Trinity 12
Mk 7:31-37
8/30/20
When Amy
had her brain tumor removed a couple of years ago, she became deaf in her left
ear. We thank God that the tumor was
benign. However, as an acoustic neuroma,
the tumor had grown out of her auditory nerve.
In order to remove the tumor that was beginning to press on her brain
stem, the surgeons had to destroy the nerve when they removed the tumor – there
was no way to save it.
Being deaf
in that ear has required adjustments. However, Amy says there has been one
great benefit. Now it has been claimed
that that I snore quite loudly. I find this to be extremely unlikely, because I
have never heard it. However, after
rooming with me at the district convention, our head elder Frank Glaub says
that he will not do so again because I hindered his ability to sleep. So maybe it is true. After all, Jesus said
things should be confirmed by two or three witnesses.
So let us
grant that perhaps I do snore. Amy says
that since the surgery this is now absolutely no problem. She turns her head, puts her right ear down
on the pillow, and with her deaf left hear open to the air she hears nothing at
all and sleeps just fine. Now that is
what you call taking lemons and making lemonade.
Of course
deafness is no laughing matter, especially when one is talking about complete
deafness. Some of the greatest frustration
I have seen in the ministry has been among the elderly whose hearing loss is so
profound that they are for all intents and purposes deaf. Having lived their whole life hearing, the
inability to hear and communicate becomes deeply upsetting.
In our
Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus encounter a man who was not only deaf, but
also had a profound speech impediment.
Our text tells us that Jesus has been in the region of Tyre and Sidon,
in the far northwest along the Mediterranean Sea. He had returned from there to the area that
was on the east side of the Sea of Galilee – a region that was called the
Decapolis because of the ten cities that were located there.
In our
text Mark tells us, “And they brought to him a man who was deaf
and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on
him.” Our Lord had become well known for
his healing ministry. In particular this
healing was often associated with Jesus’ touch – with his laying hands on
people. Two chapters earlier, Jairus
came to Jesus and implored him, “My
little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her,
so that she may be made well and live.”
We learn
that Jesus took the man aside from the crowd privately. Then our Lord put his fingers
into the man’s ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. Next he looked up to heaven. Our translation says that he then
“sighed.” This word can also be translated
as “groaned.” Either way, it expresses
the response our Lord had as he stood in the presence of what sin has done to
us and the world.
God created a world that was very good. It
is sin that has brought suffering, sickness and death. The fallenness of the
world is what causes all of those things that we have no control over, yet
which afflict us physically – things like cancer, COVID, cancer, and cataracts.
As Jesus, the Son of God, lived in our world he encountered these things first
hand – he met them in the flesh. And Jesus reacted to what he knew was so very
wrong – so very different from what God had intended and created.
Yet Jesus was also here to do something
about it. He said, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened,” and the
man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Our Lord had performed this miracle of
healing. But he ordered them to tell no one about it. That may seem strange at
first, but there was in fact a very good reason. Jesus wanted to define his ministry for
people. He didn’t want them drawing
their own conclusions, which were almost guaranteed to be wrong. However we learn that the more he charged
them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astonished beyond
measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and
the mute speak.”
Today we hear in our Gospel lesson about a
miracle that Jesus did. Yet in the description of this miracle we have a very
unique feature that provides us with a very specific understanding of what it
means. We are told that they brought a
man “who
was deaf and had a speech impediment.”
Now the word translated here as “speech impediment” is the kind of word
that you hate when you are learning Greek.
You hate it because it is so rare that is unlikely you are ever going to
have learned it. In fact, in the all of the New Testament and the Greek
translation of the Old Testament it only occurs twice. It is found here,
and in Isaiah chapter 35.
In that chapter, the prophet describes the
return from exile. But he does so in a
way that clearly speaks about far more than just the people returning from
exile. In fact the return from exile
becomes something that is used to describe the even greater rescue that God is
going to provide – the end time salvation that God is going to give.
Isaiah writes, “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.”
Jesus Christ was the presence of the end time salvation that
Isaiah described. By healing the man he
was bringing this deliverance and salvation into the world. Yet remember how
our Lord commanded the people not to tell others about the miracle because he
wanted to define his ministry? He didn’t
want other people drawing their own conclusions.
The Son of God, Jesus Christ, had not entered into the world in
the incarnation in order to deal only with the effects of sin – with the ways
we experience the fallenness of the world.
He had come to deal with sin itself. And sin is not only about physical
consequences over which we have no control. It is about what we think, and do,
and say. Earlier in this same chapter
Jesus said, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts,
sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit,
sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from
within, and they defile a person.” If
you listen to that list, you will know that Jesus is describing you.
Jesus had come to provide the answer to sin. But while his miracles brought the amazement
of the crowds, the way he was he was going to do this would not strike people
as astonishing and wonderful. In the very next chapter, Mark tells us: “And he
began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things
and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be
killed, and after three days rise again.”
Jesus had
come to suffer and die for our sins. Our
Lord said, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many.”
That is what Jesus did as he died on the cross. He gave himself as the
ransom who won forgiveness by receiving the judgment of God against us.
But Jesus
also said that after three days he would rise again. The result of sin is sickness and death. Jesus did not only win forgiveness for us
before the Father. By his resurrection he
has defeated death and begun the life that will never know sickness again – the
life where there will be no cancer, COVID and cataracts.
Our Lord
gives to us now the forgiveness and salvation he has won. He is doing it at this very moment
through the proclamation of his Word – of his Gospel. He did it at the beginning of the service in
absolution. He has done it in baptism as
he washed away our sins and sanctified us.
Through
faith in our crucified and risen Lord we have forgiveness. And the Spirit who
worked that faith continues to be at work in us. He has made us a new creation
in Christ. He leads us to put to death
those things the old Adam still wants to proceed from our heart – the coveting,
lust, slander, and all the rest. Instead
he leads and helps us to walk in the way of Christ – the way of love, service,
and kindness.
In our text
we see Jesus heal a man. This miracle, like all of Jesus’ healing miracles,
points forward to the final salvation and restoration he will bring on the Last
Day. His miracle in our text causes us
listen to the prophet Isaiah as he says to us today: “‘Be strong; fear
not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of
God. He will come and save you.’”
Indeed, your God has come. He came as the incarnate Son of God who
suffered, died and rose from the dead for you. Because of Jesus there is no
need to fear. There is no need to fear
sin because it is forgiven. There is no
need to fear cancer, COVID or cataracts because Jesus has promised his
continuing love in the present. And by
his resurrection he has rendered death powerless. It cannot separate you from
God - for you to die is to be with Christ.
It cannot even hold your body, because your God will come
again. The Lord Jesus will return on the Last Day to raise up your body and
transform it to be like his. He will
bring the consummation of his saving work.
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.
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