Text: Mark 7:31-37
Date: September 12, 2021
Event: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B
Mark 7:31–37 (EHV)
31Jesus left the region of Tyre again and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, within the region of the Decapolis.
32They brought a man to him who was deaf and had a speech impediment. They pleaded with Jesus to place his hand on him. 33Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34After he looked up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”) 35Immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was set free, and he began to speak plainly. 36Jesus gave the people strict orders to tell no one, but the more he did so, the more they kept proclaiming it. 37They were amazed beyond measure and said, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!”
Jesus’ Work Is Personal
The musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Les Miserables, follows the story of Jean Valjean, a man who was jailed for stealing bread to feed his starving sister and her son. As he looks back on his going to jail, Valjean observes, “If there's another way to go / I missed it twenty long years ago / My life was a war that could never be won / They gave me a number and murdered Valjean / When they chained me and left me for dead / Just for stealing a mouthful of bread.”
That notion of giving him a number and thus killing him follows throughout the story. Whenever the police inspector, Javert, interacts with Valjean, he rarely refers to Valjean by name. Instead, Javert prefers to use Valjean’s prison number, “24601.” It was purposefully dehumanizing. Valjean was not a person in Javert’s mind; he’s a criminal. He treats him like someone might treat a beast of burden or some kind of commodity.
Does it ever feel like that’s your relationship with God? Does he seem so distant, so far away that you feel like you are, at best, a mere number to him rather than a person? In our Gospel for this morning, we see Jesus operate in a slow, deliberate, and personal way that he didn’t have to. He took time with the deaf and mostly-mute man to interact with him, show his love for him, and heal him. Jesus’ work is always personal. He cares for you and me in the same way that he met this man’s needs, with work custom-tailored to who we are and what we need.
Our Gospel takes place after our run of Gospel readings from John chapter 6 where, after the feeding of the 5,000, many of the crowds stopped following Jesus because he wouldn’t do what they wanted him to do. He wouldn’t be their bread king to provide for any and every earthly need they had because he wanted to provide something greater and more important. He wanted to provide eternal life.
So Jesus journeyed around the greater area, still teaching and preaching, but probably to much less fanfare than he had done. He is traveling through the region of the Decapolis, the ten cities. This area was primarily populated with Gentiles, not Jewish people, as they were outside of Galilee proper. But that didn’t stop Jesus from caring about and loving these people so he proclaimed the good news he had to share there as well.
At a certain place, Jesus met a group of people who brought a man suffering from deafness and speech problems. They clearly cared very much for this man and wanted him to find relief from these ailments. If there was any difficulty for the man to reach Jesus or even know about his presence in the area, we can assume these friends took care of everything for him. We might think of the friends who lowered the paralytic man through a hole they made in the roof of the house where Jesus was earlier in his ministry.
From the summary of the conversation that Mark provides and Jesus’ actions, we can assume that while these people were bringing the man to Jesus to do something to help him, they’re weren’t only interested in this physical healing. They trusted Jesus to be able to provide for his physical well-being, yes, but also much more. Note the personal way they deal with Jesus on behalf of the man. They pleaded with Jesus. This was no half-hearted request. Their faith in Jesus and their love for this man combined to seek out this healing for him.
And how does Jesus treat him? How did he need to treat him? He could have dismissed them because he had other things to do. He could’ve just healed the man without a word, or with a word, or with a hand placed on him (as they asked for). We’ve seen Jesus do healing in all of those ways before. But Jesus here does something different, something unique: Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. After he looked up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”).
Why does Jesus do this? Why the show? Or actually better, why the lack of a show? Why depart from the crowds and do this healing just he and the man? Why do more than place his hands on him? Because Jesus wanted this healing, this miracle, this moment to be intensely personal. Think of the man’s difficulties. He couldn’t hear, so Jesus engages his other senses to focus the man on him. Jesus pulls him aside so that his vision is focused on Jesus and not distracted by the commotion of the crowd. He places his fingers in his ears, the part that wasn’t working, but certainly still had feeling. He made it clear to the man what he was doing even if the man couldn’t hear what he was saying. And then by spitting he visually get his own mouth in this healing work and by touching the man’s impeded tongue, set it free.
Jesus had a lot he wanted to do for this man and did in the best possible way to intimately communicate with him that Jesus, like the man’s friends, loved him. And look at the result of this healing! We’ve seen Jesus heal people who were paralyzed who left the healing not just barely able to shuffle along but actually run and jump moments after Jesus’ work. In a similar way, a man who was deaf (perhaps from birth) and who had great difficulty speaking (perhaps related to his deafness, which also might have been a life-long hardship) is left being able “to speak plainly.” Jesus took him not just to the point of an infant with newly-working ears and tongue where he would have to learn how to speak and receive audio input. No, he leaves Jesus’ healing as if there was never anything wrong. This is a complete healing that entirely undid the problem. And those around are left stunned: “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!”
Maybe you have some problems in your life that you wish Jesus would work this kind of miracle to solve. Jesus certainly didn’t heal every single person with an ailment during his earthly ministry, but he had reasons for that at times. God hasn’t promised to banish every bad thing from your life, but he has promised to work everything out for your eternal good.
But, Jesus’ greater good that he wants for us looms large here. Jesus doesn’t treat us like this man in every problem, but he does treat us like this man in our most dire problem. Think of what he did. First of all, for anything to happen for this deaf man, Jesus had to care about him, have compassion for him. While it’s not called out specifically in this text, we know that this is always true for Jesus’ attitude.
Jesus also looked with compassion on you in your need of sin. You and I were doomed to hell for our rebellion against God, and Jesus loved us enough to take on our human nature and live and die in our place. His compassion spurred him on to do what needed to be done.
Jesus also gives you and me the personal attention that he gave this man. Perhaps not in the exactly same way (who of us wouldn’t love to have even five minutes alone to speak with Jesus?!), but you can be assured that you, as an individual, was on his mind and heart as he journeyed to the cross and suffered and died. Because while, yes, Jesus paid for the sins of the whole world, that means that he paid for your sins and my sins. We were there with him. And even now, while he doesn’t stick his fingers in our ears and touch our tongue, he still gives himself to us in a very personal, intimate way. We will hear in just a few minutes, “Take and eat, this is my body… Take and drink, this is my blood…” In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus is essentially doing for you what he did for that man. Your need for forgiveness is personally and intimately given to you by Jesus, for there in his body and blood with the bread and wine you receive the forgiveness of sins and the assurance of eternal life.
But Jesus here, too, is going above and beyond. He doesn’t leave us just a blank slate. He doesn’t leave us like a grown man having to learn how to speak. He doesn’t leave us devoid of sin but then at neutral. Jesus not only removes our sin but actually credits his perfect life to us. When God looks at you and he looks at me, all he sees is Jesus’ perfection. Our life of rebellion was taken a way and a life of perfect obedience was given in its place. There’s nothing left for us to do or create. Jesus has done it all for us!
My sisters and brothers, go from this place today in joy knowing that you have a very personal God. He doesn’t treat us like an object or a number. He meets us individually, and treats our individual needs with his mercy and grace. Your God loves you—the singular you. He loves you as an individual, as a unique person. He created you, he redeemed you, and he is overjoyed to call you his child. Rest easy in Jesus’ personal work done for you! Amen.
