00:00:00.000 - 00:00:20.520

The scripture reading of the morning is taken from the Gospel according to Mark, the ninth chapter. I begin the reading at the verse numbered 14. And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd about them, and scribes

00:00:20.520 - 00:00:34.520

arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed, and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, "What are you discussing with them?"

00:00:34.520 - 00:00:53.600

And one of the crowd answered him, "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit, and wherever it seizes him, it dashes him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. And I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able."

00:00:53.600 - 00:01:09.480

And he answered them, "O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me." And they brought the boy to him, and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed

00:01:09.480 - 00:01:26.680

the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, "How long has he had this?" And he said, "From childhood, and it has often cast him into the fire and into the water to destroy him.

00:01:26.680 - 00:01:51.280

But if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us." And Jesus said, "If you can, all things are possible to him who believes." And immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe, help my unbelief." And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying

00:01:51.280 - 00:02:14.560

to it, "You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again." And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out. And the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, "He is dead." But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

00:02:14.560 - 00:02:37.400

And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" And he said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." And may God bless to us this reading from his word.

00:02:37.400 - 00:03:01.400

Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I'll confess to you at the outset that I really like this first century father.

00:03:01.400 - 00:03:19.680

I really like this dad from so long ago, this one who said, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." That was all he could say, and he said it. A lot of us could not say much more than that, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief,"

00:03:19.680 - 00:03:37.800

but we hesitate to say it. We lack the final courage of this first century dad. I like this man because the doubts which were his are so often my own. Now make no mistake about it.

00:03:37.800 - 00:04:00.320

This man's doubt did not arise out of moral perversity. There are some people you know who refuse to believe because they know that if they do believe, they're going to have to change their behavior. And being unwilling to change that behavior, they manufacture doubts to justify their unbelieving.

00:04:00.320 - 00:04:21.600

A disobedient soldier was brought before the Emperor Alexander the Great, and the Emperor in questioning the young soldier said, "What is your name?" And the soldier replied, "Alexander." Whereupon the Emperor said, "Then you must change either your name or your conduct."

00:04:21.600 - 00:04:42.040

Now there are some people who are intelligent enough to know that once you take upon yourself the name of Christ, something is going to happen to change the way of your living. And unwilling to make those changes, they deliberately and consciously construct doubts. That's not an honest doubt.

00:04:42.040 - 00:05:02.200

That's a deceit. And you don't find any of that in this first century father. Make no mistake also, his doubt did not arise out of any kind of intellectual arrogance. There are individuals, you've met them just as I have, who go about trying to startle

00:05:02.200 - 00:05:25.280

the world with their negativities. These individuals claim to be caring about nothing more than the pursuit of knowledge, and yet they lack the most elementary ingredient in the pursuit of knowledge, which is humility. I cannot have much respect for the scientist or the logician who rejects the basic tenets

00:05:25.280 - 00:05:44.560

of both of those disciplines, namely that if there's any evidence for a thing, you must test it out. Now these people who go about swathed in a halo of self-satisfaction, creating doubts without ever testing the issue that is truly before them, that kind of doubt is not an

00:05:44.560 - 00:06:04.920

honest doubt, it's conceit. And you don't see any of that in this first century father. Now this was a man who doubted himself, and then doubted his doubts, and then doubted that Jesus could care for anybody like him.

00:06:04.920 - 00:06:24.760

Please remember that two thousand years ago, when this episode occurred, most people believed that illness was an explicit punishment from God. And further they believed that if your children became seriously ill, it was not because of their sin, it was because of yours.

00:06:24.760 - 00:06:46.820

In other words, when this father looked at his suffering son, he would have seen it as the result of his own transgressions. When this epilepsy, or whatever it was, threw him upon the ground, caused him to convulse, caused the little muscles to tear and the ribcage to stretch, trying to hold in whatever

00:06:46.820 - 00:07:11.600

beast there was inside of him, every time this father knelt down to that little trembling boy and wiped the foam away from his mouth, or pulled him out of the fire or out of the sea into which he had fallen, every time this father did this, he thought it was his fault. He must have died a thousand times while his son struggled to die only once.

00:07:11.600 - 00:07:28.920

Now today we're more sophisticated. We understand that God does not visit illness upon people as a form of punishment, yet it is still true, isn't it, that we all have a sense of our own guilt and of our own inadequacies and of our own failures.

