Mark 9b Commentary
“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Verse 23.
No amount of human intervention has worked. The boy’s father turns to Jesus. Can Jesus do it? Yes, he can but that isn’t the key to the healing here. Jesus puts it on the boy’s father. His faith, not Jesus’ ability, is the determining factor.
But the man is short; his faith is short. An important lesson here is that you can still access Heaven’s gifts by asking the LORD Jesus to help you believe as a matter of first importance.
Unbelief isn’t the biggest problem of humanity. You can ask the LORD to help you overcome your unbelief. No one is too far from salvation!
Peter, John, and James are still buzzing with the transfiguration experience. They probably think their hero will shortly unveil himself. They know they have for themselves a more than Moses and a more than Elijah figure. They cannot wait. But how do they mix up all these thoughts with Jesus’ continued references to his death? Israel’s heroes didn’t die at all!
Moses was always a standard too high for mention. The Messiah would be in the shape of David – his son for that matter. The transfiguration experience left Peter and team in no doubt as to the identity of Jesus. But the ‘dying’ business at the hands of the people that the Messiah is supposed to conquer is never a matter a human brain can stomach.
Isaiah 53 is divinely beautiful but what an impossible proposition! Human heroes are never in that design!
How do you marry the princely status of the saint with occurrences of lack, persecution, fragility – facing death all day long, considered as sheep to be slaughtered. The world remains in total confusion. It is always a privilege to understand all these things.
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