If you had any faith at all

Matthew 17:14-20

¹⁴And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, ¹⁵said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. ¹⁶And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” ¹⁷And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” ¹⁸And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. ¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” ²⁰He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

This passage follows the important event of the transfiguration. While Jesus, Peter, James and John were on the Mount of Transfiguration, the nine other apostles were left behind. These nine were asked by a desperate father to deliver his son from a demon that was causing dangerous epileptic behavior.

14-15

A crowd—most likely those who were helpers in Jesus’ ministry, and scribes who came to question—was waiting for Jesus and the three apostles to return from the mountain. When Jesus approached the crowd, the boy’s father came forward and explained his plight. Believing that Jesus had the power to do what his disciples could not, the man fell before him in humility, showing respect.

16

There is no doubt that the father had brought his son to Jesus to be healed, but settled for the disciples’ help in his absence. With Jesus absent from the scene he naturally and mistakenly shifted his hope to men believing that the disciples could do what only God could do. They could not deliver.

17-18

Jesus rebuked the group that had gathered for looking in the wrong direction, looking away from God and toward something or someone else for what only God could do. Again there had been a major “hope shifting” as they did not believe that Jesus was enough. Jesus is continually found rebuking the disciples for this reason—they are slow to believe that he is the Messiah although they were witnessing a miracle.

19

Approaching Jesus privately perhaps out of embarrassment for not being able to deliver, the understandably perplexed apostles questioned Jesus as to why they could not do what he had given them charge of.

20

Again, Jesus rebukes the apostles, saying “Your faith pretty much sucks.” Like us, their lack of faith in God pointed toward their abundance of faith in themselves. The mustard seed was used as an example of something so tiny that it can barely be seen. And the mountain that Jesus had just descended from as an example of the largest, most impossible object to move.

Just like us, the apostles often inserted themselves in a work that only God could do. Should they have tried to cast out demons? Of course. But doing so wasn’t about them and their ability. The gospel is about the weak and needy, relying on a huge God to do what they could not. The self-absorbed apostles had forgotten this.

Having the faith of a mustard seed is almost like having no faith at all. This was Jesus’ point: the strength of our faith does not change the strength of our God. The weakest among us has the same strong Christ as the strongest in faith. We need the strength of the Lord—not to make us stronger, but for him to be our very strength, because without him we are nothing.

Even faith that is as miniscule as a mustard seed, is a gift given to us by God. We cannot move mountains with our words, but God did. Jesus came, lived and died in perfect faith, precisely because of our lack of faith. On a hill, hanging in agony, still believing on our behalf, Jesus threw the mountain of our sin into the ocean of God’s mercy. He is faithful even when we fail.

Mark 2:1-12

¹And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. ²And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. ³And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. ⁴And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. ⁵And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” ⁶Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ⁷“Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ⁸And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? ⁹Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? ¹⁰But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—¹¹“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” ¹²And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”