Mark 9:17-31 March 30, 2025 Osaka Church
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
A father clung to Jesus, pleading for the healing of his sick and suffering child, and cried out: “Lord I believe, help me, my unbelief.”
However, many people cannot say, “Help me.” When people are in pain or find themselves in a difficult situation, many people do not say, “Help me,” but ask, “How much money should I pay? What should I do for you?” We “cannot think” that we can obtain our own salvation “for free.” If we receive something for free, we will never be able to look up to the person who gave it to us unless we repay the debt as soon as possible. We will be dominated…
On the other hand, when we help others, this kind of thinking creates a sense of superiority in our hearts, that we placed them in our debt, and a feeling of intoxication of our own power to dominate others. So when that debt is ignored, unappreciated, or rejected, we become consumed by anger and hatred.
Many people, especially Japanese people, know the pain of being entangled in these “feelings” that fluctuate between servility and arrogance and being unable to escape.
No matter how uncertain it may seem, we must throw ourselves down and ask God. No matter how vague our belief may seem, we must pray, casting aside any cynicism towards faith that we have within us.
When we prostrate ourselves before Christ (literally) and pray out loud, casting aside any hesitation, “Help me,” something that had been entangling our hearts will break. The person who had felt humiliated at revealing himself in public as needing help is no longer there.
In today’s Gospel, the plea “help me” of the father who brought his demon-possessed child to Christ, moved Christ, and the child was healed. This healing is not merely a healing of an illness. It is salvation itself. The father’s prayer itself became his salvation. The moment he found himself able to pray from the heart, to believe even while doubting, and to surrender himself completely—that was salvation itself. This is an experience that has happened to many of us, an experience rooted in the deepest part of our souls.
Finally, today’s Gospel teaches us something that we must never forget…
If we forget this, we will fall into the worst kind of mistaken idea of boasting that we have achieved our faith, that is, our “salvation,” as the result of our own spiritual efforts. And we will boast that we have “created a debt” that God owes us. You can almost hear the devil laughing loudly.
“Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
This seemingly selfish wish is actually the starting point of true faith. And it is the confession that always supports true faith at the deepest level. We cannot attain faith by our own power. The confession, “I believe; help my unbelief…” is a gift, a grace from God, given during an encounter with Christ. The Holy Apostle Paul said,
“For by grace you have been saved, through faith; and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
All we can do is ask to receive faith. Traditional Orthodox prayer confesses this truth to the very limits of human thought. The eighth prayer of the “Morning Prayer” that believers pray every morning is as follows:
“Christ Savior, whether I will or will not, come to me as I am perishing, make haste to save me. Deliver me from my unbelief.”
(Morning Prayer No. 8, Prayer Book of the Small Prayer of the Orthodox Church in Japan)