Frustration (Mark 9:14–32

Transfiguration

Frustration

(Mark 9:14–32)

Characters: Andrew (the Apostle) and Susanna (one of the women in the group of disciples)

Susanna: Andrew! I was wondering where you’d got to. Supper will be served soon. Are you coming back?

Andrew: Not yet. I’m not hungry.

Susanna: Don’t count on anything being left over. Peter and the Zebedee boys have been up a mountain and back.

Andrew: I’ve no desire to hear their bragging. I’ll get something at the inn if I need to. But thanks for thinking of me.

Susanna: I know it’s been a difficult day …

Andrew: Dear Susanna, always so tactful. It’s been a terrible day.

Susanna: It must be difficult when Jesus shares things with your brother but not with you. I’m sure he has his reasons.

Andrew: I’ve no quarrel with Jesus – when he’s here he makes each of us feel special. But the way Peter takes it! The look he gave me as he swaggered off up that path.

Susanna: I saw it too. But he didn’t look like that when he came back – it was as if he’d seen something beyond his understanding. Whatever it was silenced James and John – for once.

Andrew: To be honest, I don’t really care what happened to them. What they left us to deal with was bad enough.

Susanna: I know you tried to give the group a lead while we were waiting, dealing with all those people who turned up looking for Jesus.

Andrew: Oh, I tried – perhaps too hard. I thought I’d impress Jesus on his return: show we’d learned something.

Susanna: Some were healed this morning. Some listened to the stories.

Andrew: And others asked questions we could not answer. And then …

Susanna: The boy?

Andrew: Why did his father bring him then? With the crowd grumbling because they’d missed Jesus. And the lawyers closing in to pick us off.

Susanna: He was desperate. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to get through before. It can’t have been easy travelling with a lad with violent fits.

Andrew: But why did it have to be when I was there? This horror has possessed the boy for years. Why expect us to free him now?

Susanna: Horror? Yes – folk fell back at the foaming mouth, the clenched teeth, the rigid body. But it was love that brought him to us. Love that faced the contempt and the fear. Love that risked the loss of all hope.

Andrew: That is true. I hadn’t seen it that way. His parents must have loved him, to rescue him again and again when the wildness threw him into fire and water.

Susanna: So easy to lose patience. As we did, when our healing touch made no difference.

Andrew: With the crowd, drawn to the noise, demanding a spectacle.

Susanna: While the lawyers posed mocking, tricky questions about Jesus, and demons, and who has authority.

Andrew: I tried, we all tried, straining in the heat and the dust.

Susanna: Until you left.

Andrew: Suddenly, it was all too much. I couldn’t bear it. The man’s despairing eyes, the whimpering of his son, our hope seeping away. I was angry at Jesus for not being there, not preparing us, raising

Transfiguration

expectations we can’t meet. I’m just a fisherman. I don’t have to put myself through that. So I left.

Susanna: I don’t blame you. We were all exhausted, and so were the boy and his father. Perhaps that’s why they were still there when Jesus arrived back. We didn’t see him at first – just sensed the anticipation sweeping through the crowd.

Andrew: Then everything was suddenly all right? Great, why did I even bother to try?

Susanna: No, it wasn’t that simple. When Jesus took in the scene he was frustrated. I think whatever happened on the mountain had been momentous for him too. He probably wanted time to rest and reflect.

Andrew: We’d let him down.

Susanna: Not just us. The crowd, sceptical but wanting excitement; the lawyers trying to regulate God’s power; and perhaps this whole broken world which distorts a child’s life. Above all, the lack of faith.

Andrew: I thought I had faith – but it wasn’t enough.

Susanna: That’s what the father said. He pleaded with Jesus, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!’

Andrew: And then?

Susanna: And then Jesus took control – tackling the horror directly. The convulsions were awful to watch. Suddenly it seemed to be all over, the lad pale and rigid, the crowd groaning, the lawyers smirking. Then Jesus pulled him to his feet, whole and smiling.

Andrew: I don’t understand.

Susanna: None of us do. There’s much to talk over at supper. Come, it will be ready now.

Kit Walkham

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