Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity - Mark 7:31-37

 

Trinity 12

                                                                                       Mk 7:31-37

                                                                                       8/18/24

 

            I began visiting Priscilla about ten years ago.  She is a LCMS member who had moved to this area from Florida in order to be near family. She is a lovely Christian, and I have enjoyed my visits with her.

            Priscilla recently turned one hundred years old. She was already almost blind when I met her. Unfortunately, during the last few years her age has greatly affected her hearing.  For the most part, it is no longer possible to have a conversation with her.  She knows who I am and is glad to have me there, but we can no longer talk as we once did.  She simply can’t hear what I am saying.

            When I visit I set up my chair very close and directly in front of her. I speak at the loudest level I can without actually shouting.  While she can’t hear well enough to converse, she does hear phrases from the liturgy of the Divine Service.  These trigger her knowledge of the words that she has spoken all her life. And so she speaks the confession, and the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer.

            My visits with Priscilla always remind me of how very precious hearing is.  We take it for granted as part of life until some problem starts to arise.  For those of us who have lived with hearing that works, it is hard to imagine what it would be like to be deaf.

            In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus encounters a man who is deaf.  In addition to being deaf, he has some kind of speech impediment.  We don’t learn any of the details about how the man came to be in this condition. But clearly, it was a great hardship in his life.

            Jesus had been north of Galilee in the region of Tyre and Sidon along the Mediterranean Sea.  There he had healed the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman.  Now Jesus had returned from that area and was on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee in an area known as the Decapolis.  The name itself meant “ten cities” and referred to the Gentile cities that had been founded there.  This was an area where there were a significant number of Gentiles in addition to Jews.

            We learn 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. The news about Jesus had travelled far and wide.  People knew that he was a miracle working teacher who healed.  And so they brought this man to Jesus in hopes that he would help him.

            It is interesting to note that they begged Jesus to lay his hand on the man.  Jesus’ healing touch was well known.  It is a reminder to us about the incarnation of our Lord.  The Son of God who had created the world, entered this world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  The Word – the Son of God – became flesh.  He became man without ceasing to be God. And it is as man that he was able touch those who were in need of healing.

            Jesus was man.  But he was also the Son of God. And so he was the presence of God bringing healing and relief. We learn that Jesus took the man aside from the crowd privately. He put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and groaned.  Our text has translated this word as “sighed,” but in the New Testament it far more frequently means “groan.”  Jesus groaned as he stood in the presence of the suffering that sin had brought into the world.

            Yet our Lord was here to do something about it.  He said to the man “Ephphatha” which means, “Be opened.”  The man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released and he spoke plainly.  Jesus’ word had freed the man.

            Jesus had worked a miracle.  However, we learn in our text that he ordered them to tell no one.  Our Lord does this regularly.  At first glance, it seems surprising. Doesn’t Jesus want the report about his work to spread?  But our Lord does this because he wants to define his ministry, instead of having others draw conclusions about him.  As we will see, Jesus was not here to do things in the way that man expects.

            Jesus ordered them to tell no one.  But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.  Mark tells us, “And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’”

            This statement was more than an observation about what Jesus was doing.  The language used leads us to see that Jesus’ actions are fulfilling the words of the prophet Isaiah.  In chapter 35 Isaiah had spoken about the end time salvation that God was going to bring.  He wrote, “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 had come to bring God’s end time salvation.  Mark tells us that Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” 

            Jesus Christ was the presence of the kingdom of God – the reign of God.  He was the end time salvation of God that was turning back the forces of sin and Satan.  Jesus was the presence of God’s reign that was overcoming the harm that sin has brought into the world.  His miracles show this as he caused the blind to see; the lame to walk; the deaf to hear; and the mute to speak.

            Jesus had come to provide the rescue from sin. This is something that we need desperately. Just before our text our Lord had described the human condition – our condition. He said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 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.”  These are the things that come out of our heart. They emerge in thought, in word, and in action.

            Jesus Christ was the presence of God’s reign. He had come to provide rescue from sin. Yet he would do this in a way that no one expected. In the next chapter, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  They tell him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” Then Jesus asked “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”

            Peter was right. Jesus was the Christ. He was from the lineage of King David. At his baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon him and God said, “You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased.”  He was the One who had come to bring God’s reign.

            Yet Mark then 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. And he said this plainly.”  Jesus had come to bring God’s reign in a decisive way.  But he had come to do this by dying on the cross.

            Jesus was bringing God’s end time salvation.  He was the presence of God’s reign as he healed the sick; as he caused the deaf to hear and the mute to speak; as he cast out demons.  This was impressive work.  As we hear in our text the people were astonished beyond measure, and said “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

            But death?  There was nothing impressive about that.  And so Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him.  However, in response Jesus rebuked Peter as he said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

            Jesus was bringing the reign of God.  But God wasn’t doing things in the way of man. The way of God was the way of the cross.  God was acting in Christ to provide the definitive answer to sin.  Jesus 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.”  The Son of God had entered into the world to be the sacrifice that wins forgiveness for all.

            Jesus died on Good Friday.  Yet Jesus was also the means by which God’s reign was present to defeat death.  On the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead. In Jesus’ resurrection God has begun the resurrection of the Last Day.  Death has been conquered in Christ, and we will receive this final blessing when the Lord Jesus returns in glory on the Last Day and raises our bodies.

            We look forward to that day with hope.  And in the present the risen Lord continues to bring his saving reign to us.  He did it in Holy Baptism for there your sins were washed away, and you were born again of water and the Spirit.  In baptism God has given us the means to which we can return in faith.  We confess our sins and turn in faith to God’s promise that in baptism we have forgiveness.

            The saving reign of the Lord is about to be present in our midst in the Sacrament of the Altar.  The risen and ascended Lord comes to us in his true body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins.  Here he gives us food for the new man that strengthens us in faith.  He gives his risen body and blood into our bodies, and so we know that our bodies will share in his resurrection on the Last Day.

   God’s reign is present through all of the Means of Grace.  The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is at work through them to give us forgiveness and to strengthen the new man in us. The Spirit leads and enables us to forgive others just as God has forgiven us in Christ.  He causes us to love and serve others, just as Jesus had done to us.

            In our text we learn that after Jesus healed the man, he charged them to tell no one.  But now that Jesus has died on the cross and risen from the dead, everything has changed.  Now, Jesus commands us to share his saving reign by telling others about him.  He sends us forth to share the Gospel with those whom we know. When we speak about the crucified and risen Lord, we are bringing the saving reign of God to all who hear.