Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.
I
love my job. Seeing a newborn baby with her mother and father at the font makes
my heart sing. Watching someone’s eyes light up when they hear Jesus’
forgiveness is *for them* and not just something on paper…there’s no greater happiness
in the world. Preaching, teaching, caring – I am a fortunate man to be able to
do what I do.
Well,
most of the time I love my job. I don’t like seeing people hurt and a major
part of ministry is providing Christian care for people in times of great
suffering and loss. When there are conflicts among Christians, or when a
brother or sister in Christ is trapped in a sin and can’t seem to shake it’s
grasp, or when a young man or woman seems determined to destroy their life with
bad choices that are contrary to the Christian confession, my guts hurt.
It
took me a long time to learn that it isn’t my place to try to fix these things.
The ministry is about stepping into those moments of hurt and struggle, when
the devil is hyper-active in the mind of the weak Christian, and being willing
to say into that whirling dervish of emotion, “And Christ is with you, even now,”
and speak Jesus’ peace into the chaos. And I love using this morning’s Gospel
lesson to demonstrate that to children of God who are struggling.
Jesus
enters the Decapolis region where a man is brought to him. The man is both deaf
and unable to speak. In Jesus’ day and age, the conventional wisdom said that
if someone was handicapped it must either have been the result of what that
person did or what his or her parents did. It was a sign of disfavor with God, a
demonstration of His displeasure upon this person. I think people still think
this way today. I still hear people say, “Pastor, I must have done something really
awful as a child to deserve this.” “Do you think this is God punishing me for
that night in college?” “I can’t help but think if I hadn’t done that fifteen
years ago, Jesus might be answering my prayers right now…” Now, sometimes I think those comments are
made in the heat of the moment – just trying to make sense of the situation –
and the child of God doesn’t really believe that. But there are other times
that the Christian, rocked to his heels, knocked to her knees, is tempted by
the devil to believe this: that somehow, in some way, they have so displeased
God that He is playing the part of the jealous, vindictive jilted lover.
Notice
how Jesus answers that thought: He goes to the man. This man, whom the rest of
the people thinks is being punished by God, this man is the target of Jesus’ mercy.
If God really was displeased with the man, if God really were punishing the
man, if God really wanted nothing to do with the man, Jesus would not have even
been in the area! Instead, Jesus goes to the man and takes the man aside, privately.
I wonder how that went? Did he wave, “Come here…” Did He use some kind of rudimentary sign
language [point, finger “walk”, etc?]? Perhaps
Jesus simply takes him by the shoulder and leads him aside.
We
know Jesus is God, and as God He is able to do all things. He could have just
spoken and the man’s ears would have worked and the vocal chords would have
produced the vocal quality of Sam Elliot or James Earl Jones. He has done that
before. But this time, Jesus does something different and strange. To our ears,
ears that are able to receive sounds and brains that can translate those sounds
into words and then process their meanings, to our ears this is weird…maybe
even gross. But to a man who cannot hear; to a man who cannot speak, Jesus’s
actions demonstrate to the man that He, Jesus, is the Lord of Creation and He
is the one doing this miracle. It’s not a fluke, or an accident; it’s not Zeus
or Apollo; it’s not the waters of Hebron. It’s Jesus and Jesus only.
The
actions are important, for they get the man’s attention who otherwise would not
hear and know first-hand what was happening. He touches the man’s ears – these auditory organs
that are as lifeless as ears carved on a statue of granite – and Jesus primes
the deaf ears to be ready to hear His voice. He spits – indicating that something
powerful is coming from Jesus’ mouth – and he baptizes the mute’s mouth so that
it will be ready to rejoice.
But
what tells us the most about Jesus is when He sighs. The sigh tells the tale –
a sigh of compassion for the brokenness of this man, a sigh of feeling the need
of this man to be whole, a sigh that the people didn’t understand what the
mercy of God looked like, after all. He sighs the sigh of a parent whose child
is hurting; He sighs the sigh of a big brother whose sibling is broken; He
sighs the sigh of one whose beloved isn’t even able to hear his own crying. And
with the echos of the sigh still hanging in the air, Jesus speaks: “Be opened!”
It’s only one word in Aramaic, and it’s a word spoken into dead ears, but that one word speaks volumes of life against death.
Jesus’
words always accomplish exactly what He says they will do. What He says,
happens. And when He commands deaf ears to hear, they work perfectly. When He
commands the muted and garbled voice to speak, it sounds forth with beautiful
tone. What choice is there for the dead parts of body but to respond to the God
of Life Himself?
In
an instant, the man is able to speak. St. Mark doesn’t tell us what he says,
but I imagine he more or less echoed Jesus’ words: “My ears! My mouth! They are
opened! Jesus opened them for me!”
When
life happens to a brother or sister in Christ and they are so wound up that
they think God has somehow become displeased with them (He’s not), or that God
has changed His mind about them (He hasn’t), or that their Baptismal covenant
is no longer valid (it is); they need to be reminded Jesus is not abandoning
them. When they can’t hear the voice of Christ for themselves because of the
din of the chaos and confusion around them, Christ hears their sorrow. When the
pain is too hard, or the struggle is too deep that it as if they are struck
mute, this reading lets them hear that the sigh of Jesus for them.
And
Jesus speaks to them and His Word accomplishes exactly what He wants to happen.
With His Word, He touches the ears. He says, “You have been baptized in my name.
The Father sees you as He sees me. Your sins have been forgiven. You are made
holy. Stop doubting and be believing.”
But,
even more than that, it’s not just words. So that there is no doubt, Jesus acts.
His compassion for us is so great that He refused to sit idly by. His love for
us led Him to the cross. If there was ever any doubt of the mercy of Christ for
the sinner, one only need to look to Jesus’ own death. There, on the cross,
Jesus sighed again. It was just one word but that sigh spoke volumes: “It is
finished.” Satan’s power – finished. Hell’s threat – finished. The burden of
sins for children of God – finished. The grave’s hold over Christians –
finished.
In
this morning’s reading, Jesus opened the ears and mouth of this man. Because of
His Easter victory, we are able to look forward to the day when Christ returns
and all of us who have fallen asleep in Christ will be raised to new life with
Him. With a cry of the conquering victor, Jesus will speak, “Ephphatha! Be
opened!” and your grave will be opened and you will stand with the resurrected
Jesus with bodies made whole. Our ears will hear perfectly, our mouths will
sing gloriously.
“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
the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting
joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and
sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Is. 35:5-6; 10-11) Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come.
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