00:07:28.920 - 00:07:49.680

I think I've told you of this before, how in the years when I was on a campus, when a new freshman class would arrive, I would ask each student to take a piece of paper and to write down on one side of the paper five weaknesses in themselves, five inadequacies in themselves, and when they were done, to lift their hand.

00:07:49.680 - 00:08:06.540

And usually in a matter of two or three minutes, every hand in the room would be up. Then I would ask them to turn the paper over and on the other side to write five strengths within themselves, five dimensions of themselves on which they felt they could surely depend, and when they were done, to raise their hands.

00:08:06.540 - 00:08:29.680

Never once did even most of the hands go up in response to that second invitation. We're all, you see, much more conscious of our inadequacies and our weaknesses and our sins than we are of our strengths and of those things that are going well with us. We look about us and we see other Christians who seem always to be smiling.

00:08:29.680 - 00:08:53.800

We see those who go through life with one success after another, or at least it appears so to us, and comparing our own inner spiritual health with what we see in other people, the most we can say is, "I believe, but help my unbelief." The difficulty is most of us don't say that.

00:08:53.800 - 00:09:18.280

Most of us keep it locked up inside and never express our feelings of weakness or doubt or inadequacy, and that has a killing effect upon the spirit. Emperor Frederick of Prussia in the 13th century decided to try to find out what language was spoken in the Garden of Eden, and his method was this.

00:09:18.280 - 00:09:41.280

He instructed that a number of children immediately after they were born be put into a nursery where they would never hear any voices but their own. The emperor reasoned that if they would never hear any conversation from anyone else, these youngsters would develop their own language, and whatever language that was, that must

00:09:41.280 - 00:10:08.720

have been the natural language of man and the language they spoke in the Garden of Eden. Well the experiment failed, and it failed because every single one of the children died. You see, when there is no communication, when there is no reaching out and expressing yourself or receiving that which is expressed by another, there is in that a kind of awful dying.

00:10:08.720 - 00:10:28.520

These things, these doubts, walk around inside of us like zombies and eventually suck from us all the joy of faith and the joy of life itself. So Jesus comes to this father, and he says to this father, "If you believe, all things are possible.

00:10:28.520 - 00:10:49.480

Now do you believe? How are you down inside where you never let anyone see?" And the father swallows, and he must have felt like some great stone was rolling up inside of him, and he said, and how wager it was with tears, he says, "Well, I'm not

00:10:49.480 - 00:11:08.320

much inside, and I'm rather lonely because I'm not sure anyone really loves me. I mean, I know there are those who love the appearance that I put before them, but they're attracted to a mask. If they really knew what was inside of me, would they care then?

00:11:08.320 - 00:11:30.860

I mean, I've never talked about the way I feel down deep inside." And you can understand the position in which the father found himself. Here is his little son lying on the ground hurting, and here is this Christ whom he has heard can do miracles and heal, and he wants this Jesus to heal this son.

00:11:30.860 - 00:11:54.800

But Jesus says to him, "How are you down inside?" And it must have been a very, very difficult thing for that father, wanting the healing so much, to still tell the truth and to say probably for the first time in his life, "Look, here's my soul, and I'm going to lay it out on the ground, and it's a rather shivery thing

00:11:54.800 - 00:12:09.040

because I'm a shivery thing, and it's not a very pretty thing because I'm not a very pretty thing. And I don't know much about God, off in the heavens somewhere with a crown and a scepter, but I seem to see something of God in your face.

00:12:09.040 - 00:12:37.680

So I'll put my soul here on the ground before you, and if you'll approach it, and please, please do not bruise it, because if you bruise it, I'll never be able to get it out again. If you'll take your soul and put it beside my soul, I mean, if you'll touch it tenderly, I mean, if you'll--Lord, my problem is I believe, but help me in my unbelieving."

00:12:37.680 - 00:13:03.020

For the first time, he admitted his doubts out loud. You might say that he had come to the place where he doubted his own doubts. Up till that time, his theme song would have been "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." But now he suddenly begins to ask himself, I think, "Maybe there are some other people

00:13:03.020 - 00:13:16.720

who feel this way. Maybe there are other people who have questions and hurts and failures and doubts down inside of them which they don't let anyone see. Maybe other people keep the lid on, too.

00:13:16.720 - 00:13:34.640

I mean, maybe I'm not so different." As an aside, I would point out here, and you all know this, some of the most hideous things that have ever happened in history have happened because of people who never doubted their own doubts.

