On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once, he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”
Jesus experienced the challenges and frustrations of human life. How good it is to know that Jesus understands when we’re in a tough place. He has been through things like this. He is with us at all times and all experiences! If you’re confronting the tough reality of life today, whether in your work or in your relationships, in your neighborhood or in the wider world, remember, Jesus understands. He is with you!
Have you ever had the experience of getting away from normal life, enjoying a rejuvenating time of rest, reflection, and recreation, only to have your restoration crushed by the reality of ordinary life? I’ll bet you have. I know I have.
On the very next day after the transfiguration, Jesus was thrust back into reality. As a crowd gathered around him, a man shouted out to Jesus, explaining that his child was tormented by a demon and that Jesus’s disciples were not able to cast it out of the boy. You may recall that, earlier in Luke, Jesus had given his disciples “power and authority over all demons” (Luke 9:1). They should have been able to expel the demon that harassed the man’s son, but for some reason, we're not able to do so.
Jesus responded to what he heard with an understandable lament: “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” (9:41). Though this remark had wide applicability, it seems directed first of all at Jesus’s disciples. It was a messianic way of saying what aggravated parents sometimes say to their unruly children, “How long am I going to have to put up with you?” I expect Jesus was thinking something like, “I gave you the authority to cast out demons. You could have handled this. Why didn’t you?” He was clearly feeling frustrated. I imagine that his frustration may have been more acute because of what he had just experienced on the mountaintop. He went from divine glory to the reality of demonic bondage and human unfaithfulness (see Matthew 17:20).
You and I won’t have an experience quite like that of Jesus because we aren’t eligible to be transfigured as he was. We are fully human but not fully divine. Nevertheless, we do know what it’s like to go from highs to lows, from mountaintops to valleys, from joys to sorrows. How good it is to know that Jesus understands, that he has been through things like this, and that he is with us in all times and all experiences! If you’re confronting the tough reality of life today, whether in your work or in your relationships, in your neighborhood or in the wider world, remember, Jesus understands. Jesus is with you!
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