Trinity 12
Mk
7:31-37
8/18/13
First time parents are pretty much
all the same. It’s the first child so
everything is new and special and exciting.
Entrusted with the care of this little life they are so concerned about
doing everything right and watching out for the child.
Amy
and I were certainly that way. When we
only had Timothy and we went somewhere, we would constantly follow him around
to make sure that he was safe. If he was
eating crackers, dropped one on the ground and went to pick it up and eat it,
we swooped in order to snatch it away and keep it out of his mouth.
How
very different things have been for us with our fourth child! While we certainly still have Michael’s
safety in mind when he is out and about, basically if there isn’t an open flame
or a swimming pool involved we aren’t all that concerned. As for food dropping on the ground, we just
haven’t been uptight about it – the five second rule definitely carries the
day.
First
time parents doesn’t recognize the things that are really no big deal. But because they are first time parents,
sometimes they also don’t recognize the things that are a big deal. I was certainly a case in point.
Timothy
was our first child and I really hadn’t been around children in the early
stages of development. I knew that when
he first began to speak he was difficult to understand – but I didn’t really
think much of it. As time went on Amy
and I became attuned to the way he spoke, but others couldn’t understand what
he was saying, and we would have to “translate” what Timothy was said.
It
was Amy who first observed that this was not the way things were supposed to be
developing. I had no clue that there was
any problem, and at first was skeptical.
But once Amy pointed it out, I soon realized that there was a
problem. I am very thankful that there
was a wonderful speech therapy program available when we lived in the Chicago
area. They helped to get Timothy’s
speech back on track and today when you interact with a smart, articulate
middle school student you would never know there had been some problems when he
was little.
Speech
therapy is something we take for granted in our world. But of course, it was not something that
existed in ancient world. There was no
help for someone who struggled with this - and certainly no help for someone
who was deaf. Yet in our Gospel lesson
today we see Jesus heal a man who suffered from both of these. We learn that in the person of Jesus Christ
the reign of God broke into our world in order to free people from sin and all
the wrong it has caused.
In
our text, Jesus is in northern Israel, in an area where many Gentiles
lived. We are told that they brought to
him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay
his hand on him. We aren’t told who
brought the man. Unable to hear and
unable to communicate he would have had very few opportunities in the first
century Palestinian world – he would have been living a very difficult
life.
They
brought him to Jesus and asked our Lord to lay his hand on him. People had heard about Jesus. They knew that
he was performing miracles of healing and so they brought this unfortunate man
to Jesus in the hope that his touch would bring healing.
They
wanted Jesus to lay his hand on the man. However, the man probably got more
than he expected! We are told that Jesus
took the man away from the crowd, so that it was just the two of them. Then, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears,
and after spitting he touched the man’s tongue.
Then Jesus groaned and said to him, “Ephphatha,” which is Armaic for,
“Be opened.” And we are told that “his ears were opened, his tongue was
released, and he spoke plainly.”
After
Jesus had healed the man he ordered them to tell no one. Our Lord does this on a number of occasions
in the Gospels, and at first it may seem puzzling. After all, doesn’t Jesus want people to know
about his saving ministry? Yet what we
see here is that Jesus wants to define his ministry. The first century Jewish world had all kinds
of hopes and expectations about the one God would send and what he would
do. Many of these dealt with power,
glory and success.
As
the miracle demonstrated, Jesus had great power. But he had not come to use that power in ways
that the world expects. He had come to
serve. He had come to bring relief to the
lowly and suffering. He was going to provide the answer to the root cause of
suffering – he was going to provide the answer to sin. However, he was going to do this by suffering
in his own person. He was going to
suffer and die on behalf of the sins of all people. As Jesus will say just later in this Gospel:
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his
life as a ransom for many.”
However,
the people didn’t want to do it Jesus’ way.
It was all so cool! It was all so
exciting! When you know something cool
and exciting, how can you keep it to yourself?
And besides you can be the center of attention when you have something
cool and exciting to share. And so we
learn that the more he commanded them to keep it to themselves, the more they
were proclaiming it to others. After
all, it was amazing stuff. They were
astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes
the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
The
people didn’t listen to what Jesus told them.
