As with the previous detailed accounts of exorcisms, so too this exorcism was symbolic of the evil embedded in Israel – yet not only in Israel but also in the group of the disciples themselves. It was an evil beyond their power to cast out.
41 Jesus said in answer, “O faithless and perverted generation. For how long must I be with you and put up with you! Bring your son here.”The evil in question was the evil of lack of faith and consequent missing of the point. Mark’s account had emphasised remorselessly the disciples’ lack of faith, as well as Israel’s. Luke was gentler towards the disciples and passed over Mark’s censure.
42 As he got close, the spirit convulsed him and threw him to the ground. Jesus warned the unclean spirit, and healed the lad, and gave him back to his father.43 Everyone was astounded at the majesty of God.Precisely what Luke intended by everyone’s astonishment at the greatness of God is not clear.
To the earlier reference to his death Jesus added the detail that he would be betrayed. Luke gave no indication of the reasons for the disciples’ fear of asking Jesus. Were they frightened of Jesus? or of the pending prospect of his death?
Luke was following at this stage the order of Mark’s Gospel.
To be at peace with the fact that the least was in fact the greatest was one expression of Jesus’ earlier comment about dying to self.
The starkness of the message can easily be lost on the modern reader. In the culture of the time, whilst a child was generally treasured in its family, it had no legal rights of any kind. It was totally under the control of its father. Along with women, it had no honour in a rigidly oriented honour-based culture. Effectively Jesus was stating that considerations of relative honour were totally out of place within the Christian community.
Jesus’ message about the importance of disregarding honour in an honour-based culture had apparently made little impression on John. For him it appeared that being one of the inner group was a privilege and an honour to be jealously guarded.
Jesus’ comment that anyone who is not against you is for you. seemed to speak of a situation where contempt was so strong and general that anyone not caught up in the collective mindset must have made a previous conscious decision not to be so. Perhaps the situation mirrored the reality during the life of Jesus. More probably it reflected the experience of Luke’s own small Christian community.
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