Luke 9 contains some harsh words from the Lord. It follows upon the healing of an epileptic boy, the only child of a man who pleaded to the disciples of Jesus to heal the boy, but they could not. Jesus referred to the generation as faithless and perverse, and the disciples could not do miracles in a context of faithlessness and perversity. Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and gave the boy back to his father. It is then that Jesus again predicted that the Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men. The idea here is that Jesus is going to be killed, but the people did not understand, and it is said that understanding was hidden from them. What ties together these two stories is this: by healing the boy and returning him to his father, Jesus restored the unity of the family. The death of Jesus, the taking away of Jesus from his family and from his Father, is preliminary to Jesus returning to the Father to restore the primordial uncreated Unity that was ruptured in the sending forth of the Son. The people seemed to have been recruited involuntarily in this drama of redemption, for their role was necessary for the restoration of the Unity of the divine, and for their own salvation. This was hidden from their understanding. Jesus said, let these words sink into your ears. That is, he wanted them to understand at a deeper level than was their custom. He is saying that the Son of Man will be delivered, and this deliverance was necessary for their deliverance from sin and death. The miracle that preceded this story opens up a place for insight into the misunderstanding that follows. Miracle is the self-presencing of the divine that can only be witnessed through the eyes of faith. That is why the faithless generation could not see it. Miracle is the reintegration of the the divine and the human, the creation of wholeness and unity, the rejection and overturning of brokenness and division. Miracle is the original Word, the Word before all words, that opens up a new world to be grasped by faith, where the joy of redemption resounds in the celebration of healing.