The Healing of a Boy with a Spirit

I see three key words to understand this passage; Belief, Authority and Presence.

The background to this passage is that the disciples and Apostles had gone out and proclaimed the Good News. At the same time they had cast out demons and done miraculous work. Hence, we see that the disciples attending to the child, in the absence of Jesus. They believed in Jesus, his mission, his identity as the Christ and Son of God, in part because what they had learnt at his feet and also the wondrous work he had done. They had the authority, because, Jesus himself had given it to them. So it was right for them to try and remove the demon (and as we today would say, the child had a medical condition, hence heal the child.) from the child. But they failed. The question then is why? Is something missing?

I will say yes. Somethings do not require much from an individual, to do wonders in Jesus’/God’s name, because he is only the agent, and it is God who is doing the action. More importantly what is required is God’s presence in your own life, for you to transmit it to another person. For it is at the presence of Light that the darkness around draws back or diminishes. Be it medical conditions or evil spirits, what is required is a strong and powerful person to fight or resist the retaliation, which comes, as in the case of the case of the evil spirit who returns with 10 more evil spirits to reclaim the person, in whom it resided. So who better then God himself to reside in the Temple that we each our. Who can overcome him, or resist Him, none.

So how do you become a Temple of God, in the proper sense, the Body in whom God abides? Through your desire! As Mark here states, through prayer, in other words, through a relationship with God. In another Gospel it adds fasting. But both mean the same; where you desire to have a Father-Child relationship with God, and you do all thing to show your sincerity and genuineness to have God come and remain in you. No half hearted measures, no feet in two boats. A father listens readily to his Son, not to a servant or slave. So cast away ideas of a relationship of servitude you may have, to please God. Some see themselves as created, therefore needing to give God precedence in life, but that is not the relationship that we are called to. God desires us to call Him Abba from our heart, as being truly loved, and who needs to be reciprocated in the same love. When we have God residing in us, we like Mary are Ark’s of God’s Presence, and wherever Gods Presence goes, with and through us, there is the diminishing of darkness. Be the light, and don’t set it under a basket, but dare to live the life of Light/God, here and now.