Jesu Juva
DR. RONLAD H. LOVE
COMPASSION
LESSON THREE
THE HEALING OF THE EPILEPTIC YOUTH
MARK 9:14-29
“Risk Yet Another Hour”
She awoke that Monday afternoon, with but two hours of sleep in a rain soaked tent, positioned where she was unable to fully lie down among the baskets and boxes. Two hours of sleep in two days, and only two guardians remained at Fairfax Station. She ripped the matted grass from her hair, wrung the muddy water from her skirt, and began again her dauntless task of nursing the wounded strung across the Manassas’ fields. Seven times that day her eyes were transfixed upon the youthful and familiar face of a former school pupil; before her each lumbered away supine in a two-wheeled ox cart ambulance. “You will not wonder that my heart is sore,” she mourned.
Summoned by fear and panic all the other medical personnel retreated to the nation’s capital in Washington, leaving Reverend Wells and Clara Barton to labor alone among the fallen. The explosive sound of muskets thundered in the near distance as butternut clad skirmishers rapidly approached. A Union officer, horse in tow, rode frantically to Clara’s side. Without dismounting, he inquired if she could ride bareback. Learning she was able, he left the horse at her side and shouted, “Then you can risk another hour!” And so she did. The “Angel of the Battlefield,” as she would soon be called, somberly remained in the shadowy valley of death.
Compassion, “to suffer with,” is to remain in the fissures of life when all others have withdrawn to safe havens. Comapssion, “to suffer with,” is to be an angel of mercy steadfast at the hypocenter of Armageddon. Compassion, “to suffer with,” is to risk yet another hour.
In Mark’s recording of the healing of the epileptic youth, we learn that Jesus found his calling to remain in the foreboding valley of despair. Mark emphasizes that Jesus could only do so because he exercised spiritual discipline.
Most of us, without apology, excessively expend our time and energy struggling to go “uphill” in life. Graduating from the foremost college, properly credentialed, Lexus blessed, plaques of adoration adorning our walls, well-connected, all acquired in our quest for success and recognition. This is self-indulgent if we use these accolades to retire unmolested within the sanctum of the Parthenon. In contrast, Jesus spent his life living as it began, in a hollow yet hallowed Bethlehem cave.
The healing of the epileptic youth is more thoughtfully interpreted if we begin with an event that occurred earlier in the day. Jesus, with three of his disciples, was atop a high mountain when he had such a divine spiritual experience that he was transfigured, so much so that “his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.” Aware that Elijah and Moses were in Jesus’ company, Peter, along with James and John, inquired as to the construction of three booths. The three disciples were content to reside blissfully on the mountaintop. Jesus forbade this for he knew the mandate for discipleship was to expeditiously descend into the abyss of despair; a calamitous place sustained by the injustices of society and the randomness of suffering.
Jesus realized this ministry among the people in the valley after his revelation before God – the Transfiguration – atop Mount Tabor. He understood that once again he had to leave the mountaintop and journey into the valley below.
If we are to live in the image of Christ and be imitators of his ministry, then we must journey downhill, living among the people of our community, ministering in the troughs of the Valley of Gehanna.
Jesus understood the difference between “solitude” and “solitariness.” Solitariness is to live isolated and unaware, insensible and unmoved. To inhabit Peter’s proposed dwellings atop the mountain would be solitariness. Instead, for Jesus, the mountaintop experience was a time of solitude. It was a pause for worship and prayer. This was a time of spiritual rejuvenation as he continued his pilgrimage toward Golgotha.
Having gravitated from the glory of the mountain into the confusion of the plain, Jesus encountered the remaining nine of his disciples. They were bewildered, disgruntled, and arguing because they were unable to heal the epileptic youth. The future apostolic leaders of the church wanted to know why they failed as faith healers for this stricken child. In response to their disillusionment Jesus answered, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”
The transfiguration of Jesus gave him profound spiritual insight. Thus, when he befriended the family and learned of the son’s ailment he comprehended like none other the father’s plea, “...have compassion on us and help us.” Compassion instilled within Jesus that the father’s cry of distress and feeling of helplessness was now his own. Internalizing the father’s pain compelled Jesus to surrender the security of being a detached bystander, and unhesitatingly accept the vulnerability of being an engaged participant. Moved from sympathy to compassion by a father’s tears, Jesus reached out and raised the child by the hand – a prefigurement of the resurrection.
Spiritual insight and wisdom nurtured through disciplined meditation in a place of solitude enabled Jesus to invoke the healing power of prayer. Compassion is powerless absent of contemplative spiritual exercises. It is through worship, prayer, and Bible study that there is an alignment of our devotional spirit with that of Jesus. Compassion is meaningless if we are unable to depart from the sanctuary of Mount Tabor into the anguish of the Jezreel Valley below.
Johnny Cash in his autobiography Man In Black recounts more than a career in music, by further confessing a life that succumbed to self-destructive demons that robbed him of contentment and self-worth. Privileged to reside in Israel during the filming of Gospel Road, Cash found his favorite location for privacy was upon the mountaintop of Mount Arabel, which overlooked Galilee. There he would rest upon a rock, seeking direction in life. He pondered if Jesus sat upon the same rock in moments of quiet meditation. As Cash sat there in reflection he spoke to himself, ‘“...maybe He stood here with his disciples around Him, teaching them. ‘Teach me too,’ I whispered. ‘The more I learn of You, the more I realize I don’t know You.’” On the mountaintop he sought solace; beneath the studio lights below he found exposure.
Spiritually aware and emotionally sensitive, Jesus was perceptive of the weltering human soul. To heal the infirmed Jesus relied upon the power of prayer. To sustain both his insight and compassion for the weltering human souls that he daily encountered, Jesus engaged in contemplative spiritual exercises.
Throughout his excursion through Palestine Jesus was bombarded with questions from his catechumens to the point he became exasperated. Inquires for interpretation and clarification, queries regarding future plans, quizzes for signs and symbols, probing for a declaration of who would be the greatest, were constantly hurled at our Lord.
But only once did Jesus’ proselytes ask to be taught. Only once did a question center on being taught rather than being informed. And what was the one thing they wanted to be taught? It was how to pray. As Luke records the episode: “Jesus was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples asked him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’” Jesus responded in what has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.”
Each Sabbath, as we recite “Our Father ...,” we are participants in this biblical event. We realize that if we are to be imitators of Christ for this age, then we must be participants in the prayers of his disciples’ era. Congregational and private prayer hastens spiritual renewal and emboldens the heart of compassion.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. could not sleep. He lay awake in bed, worried by the threats made against his family, fearful he would be murdered and uncertain of his leadership role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Unable to sleep he went downstairs to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. Sitting at the table he felt very much alone.
King slumped over the table, burying his face into his hands. He wept. He prayed. In the midst of that desperate prayer he heard a voice calling his name. The words were unmistakable. “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And Lo, I will be with you always.” Suddenly, outside the window, lightening flashed, thunder cracked, and King knew he had had heard the voice of Jesus. Astonished, King sat at the table repeating again and again, “He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.” The next morning, as a reincarnated Moses who would no longer tolerate the enslavement of the Hebrews, King marched his people to freedom.
From Mount Tabor to the Jezreel Valley, from a kitchen table to the streets of Montgomery, from the place you presently stand to where the Spirit leads, a soul empowered by prayer will embark upon a campaign of compassion.
Soli Deo Gloria,
AUTHOR
DR. RONALD H. LOVE
B.A.; M.A.; M.ED.; M.LIS.; M.DIV.; D.MIN.
PO Box 3609; Florence, South Carolina 29502-3609
843-618-7473