Mark 9:14-29 - John Reilly Healing Lunatic Boy

​John Reilly: The Healing of the Lunatic Boy

This painting by the English artist John Reilly (1928-2010) pictures the healing of a deaf and dumb boy by means of driving out an unclean spirit.

Reilly places Jesus and the healed boy on the left side and the convulsing boy and his desperate parents on the right side. One of the figures on the right could also be a disciple who tries to heal the boy without success.

On the right we see a grey world without light, in which each person is imprisoned in his own bubble. Perhaps you could also call it a world without prayer or faith, in which people attempt to liberate the boy with exorcising gestures.

Over against them Jesus and the boy stand together, calm and upright in God’s radiant, golden light. Jesus prays and passes on God’s healing blessing; the boy receives the blessing. This is how Jesus manages to break through the closed-off state of a world without faith.

Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker