The Mountain, The Valley, and The Vexation Text: Mark 9:14-29
Introduction: A Tale of Two Mountains
The Christian life is a series of jarring transitions. We are constantly moving between the mountain of glorious revelation and the valley of demonic vexation. In our passage today, Peter, James, and John are coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration, their eyes still dazzled with the unveiled glory of Christ, their ears still ringing with the voice of God the Father. They saw Moses and Elijah. They saw the true nature of their Master. They were on the holy mountain, a place of unmediated glory.
But the story does not end on the mountain. It never does. They descend from this pinnacle of spiritual experience into a scene of utter chaos. Down in the valley, the other nine disciples are surrounded, backed into a corner by a taunting crowd and argumentative scribes. They are failing publicly. A desperate father has brought his demonized son to them, and they are powerless. The glory on the mountain is met with impotence in the valley. The serene communion with God is replaced by a shouting match with theologians and a confrontation with a demon.
This is a picture of the Christian life. We have moments of high worship, where the truth of God is clear, bright, and glorious. We see Christ for who He is. But we must always come down the mountain to do our work. And the valley is full of desperate people, entrenched demonic opposition, and our own embarrassing failures. The question before us is not how to stay on the mountain, but how to bring the authority of the mountain down into the muck and mire of the valley. This passage is a masterclass in the nature of true faith, the reason for our frequent failures, and the absolute necessity of dependent prayer.
The Text
And when they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed. And as they ran up, they were greeting Him. And He asked them, “What are you arguing with them?” And one of the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.” And He answered them and said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!” And they brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around, foaming at the mouth. And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and was saying, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” Now when Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.” And after crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, “He is dead!” But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he stood up. And when He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”
(Mark 9:14-29 LSB)
The Impotent Disciples and the Unbelieving Generation (vv. 14-19)
Jesus and the inner circle arrive to find a theological dogfight. The scribes are arguing, the disciples are flustered, and the crowd is watching the spectacle. The disciples had been given authority to cast out demons before (Mark 6:7, 13), and they had been successful. But something is different here. They are failing, and the enemies of Christ are relishing it.
"I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it." (Mark 9:18b)
This is the presenting problem. The father states it plainly. The deputized representatives of the King have been shown to be powerless. This is not just an awkward moment; it is a crisis of authority. When the church is impotent, the world is emboldened in its unbelief. The scribes were not arguing about abstract points of theology; they were almost certainly mocking the disciples for their failure, and by extension, mocking their Master.
Jesus' response is not one of gentle encouragement. It is a blast of holy frustration.
"O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!" (Mark 9:19)
Who is He talking to? He says "generation," which is broad. He is speaking to the entire scene. He is speaking to the sneering scribes, whose unbelief was a hardened, hostile rebellion. He is speaking to the fickle crowd, who were "amazed" at His arrival but were just as happy to watch a good argument. He is speaking to the desperate father, whose faith was wavering and shot through with doubt. And yes, He is speaking to His disciples, whose faith had apparently evaporated. Their previous successes had perhaps led them to believe that the power was in the formula, in the technique, and not in the person of Christ. They were trying to do the Lord's work without the Lord. They had the playbook, but they had forgotten the coach. This is the constant temptation of the church: to rely on our programs, our methods, and our past victories, and to neglect the living, moment-by-moment dependence on Christ Himself.
The Desperate Father's Honest Faith (vv. 20-24)
Jesus takes command of the situation. "Bring him to Me!" The authority of the mountain is now confronting the chaos of the valley. The demon knows it immediately and manifests violently. It throws the boy into a convulsion right in front of Jesus. This is not a sign of the demon's power, but of its terror. It knows its time is up.
Jesus then does something interesting. He doesn't immediately cast the demon out. He turns to the father and asks a question about the boy's history. He is drawing the father out. He is ministering to the man's faith even as He prepares to heal his son. The father recounts the horrific, long-standing nature of the affliction. This was not a recent problem; it was a lifelong torment. The demon's intent was murder. And then the father utters the phrase that reveals the core of his struggle.
"But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!" (Mark 9:22b)
Notice the "if." It is an "if" born of long disappointment. He had been to the disciples, and they could do nothing. He had likely been to countless others before them. His hope was worn thin. Jesus immediately seizes on this word. He throws it right back at him.
"‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes." (Mark 9:23)
Jesus turns the question of ability back onto the question of faith. The issue is not with Christ's power; the issue is with our ability to receive it. The bottleneck is never on His end. This puts the father in a crisis. He is confronted with the weakness of his own heart. And his response is one of the most honest and beautiful prayers in all of Scripture.
"Immediately the boy’s father cried out and was saying, 'I do believe; help my unbelief.'" (Mark 9:24)
Here we have it. This is the paradox of all true faith. It is not a swaggering, self-confident certainty. It is a clinging, desperate trust that is acutely aware of its own deficiencies. He does not say, "I believe perfectly." He says, "I believe; now help the part of me that doesn't." This is not the unbelief that scoffs with the scribes. This is an urgent unbelief that wants to be something else. And that kind of honest, desperate, paradoxical faith pleases God immensely. He knows he has faith, and he knows his faith is shot through with holes. So he brings both to Jesus. He brings the faith as his point of contact and the unbelief as his petition. This is a model for us all. We are not to pretend our faith is stronger than it is. We are to bring our weak, wavering, struggling faith to the one who is the author and perfecter of it.
The Authoritative Word and the Powerless Method (vv. 25-29)
Seeing the crowd growing, Jesus acts decisively. He is not putting on a show. He rebukes the spirit directly, commanding it to come out and never return. His authority is absolute. The demon has one last, violent spasm, and then it is gone. The deliverance is so total that the boy appears to be dead, but Jesus takes him by the hand and raises him up. This is a picture of resurrection. The boy is not just healed; he is given a new life.
Later, in private, the disciples ask the million-dollar question.
"Why could we not cast it out?" (Mark 9:28)
They are perplexed. They had used the right words. They had followed the procedure that worked before. They had the technique down. But they were like mechanics trying to start a car with a dead battery. Jesus' answer is simple and profound.
"This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer." (Mark 9:29)
Now, we must understand what He is saying here. He is not giving them a new, secret technique for extra-tough demons. He is not saying, "You used Technique A, but for this one, you needed Technique B, which includes prayer." No, prayer is not a technique. Prayer is the declaration of dependence. Prayer is the admission of weakness. Prayer is the conduit of God's power, not a tool for manipulating it. The disciples had failed because they had begun to operate in their own strength. They were relying on the delegated authority they had been given, forgetting the one who delegated it. They were trying to write checks on an account they had become disconnected from.
Jesus is telling them, and us, that true spiritual power does not come from formulas or past successes. It comes from a continuous, conscious, desperate dependence upon God, and the name for that dependence is prayer. Some manuscripts add "and fasting," and while it may not be in the earliest texts of Mark, the principle is sound. Fasting is simply prayer with an exclamation point. It is a way of saying to God, "I am not messing around. I need you more than I need my daily bread." The disciples' failure was a failure of dependence. They had stopped praying.
Conclusion: Faith in Spite of Unbelief
So what do we take from this? First, we must recognize that the Christian life is lived in the valley, not on the mountain. The mountain experiences are given to equip us for the valley warfare. Do not be surprised when you come from a glorious time of worship straight into a nasty argument or a difficult trial.
Second, we must learn the lesson of the father's faith. God is not looking for a perfect, stainless-steel faith. He is looking for an honest faith, a faith that clings to Him even while it confesses its own weakness. Your doubt does not disqualify you if you bring that doubt to Jesus. "Help my unbelief" is a prayer He loves to answer, because it is a prayer that acknowledges He is the only source of strength.
Finally, we must learn the lesson of the disciples' failure. All our ministry, all our parenting, all our work, all our evangelism will be utterly impotent if it is not saturated in prayer. Prayer is not the thing we do before we do the work. Prayer is the work. It is the open admission that we cannot do it, and the confident trust that He can. When we try to operate on the basis of our own giftedness, our own training, or our own past results, we will eventually come up against a demon that will not budge, and we will be left embarrassed and arguing with the scribes. But when we come in desperate, praying dependence on the one who has all authority, there is no spiritual opposition that can stand against His word.