They had their own idea about how things should be done – about how
things should work. Jesus wanted to do
things in his own way and his own time.
He was going to do things in the way of the cross. They wanted to do
things in the way of success and glory.
The
fact of the matter is that this describes us too – and I freely include
myself. You see, deep down, we really
don’t like what Jesus tells us to do right now. In our text this morning we
hear about a miracle. Jesus heals a man
who was deaf and couldn’t speak. We see that in Gospels Jesus heals many people
who were afflicted by many kinds of illnesses and conditions. And you know what? Most likely that is not going to
happen to you. Jesus doesn’t tell you to expect healing. He tells you to believe and trust in him for
the forgiveness of sins. He tells you to
receive his Means of Grace so that you can be sustained in that faith. He tells you to believe and trust in him as
you look for his return on the Last Day when he will transform your body so
that it will never again need healing.
And
frankly, that’s not what we want to hear.
We want results now. We
want healing now. We want freedom
from cares now. And because Jesus doesn’t do that – because Jesus
doesn’t even promise that – we get frustrated.
We doubt his word. We stop
listening to his word, and we don’t put it at the center of our life.
Jesus
tells those who witnessed the miracle not to talk about it because he was in
the process of carrying out the saving work of God. It was a work that needed
to be done in God’s way, and that was a way that would surprise many
people because it wasn’t going to happen in the way of success and glory. Instead, it was going to occur through the
cross.
Yet
make no mistake – the miracle in today’s text does say that it is God at work
bringing salvation and restoration. The
man who is healed is described as having a speech impediment. After Jesus heals the man, the astounded people
say, “He has done all things well. He
even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
The
Gospel’s description of the man as having a speech impediment and the crowd’s
reaction point directly to what Isaiah chapter 35 says in the Old Testament.
There the prophet describes the future salvation that God is going to bring and
writes, “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to
those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will
come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and
the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and
the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”
Mark
is telling us that in Jesus’ ministry this salvation has arrived. It’s here!
Jesus himself announced this at the beginning of his ministry when he
went into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is
fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at arrived; repent and believe in the
gospel.”
The
end time salvation of God has arrived and is already at work. And we know this is true because Jesus
Christ rose from the dead. The source of our hope for the future is his
resurrection because it means that in Jesus the new creation has already begun.
The renewal and restoration of our bodies has already started in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. What has happened to him will happen to us
because our bodies will be transformed to be like his. The root cause of all
this is wrong – sin – has been dealt with by our Lord’s death on the cross, and
the renewal of all things has begun in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead.
And so right now, we need to listen
to Jesus’ word. The final salvation has
started in Jesus, but its consummation and fulfillment has not yet
arrived. Sin is still here and physical
suffering is still here. Our Lord calls
us to believe and trust in him. He calls
us to live in peace, because our sins are forgiven and we are the children of
God. He calls us to live in hope, because we know what has already happened in
Jesus and what will therefore happen on the Last Day.
In order to support and sustain us
while we look for his return, Jesus Christ keeps doing the same things that we
see in our text this morning. He freed
the man with his word, “Ephaphtha!” Our
Lord continues to free us from the sin in our lives by his word – the word of
the Gospel as it comes to us in the reading and preaching of the Scriptures. He frees us with his word of Holy Absolution
as he forgives all our sins.
And in our text Jesus healed the man
with his bodily touch. Jesus continues
to do the same thing for us as he touches us in his holy Sacrament. In the Sacrament of the Altar he touches us
with his true body and blood, given and shed for us. He gives to you the very price he paid for your
salvation and in receiving it you know that this forgiveness is for you. He gives into your body his own crucified and
risen body and blood through which he nourishes the new man in you and
guarantees that your body too will be raised up and transformed on the Last
Day.
By these gifts he gives us
forgiveness, life and salvation now. And by these gifts he points us
forward to the consummation of his saving work when he returns in glory. He holds up before us the promise that he
will make all things very good once again, for that is the purpose of his
entire saving work. It was a saving work
that he carried out with the man in our text.
It is a saving work that he continues to carry out in our midst this
morning through his Means of Grace.
Sustained in the present by his astounding gifts, we can look towards
the future and exclaim in faith, truly, “He has done all things well.”
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