the destiny of the entire human race depended. Although the disciples did not understand at the time, they would be observers of the fiercest battle the planet had ever witnessed. Wars may be the battle between human forces with darkness and light the underlying conflict, but this encounter was the ultimate clash between the only human representative of the kingdom of God and all the powers of darkness at work through all the human representatives ranged against Him. This war can possibly be summed up in three principles: religion, envy and greed.
There was only one thing that guaranteed Jesus’ victory – His God-awareness shaped by His knowledge of the Word of God which sustained His unity with the Father. Jesus was the living epitome of Acts 17:28, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” These two factors, God-awareness and the Word of God, are our only guarantee of a safe passage through life lived in a completely hostile environment.
Jesus navigated life through hostility in its worst forms: pathological and murderous hatred from the religious hierarchy, and misunderstanding from His own followers. He lived His entire life in aloneness in the world which cast Him even more strongly upon His Father. He won the battle that Adam lost in the garden, He resisted every temptation to go it alone. He and the Father were indissolubly one and that alone, in reliance upon the Word and the Spirit, was the guarantee of the success of His mission.