00:13:34.640 - 00:13:56.160

I mean, when you think of the Inquisition, for example, individuals who inflicted torture and tragic pain and death on other people because they never paused to question their own presuppositions and their own positions. Horrible things have happened because of people who never doubted their own doubts.

00:13:56.160 - 00:14:15.080

Faith never has to be afraid of doubt any more than democracy has to be afraid of freedom of speech, or a court has to be afraid of a minority opinion, or a scientist has to fear new research. Doubt is simply truth knocking on your door to see if anybody's home.

00:14:15.080 - 00:14:36.960

That's what Tennyson meant when he said, "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me that and half the creeds." And that's what Socrates meant when he said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." The fact of the matter is that we try to deny and to conceal our doubts when what we ought

00:14:36.960 - 00:14:54.800

to do is to verbalize them and to honestly confront them and to share them, for it's in the sharing that the healing comes. I read the testimony of a priest in the Roman Catholic Church who said that when he was a boy he grew up on a farm and the first job that he was given on the farm, when he was

00:14:54.800 - 00:15:15.080

a very little tyke, was to shovel the manure out of the cow barn into a pile outside, and he hated and he despised that job. And then when he was old enough he went to his first 4-H club meeting and he discovered that that terrible job actually was necessary because that was fertilizer which when spread

00:15:15.080 - 00:15:35.240

on the fields would cause them to be much more productive, better crops. And he said, "You know, that's a parable of my own life. As long as I kept my doubts inside, all they did was sit there and stink. But when I spread them out, when I shared them, when I was open about them, then and

00:15:35.240 - 00:15:57.280

only then did I and even those about me begin to grow." This first century father, you see, discovered the wisdom of revealing his doubts, of doubting his doubts. But still, notice, he didn't say anything to Jesus until Jesus specifically asked him

00:15:57.280 - 00:16:12.760

to do so. And the reason for that was that he not only doubted himself and doubted his doubts, but he also doubted Jesus. He didn't think that Jesus could care about anybody like him.

00:16:12.760 - 00:16:26.920

And there was good reason for it. You see, he'd already met Christ's disciples. A lot of people never get to Jesus because they meet some of his disciples first. They were busy, you'll remember from the story, trying to be like Jesus, trying to heal the

00:16:26.920 - 00:16:43.360

boy in their own way, and they got into a fight and an argument and a debate over it. It's a tragic thing when people try to be like Jesus. Now don't mistake what I'm saying. We are to pattern our lives after his and to seek to be perfect as he is.

00:16:43.360 - 00:16:54.440

But let's understand something. I'm not Jesus and neither are you. We are not Jesus. We are human beings with all the limitations attended thereto.

00:16:54.440 - 00:17:07.220

We are not to pretend to be Jesus. You don't have to imitate something that's already present. You only use a copy when you can't have the real thing. Jesus has promised the reality of his presence with us.

00:17:07.220 - 00:17:25.600

That means none of us have to pretend to be Jesus. Have you ever run into these individuals who badger you and batter you and buffet you until you believe everything just exactly as they believe it? Do you know why they have to keep pressuring you and pushing you until your theology squares

00:17:25.600 - 00:17:37.000

exactly with theirs? It's because, you see, down deep inside they're not as sure of themselves as they would like you to think. And if you will agree with them, then they can say to themselves, "Oh, well, I must be

00:17:37.000 - 00:17:51.840

right because look who agrees with me." These people are spiritual Dracula's. They live off the submission of the thoughts of others. And we find the disciples here all trying to say the way it ought to be done, all acting

00:17:51.840 - 00:18:19.880

in the name of Jesus, all pretending to be Jesus, never revealing their doubts, never revealing their weaknesses, never putting their arms around each other and say, "Let's seek him out so that he can do what we can't but he can do." And so the father, encountering this attitude, wonders whether Jesus could be interested

00:18:19.880 - 00:18:36.040

in him. I don't think he had any question about whether Jesus could heal his son. The question was, would Jesus heal his son? That would be almost too good to be true.

00:18:36.040 - 00:18:50.380

You ever notice how hard it is to believe things that are too good to be true? When I was serving out in California, we had a particularly tough time going. First of all, I was on an awful diet. I was dying one pound at a time.

