Jesus easily heals the demonized boy, where the Disciples found themselves powerless to help. Jesus had given them power to cast out demons, and He expected them to do the work He was doing, but they could not. In His frustration Jesus expresses that His patience is being tested by their lack of faith and lack of understanding. They were just not getting it! The crowd is still astonished at what Jesus is doing, but Jesus again warns His Disciples not to be misled by His current popularity – soon He will be delivered into the hands of men. The complete lack of understanding again comes to the surface as they cannot grasp what this means, and they are afraid to ask! It is clear that Jesus will have to endure their unbelief and complete misunderstanding – until He goes to the cross. He must be delivered over to suffer and die. There is no other way. All His teaching, all the giving to them of His power, all the modeling He is doing – is not enough. Things will not change until there is a deep and fundamental change from within – a change that will come about only through the work of the Cross. In the end – they were afraid to ask, because they were afraid of the answer – Jesus must die. But, what they feared is what the most desperately needed. The healing of the boy is a great model for ministry – setting people free from evil and restoring them to their Father. The Disciples would continue to fail, until they could find the answer to the question they would not ask. The answer that they would only succeed through the power of the cross.
