How Long Shall I Suffer You?
Do the harsh sayings of Jesus mean he actually might reject us? Or, do His words hold the door open for us to step into faith?
Our oldest two children are home from college for the summer and we more than grateful. And yet, it already has us thinking. Because we have eight kids ranging in age from 21 to 6, we may never know what it feels like to have an empty nest.
The odds suggest that someone is bound to be around the house. And although we cannot predict the future, we have agreed —without much deliberation — that if this were to become reality, we are ready to bear that burden. Having our kids in the house far outweighs the alternative of never having them at home. We’ll gladly “suffer” their presence.
I think about this when I consider a conversation Jesus has with a man in Mark 9.
In Mark 9:16, Jesus approaches a crowd gathered around teachers of the law arguing with his disciples. When Jesus asks the scribes why they are arguing, a man breaks from the crowd to explain all the fuss.
Moments before Jesus arrived, the man had asked the disciples if they could deliver his son from a spirit. This spirit would seize his son and throw him to the ground, then make him foam at the mouth, stiffen up and become unable to speak.
According to the father, the disciples were unable to set the young man free. Whether it was the scribes or the father himself, the argument of unbelief that had surrounded the disciples doesn’t sit well with Jesus. He responds by saying:
“You unbelieving generation … how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” — Mark 9:19
I can’t get over how harsh those words feel.
It seems like he’s ready to give up on the unbelievers. Not just the ones standing in front of him, but the whole generation.
So should we leave it at that?
I think if we sit with his frustration a bit longer, we will find that we can’t just leave his questions as they appear.
Some translations use different English words to guide our interpretation of Jesus’ response. For instance, rather than hearing Jesus ask, “How long shall I put up with you?,” we may read, “How long shall I bear with you?” (ESV) or “How long shall I suffer you?” (KJV)
It’s not that the other translations make Jesus feel less exasperated. It’s that the other versions help us sense something more in his heart. A heart that bears us in our unbelief. A heart that suffers us in our faithlessness.
Rather than hear His questions as contemplations of rejection, what if we instead find his words holding the door open for us to step into faith?
We see an example of this in Mark 7 when Jesus interacts with the woman who asked him to heal her daughter. What could have been received as his rejection is reversed by her witty reply (Mark 7:24-30).
By the end of her story, we discover she had encountered the Jesus she knew deep down she was looking for. Of course, he is good. He was good all along.
Could we not hear Jesus’ words in Mark 9 in the same light? Doesn’t his promise that he will be handed over to die demonstrate that he will go to great lengths to bear us? Don’t the scriptures tell us that he will never leave us nor forsake us? Never stop putting up with us?
Like the father who will eventually say, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24), we can walk through the door he holds open for us. It’s not mountain-sized belief that Jesus is waiting for, but mustard seed faith.
This faith gives us the conviction to know that God lovingly bears us.
In his book, “Life Together,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that “bearing means forbearing and sustaining. … God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found.”
There is no sadness in Jesus’ suffering us. For God to suffer us is not a suffering he will despise. His bearing does not contain mixed emotions or regret. He is not irritable in his waiting, but is patient as long as he needs to be. He is not stuck in a decision he’d wished he hadn’t gotten into because there is no decision Jesus makes where joy is not set before him.
After Jesus sees the boy possessed by the spirit, he asks the man how long his son had been like this. The man replied, “from childhood.”
This father had put up with his son’s condition for his entire life. He had been with him when the spirit had thrown him into fire and water to die. In a very real sense, he was a father who had walked through hell with his boy. He had bore his son’s burdens and suffered his son’s shame.
What better picture of the kind of God who suffers us? Wouldn’t Jesus have seen the faithfulness of this father toward his son as a type of the Father’s love toward us?
When He saw the crowd coming toward Him, Jesus looked at the young man and said:
“’I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.’ The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, ‘He’s dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.” — Mark 9:25-27
Here, the boy has his own death and resurrection. And in this deliverance he is finally freed to hear, to speak, and to believe. Oh, that God would free us to hear and speak. That we might be the believing generation.
“How long shall I put up with you?”
“How long shall I bear with you?”
“How long shall I suffer you?”
The answer to Jesus’ questions, it seems, is that he will suffer us for as long as necessary. Like the father who suffered his son since childhood, God will bear us until we are set free.
Jesus is the God whose patience is willing enough that none perish and everyone come to repentance. I don’t believe his willingness will run out on me. I know it won't run out on you either.
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