Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/022012.cfm

The trees cry out,
"Here I am!"
ready for spring.

He said to them in reply,
"O faithless generation, how long will I be with you?
How long will I endure you? Bring him to me."  

We have met already a deaf man with a severe speech impediment. Jesus touched his ears and lips with muddied saliva and healed him.

Today we encounter another mute person, but his affliction is far worse. His “mute and deaf spirit” throws him into fire and water and threatens the child’s life, despite his father’s intense love. Jesus disciples have also tried their hand at driving out the demon and failed.

The whole story is laced with fearful details and the challenge evokes several strong emotional reactions in Jesus. First Jesus complains: "O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?” A minute later he rebukes the child’s father, "’If you can!' Everything is possible to one who has faith."

Only in the Gospel of Saint Mark do we encounter such strong feelings in Jesus, and this passage is especially revealing. A shallower reading might suggest the Messiah was in a bad mood after the high of his Transfiguration. Coming back to Earth is such a downer! Perhaps he is suffering the inevitable clash with reality that always follows our best moments. 

But none of the evangelists show much interest in Jesus’ personal experience. Questions like: “What was he feeling, thinking and expecting; what did he think about himself?” will not appear in our literature for many centuries.

But the stories are certainly connected; we can trust the artistry of Saint Mark that far. We have descended from the serenity of Mount Tabor to the valley of demonic possession. Jesus’ emotional reaction registers that passage and signals the importance of this story. His freeing the child of a deaf and mute spirit is a synecdoche for his entire ministry as Savior of the World. We observe, through the lens of a father’s anguish and Jesus’ intervention, the universal dimensions of despair and hope, doubt and faith, sickness and healing, and death and resurrection.  We encounter this cosmic struggle in the father’s hesitant prayer, Jesus’ challenge, and again in the father’s exclamation, which is both a plea for help and a confession of inadequacy: "I do believe, help my unbelief!"

Finally Jesus delivers the stunning word that frees the troubled boy. He speaks with enormous authority and finality:

Mute and deaf spirit, I command you:
come out of him and never enter him again!"

But the full impact of Jesus’ command is delayed. For a moment the boy lay like a corpse, which caused many to say, “He is dead.” Even as Jesus lay dead in a grave for three days, so does this child lie in stunned silence until the breath of life returns.

The apparent death of the child connects to Jesus’ passion evokes our Sacrament of Baptism. He had been thrown into fire and water (symbols of Baptism) on occasion, but now he emerges from the throes of death to breathe again when Jesus takes his hand and raises him to his feet.

Finally, we the Baptized find ourselves in this story. We have been stricken with an inability to hear God’s word. We were mute and could not speak to God. In our desperation we indulged in self-destructive behaviors. But we have died with him and are now raised up. Although our faith could not save us, Jesus has restored our faith, healed us and invested us with Eternal Life.