Faith That Removes Mountains
Faith That Removes Mountains
`Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, "Be taken up and cast into the sea", and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him' (Mark 11:23)
`If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, "Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea", and it would obey you' (Luke 17:6)
`For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move hence to yonder place", and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you' (Matt. 17:20)
Of these sayings, or varieties of an original saying, emphasising the limitless possibilities open to faith, Mark's form (followed in Matthew 21:21) has a life-setting in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, during Holy Week; Luke's form may be from the Q collection, in which case the form in Matthew 17:20 (an amplification of Jesus's words to the disciples after the healing of the epileptic boy at the foot of the mountain of transfiguration) combines features from Mark and Q.
In any case, Jesus illustrates the power of faith by analogies from the natural world. If faith is present at all, even if it is no bigger than a mustard seed, it can accomplish wonders: think what a large plant springs from something as tiny as a mustard seed. `We are not afraid when the earth heaves and the mountains are hurled into the sea': so Psalm 46:2 (NEB) describes a real or figurative convulsion of nature which leaves men and women of God unshaken because he is their refuge and strength. It may be that Jesus is using such a form of words figuratively to describe the incalculable effects of prevailing faith.
But in Mark's account there may be some more explicit point in the form of words. In that account the words are addressed to the disciples after the incident of the cursing of the fig tree. There may not seem to be much to connect that incident with a lesson on the power of faith. The connection, however, may be provided by the place where, according to Mark, the words were spoken. They were spoken in the morning, as Jesus and his disciples made their way from Bethany to Jerusalem, crossing the Mount of Olives. So, in Mark's account, `this mountain' in the saying would be the Mount of Olives.
Now, in current expectation regarding the time of the end, the Mount of Olives played a special part. It would be the scene of a violent earthquake on the Day of the Lord. 'On that day', said one of the prophets (referring to the day when the God of Israel would take final action against the enemies of his people), `his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward' (Zech. 14:4). If Jesus had this and related Old Testament prophecies in mind on his way across the Mount of Olives, his meaning might have been, `If you have sufficient faith in God, the Day of the Lord will come sooner than you think.' (For this suggestion indebtedness should be acknowledged to a work by Professor William Manson, published in 1943))