00:18:50.380 - 00:19:05.680

And then beyond that, we were in the midst of a financial campaign for the new building and it was lent and I was really tired. And one morning I opened a letter at my desk and it was from a member of the church. And in this letter he said, "Dear Pastor, I would like to support you in your time of

00:19:05.680 - 00:19:26.980

need and so I and my family have decided to give you an all expenses paid two-week vacation on the island of Tahiti in the South Seas." Well first I read the letter three times. Then I called my secretary in and had her read it to see if she saw the same thing in

00:19:26.980 - 00:19:39.320

it that I did. And then I wrote him a letter to make sure that I understood what he was saying in his first letter. Some things are almost too good to be true.

00:19:39.320 - 00:19:57.160

And I think this father thought to himself, "It would be just too good to be true that Jesus could care about him." And there are some who are still very far away from Jesus because they think he's too good to be true.

00:19:57.160 - 00:20:10.760

But led by the Spirit, this father decided to give as much of himself as he could to as much of Jesus as he understood. I've talked with you before about the Christological hypothesis. There was no place left for him to run.

00:20:10.760 - 00:20:23.960

He knew that the clock of time was ticking for him. All the courses of his future destiny were running through the channels of his single heart. There was a deep question in his soul about his own worth and what he could hope for and

00:20:23.960 - 00:20:38.200

what he could believe and what was going to happen to his boy and what was going to happen to himself. I think at this moment that the angels were leaning on the battlements of heaven to see what was going to happen in that father.

00:20:38.200 - 00:21:14.440

And he looked at Jesus, he looked at Jesus and he said, "Master." And Jesus says to him, "Do you believe enough to say who you really are?" And he says again, "Master." and he looks at his hands and he looks at the disciples and he looks at the hills and the sky and he looks at his boy and he looks at his boy

00:21:14.440 - 00:21:56.080

and he looks at his boy and he says, "I believe, but help me in my unbelieving." And Jesus did an unspeakably wonderful thing. He just knelt down and took the boy, took the man's son, took the man's very heart in his hand and healed him and healed him.

00:21:56.080 - 00:22:21.120

And then Mark, with that kind of tenderness which is so typical of him, draws the veil of silence across the scene so we cannot see what happened between the father and Jesus and the boy after the boy was made whole. Now notice please, this father did not come singing hallelujahs and joyful amens into

00:22:21.120 - 00:22:34.120

the kingdom of God. He came kicking and screaming. He gave just as much as he could to as much of Jesus as he understood. See what Jesus was saying to him is what he's saying to us this morning.

00:22:34.120 - 00:22:42.840

I love you. Is that okay? But you see, you don't really understand me, Lord. Down inside there are a lot of things I've never showed other people.

00:22:42.840 - 00:22:55.960

I mean, I don't even like to talk about them now. I am not like, I mean, there's a lot of the closet in me and I haven't come out of the closet. If you had any idea what I'm...

00:22:55.960 - 00:23:04.520

I love you. Is that okay? But you see, I'm not like these other people. I mean, I don't go from victory to victory.

00:23:04.520 - 00:23:23.640

And I know you expect your disciples to do certain things and I mean, I'm round and the holes are square and I don't know and the fact of the matter is that I'm not as strong as they seem to be and I just... I love you.

00:23:23.640 - 00:23:33.560

Is that okay? But your expectations are so high. You're the only begotten son of God. You never make any mistakes.

00:23:33.560 - 00:23:42.240

In you there is perfection. And you call us to a kind of discipleship that I can't expect. I mean, I'm the failing type. I'm weak.

00:23:42.240 - 00:23:55.800

I don't have... I love you. Is that okay? I mean, can you open just a little bit?

00:23:55.800 - 00:24:13.260

Can you be free enough to say what you really like? Open enough to touch another life with your doubt? I mean, can you let me in to at least that degree? I'll go to work on you and I'll make you perfect.

00:24:13.260 - 00:24:28.600

And it may take all of this life and it may take all of eternity afterwards, but I'll make you perfect. And someday you will be perfect. But I will tell you this, on that day when you are perfect and there is in you no spot

00:24:28.600 - 00:25:02.760

or blemish of any kind, on that day when you are altogether perfect, on that day I will not love you any more than I love you right now. No one at no time has ever loved you as I love you just the way you are. I love you.

00:25:02.760 - 00:25:26.600

Is that okay? Let us pray. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.

00:25:26.600 - 00:25:44.640

It's okay. Praise God, it's okay. Amen. Amen.

00:25:44.640 - 00:25:54.640

[BLANK_AUDIO]