GOSPEL MEDITATION # 202
Healing of a Boy with an Unclean Spirit
Mark 9:14-29
- Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
- Jesus, Peter, James, and John descend the mountain and find the nine apostles arguing with religious leaders. Perhaps the issue was the debacle of a failed exorcism.
- Jesus asks a questions and learns of the trouble. (Jesus asks other questions in this story. A clue to his humanness?)
- The boy seems to be an epileptic; the father, and Jesus as well, believe the physical problems have a demonic root cause.
- The unclean spirit appears to be attempting to kill the boy.
- When the boy is brought to Jesus, there is another terrible episode with the boy, and that perhaps convinces Jesus the problem really is a demonic one.
- The father is not sure he has enough faith for there to be a cure. He pleads with Jesus that whatever faith he has is enough. Jesus has compassion upon him.
- The crowd that had witnessed the argument between the nine and the scribes rushed over to the main event, which prompts Jesus to act. He commands the unclean spirit to come out. A spiritual battle takes place, but the demon leaves. The boy is so exhausted it seems he is dead.
- Jesus refreshes the boy and he is is restored to his family.
- The disciples are wondering why they were not able to help. Jesus says such a demon cannot be driven out except by prayer, a direct appeal to God and not by any magical ministrations. (Fasting in some manuscripts is absent in the oldest and best.)