Be Opened!

Jesu Juva

St. Mark 7:31-37                                                            

September 5, 2021

Proper 18B                  

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          The Prophet Isaiah wrote this concerning the Messiah:  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.  And seven centuries later the crowds declared concerning Jesus:  He has done all things well.  He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.  Prophecy given; prophecy fulfilled.

          They brought to Jesus a man who could neither hear nor speak.  And the people begged Jesus to lay His hands on him.  After all, that’s what healers were supposed to do.  That was the prescribed protocol for those with gifts of healing in Jesus’ day.  The healer was supposed to lay his hands on the person in need of healing.  The people, it seems, had a plan.  They had a preconceived notion about how Jesus was supposed to do His thing.  He was supposed to do what every other healer did—lay hands on the sick person and pray. 

          We sometimes approach Jesus in the same way.  We not only present the problem, we also present the solution.  “Here’s what I want, Lord, and here’s how I think you should do it.”  We’re kind of like those kids who send out their Christmas list via e-mail, complete with links to the websites that sell the desired items.  “Here’s what I want, now just click and purchase.”  But here’s the thing:  the more you specify a gift, the less of a “gift” it becomes.  It turns into more of a transaction—a bargain, really—which is precisely how our Old Adam loves to deal with God.  Lord, give me patience, but don’t let me suffer.  Lord, give me wisdom, but spare me the pain of experience.  Lord, help my teenagers to turn out okay, but don’t expect me to teach them the faith at home.  Make no mistake, God wants to hear our problems and needs.  But the solutions to those problems should be left entirely up to Him.  Faith trusts that God will always give what is needed, according to His limitless wisdom and love.

          Jesus didn’t deal with the deaf and mute man according to the people’s preconceived notions.  Jesus took him aside privately, away from the crowd.  That poor man’s plight would not become entertainment for the crowd (or a TicToc video).  The man had likely lived his entire life on the fringes of society.  Unable to speak, unable to hear, he lived in a terrible isolation.  Most people probably simply ignored him.  That’s what often happens in our world with people who can’t process language and communication.  To our shame, we ignore them.  Because they can’t offer us anything in terms of praise or instruction or companionship, we ignore them.  We de-value them.  We leave them to their terrible isolation—and leave it up to government programs to keep them going.

          Stroke victims are often forced to deal with the frustration and futility of not being able to speak.  I once called on a widow who had just suffered a terrible stroke.  Although I had never met her before, it was obvious that she could understand every word I was saying.  And it was equally obvious that she couldn’t speak a single syllable of what she desperately wanted to say to me.  A few days earlier you would have said that she was sharp as a tack.  But no more; for her language had left her.  As she struggled to speak, the fear and frustration on her face were almost unbearable; and after a while, all she could do was weep in silence.  It was heart-breaking.  It happened 28 years ago; and I’ll never forget the terrible helplessness of that moment.

          That woman’s helplessness wasn’t so different from our helplessness before God.  We are born deaf—deaf to the Word of God.  Ears that can hear are a great gift from God.  But what do we do?  We close our ears to God’s Word and God’s will for our lives.  His commandments routinely fall on our “deaf” ears.  We’re equally deaf to the cries of those around us—those whom God has given us to love and care for.  We just don’t want to be bothered with the pain of others; and our ears are exceptionally good at tuning it out.   

          Likewise, we are born mute—unable to sing the pure praises of God, unwilling to declare the goodness of God.  Voices that speak and sing and pray are a great gift from God.  But by nature we prefer to use our voices for careless complaining, for angry words, for shifting the blame, and, sometimes, to inflict more pain than any weapon ever could.  We can hear, but we don’t hear what we need to hear.  We can talk, but we don’t say what needs to be spoken.

          God must act.  If our ears are ever going to hear God’s Word and believe it and take it to heart—if our voices will ever truly sing God’s praises and support the people we’re supposed to love—then God must act.  He must do for us—He must do for you—what He did for the man in today’s text.

          Jesus refused to ignore that man in his isolation and desperation.  Jesus took him to a private place.  And Jesus did a strange thing.  He put His fingers into the

deaf man’s ears.  He spit and touched the man’s tongue.  He looked up to heaven.  And as Jesus did all this, He was communicating a message that couldn’t be missed:  I know what’s wrong with you, brother!  I know the pain of your isolation.  You’ve got ears that don’t hear and a tongue that doesn’t work and I am going to do something about that.  I’m lifting my eyes to heaven; because that’s where I came from to be here, now, with you. 

          And then Jesus spoke one simple word:  Ephphatha!  “Be opened!”  Did the deaf man hear this “ephphatha?”  Were these the first sound waves to enter his newly opened ears?  Or did he read the Savior’s lips as the word was spoken?  We don’t know.  But what we do know is that one word from Jesus gets results.  The Word of Jesus gets results in human ears and hearts—even in ears shut tight by sin.

          And as that mute man began to speak plainly, eloquently, and with great articulation, the people in that place were amazed beyond all measure, declaring of Jesus, “He has done all things well.”  That word, “well,” goes all the way back to creation—back to Genesis chapter one where God surveyed all that He had created and declared it to be “very good.”  God’s “very good” creation was ruined and destroyed by sin and its wages.  But now God has come among us in the flesh of Jesus Christ to make all things new—to make deaf ears hear and mute tongues sing for joy.  He has indeed done all things well, wonderfully, beautifully, perfectly.  And He’s done them all for you.

          I’m sure there were plenty of other deaf people in the city where this man was healed—more with speech disabilities, more with head injuries and strokes, more with what we today call dyslexia, autism, and other communication disorders.  Jesus didn’t heal them all.  And they are still among us today—people whose hearing and speaking is impaired.  So what do we do about all of them?  We love them.  We thank God for them.  We join with them to ease their isolation just as Jesus joined His life to ours.  And we pray for them—not dictating when or how the healing may come—but trusting that these dear souls who live in isolation today will one day rejoice to be surrounded by angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, cheering them onward and upward as they finish their course in faith.

          Jesus came to do more than open the ears of one afflicted man.  Jesus came to open the kingdom of heaven—and to do it for all believers—for sinners who could never make it there on their own.  But this grand opening would require His very life to be sacrificed for sinners.  Jesus groaned as He healed the man in today’s text, and He would groan again on Good Friday, as He bore the curse of our sinful ears and tongues.  He surrendered to it all as your substitute.  But from the cross of Christ rings out that wonderful word:  Ephphatha, be opened.  For the death of Jesus has opened heaven for you.  There God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting your sins against you.

          We haven’t heard the last of this word, Ephphatha.  It will echo on until that glorious day when Jesus will call you from your grave.  “Ephphatha,” He will say.  “Be opened.”  And then, miracle of miracles, we will all be gathered around the throne of God in robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb.  And wonder of wonders, we poor sinners will hear Jesus declaring that through faith in Him we have done all things well.  On that day none of us will ever be alone again.  The autistic, the dyslexic, the deaf and mute:  all will hear.  All will be heard, and known, and loved.  All will surely say:  Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!  He has done all things well. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.