CHAPTER VI.

JESUS HEALS THE LUNATIC CHILD.

THE LIFE OF JESUS ONE OF CONTRASTS—A LUNATIC CHILD BROUGHT TO BE HEALED-THE DISCIPLES ATTEMPT THE CURE AND FAIL-JESUS APPEARS AND IS GREETED BY THE MULTITUDE-THE FATHER APPEALS. TO JESUS-HE REBUKES HIS DISCIPLES AND THE PEOPLE-THE FATHER'S DISTRESS AND WANT OF FAITH-JESUS HEALS THE CHILD-EFFECT OF THE MIRACLE-WHY THE DISCIPLES FAILED TO EFFECT A CUREFAITH, ITS KINDS-TRUE FAITH VITAL AND THE GROWTH OF LOVEIT IS PRODUCTIVE AND POWERFUL-MEANS OF INCREASING FAITH.

MATTHEW XVII. 14-21. MARK IX. 14-29. LUKE IX. 37-43.

THE life of Jesus was full of wonderful contrasts. The natural and the supernatural, the earthly and the heavenly, glory and humiliation, the divine and the human, were commingled in almost every scene of the wonderful drama. Thus it was, that while our Lord was upon the mount, clothed upon with a majesty ineffable, a scene calculated to bring His name and mission into dishonor and contempt was witnessed on the plain below. Jesus had disappeared from the multitude, they knew not where or how. Nine of the apostles, however, and many other disciples were there. They were doubtless engaged in teaching, and healing diseases, in their Master's absence. An afflicted father, whose only son, now a youth, was a lunatic, an evil spirit of extraordinary malignity having superinduced on a natural malady the most fearful spiritual disorders,-had come to seek a cure at the hands of Jesus.

Not finding the Master, he entreated the disciples to heal his child. They willingly made the attempt; but met with an ignominious failure. They were overwhelmed with confusion. They had doubtless called over the demoniac the name of Christ; they had done it in the presence of a great multitude; and that name seemed to be powerless. Their mortification was aggravated by the presence of many secret and avowed enemies, who could not conceal their exultation. There were certain scribes present who seized the occasion to question the disciples. Their questions were doubtless malicious and insulting; and we may easily imagine that to the discomfited disciples, who were ill qualified to cope with their antagonists in argument, they were highly embarrassing. They had hitherto been able to refute objectors by deeds; but now they seemed without any resources. They stood confounded, unable either to understand or explain the cause of their failure. Their adversaries were ready to impute it to a want of power in Jesus himself. "Here, then," they probably reasoned, "the lofty claims of the Nazarene impostor are publicly exposed. His former cures were either illusive, or were effected by natural means; here is a case of real malady which mocks His power." We may well conceive that the multitude were in a state of intense excitement, wondering what the issue would be.

Suddenly Jesus appears in the midst of them. Mark informs us that when "the people beheld Him they were greatly amazed, and running to Him saluted Him." Why should the people have been amazed when they saw Him? The explanation is both obvious and interesting. He had come from high communings, and a marvellous investiture of light and majesty on the mountain. There is, then, reason to suppose that "His face and person yet glistened, with traces of the glory which had clothed Him there;-traces which had not yet disappeared, nor

faded into the light of common day. When Moses descended from a lesser and typical transfiguration, his face shone so that the people could not steadfastly behold him, and were afraid to come nigh him. That was a threatening glory; the intolerable brightness of the law. But the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ, though awful, was attractive, full of grace and beauty, drawing men to Him, not driving them from Him."* Hence, the people came running to Him and saluted Him; not merely as one who had been temporarily absent; but with the spontaneous reverence which the gra cious majesty of His presence was fitted to inspire.

Seeing the scribes questioning with the disciples, He asked them: "What question ye with them?" This was as if He had said: "It is apparent that you are exulting over the perplexity into which you have thrown these weak, unlearned fishermen, my disciples; turn now from the servants to the Master. What questions have you to propose to Me? The scribes were silent. But there was one among the multitude, to whom these questions were of little interest; one who was burdened with weightier matters. In tones full of anguish he exclaimed: "Master, I have brought unto Thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him; and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away; and I spake to Thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not."

The cause of the questioning, of the perplexity of the disciples, and of the unwonted excitement of the multitude, is now apparent. We seem to see the Master looking round upon the crowd, and especially upon His disciples and their adversaries, with an expression of majestic displeasure mingled with sorrow. “O faithless and perverse

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*Trench "On Miracles," pages 291, 292.

generation," He exclaims, "how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?" This reproof was doubtless addressed to all who heard it; but fell most heavily on the disciples. It is the language of a teacher, who has long borne with the perverse dulness and indocility of his pupils. "Have I abode with you so long, and have you profited so little by My teaching?" We are reminded of His words to Philip: "Have I been so long time with thee, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?"* There also seems to be in these words a distinct intimation that He could not leave them, to enter upon His glory, till they should have learned their task; till they should have, as it were, acquired strength to go alone. He had been absent from them but a few hours, and the weakness of their faith had been demonstrated to their own confusion, and to the triumph of their enemies. The rebuke of our Lord also fell upon the father of the lunatic, who had addressed Him in a tone of unbelief. He did not even come as a supplicant, but merely narrated the failure of the disciples. He seems to feel that the disease of his child is incurable. He doubts, as plainly appears in the progress of the conversation, whether Jesus Himself can effect a cure. No wonder, therefore, that he shared in the reproof as one of a faithless and perverse generation. Probably this man and all the multitude had witnessed many of our Lord's mighty miracles, and yet this one failure of the disciples had created general doubt in respect to the extent of His power.

Our Lord now directs that the demoniac should be brought to Him. As the unhappy youth approaches the presence of the Saviour, he falls into a fearful paroxysm ; he is torn with convulsions; he falls on the ground; he wallows, he foams, he writhes with agony. It was the

*John xiv. 9.

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usual effect of Christ's presence on demoniacs, to bring on a crisis of their awful malady. The powers of hell recoil from contact with the heavenly and divine. We may suppose that the evil spirit was filled with rage and terror at the certainty of being expelled from his living habitation. His wrath was great because his time was short. Looking with pity on the miserable victim of Satanic malice, Jesus asks the father, "How long is it since this came unto him?" "Of a child," is the reply. And then the unhappy parent proceeds to picture the sufferings of the youth, who frequently, under the attacks of this dreadful disease, fell into the fire and into the water, sometimes, perhaps of choice, incited by the evil spirit to self-destruction. "If Thou canst do anything," he adds, "have compassion on us and help us." The afflicted parent makes the sufferings of the child his own :—“ have compassion on us,-help us." In this, he resembles the Syro-Phenician mother;-but how unlike her in faith! She doubted not either the power or the disposition of Jesus to heal her daughter; but this Jewish father is full of unbelief. He comes to our Lord very much as he would have applied to some celebrated physician: "If Thou canst do anything, help us." He is not sure that his child can be cured. He has no confidence in the unlimited, supernatural power of Christ; the most he can hope is that there is a possibility of cure. "If Thou canst do anything"-O, thou of little faith! Knowest thou that He to whom thou speakest such words is the Maker of heaven and earth, the Lord of nature, the Giver of life, "the everlasting God who fainteth not neither is weary?" Speakest thou such words to Him, who governs the winds and the seas; who commands. legions of angels and they come and go at His bidding? Alas, this benighted supplicant knows not that He whom he approaches as a physician has just been