God's Word Opens Deaf Ears - Mark 7: 31-37

I suspect that most of us take our hearing for granted, so I want you to think for a moment about all the things you heard this morning. We wake to the sound of our phone chiming an alarm, we go to the kitchen to hear the sound of the coffee pot chugging, we go to the bathroom and hear the sound of the water spraying against the curtain. We get in the car and hear the sound of the motor, the tires on the asphalt, the blinker clicking. We hear the kids in the back seat, we hear the music or podcast, we hear the firetruck screaming. Now, think about what you will hear throughout the day: We hear our spouse ask what is wanted for dinner, that the washing machine is out of balance, and that the cat is stuck in the closet. Dad, want to play catch? Mom, can you help me with my math? Kids, can you help set the table? We will go to bed hearing the air conditioner hum, the dog snoring, and our own steady breathing before we drift off to sleep.

Now, imagine a world of silence, where you hear none of those things – not the voices of your loved ones, not the police car trying to get past you, not the smoke detector trying to get your attention. And, because you can’t hear, you also have a hard time trying to communicate – you don’t know what words sound like, so you don’t know how to form them with your mouth, lips, tongue, and throat.

Thanks to modern technology, there are some incredible things that can happen to help someone be able to hear. Search youtube and you’ll find videos of children hearing their parents for the first time, or a wife hearing her husband say “I love you,” and the joy – the shear joy on their faces as a new world of sounds open up to them.

 But for this man in the Decapolis region, there was no such joy. 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. If he could have, he would have heard the whispers, the snide comments, the sneering voices wondering what he did, what his parents did, to have deserved such a curse. It was a sign of disfavor with God, a demonstration of His displeasure upon this person. I think, sometimes, people still think this way today. Actually, I know this because I have had people say, “Pastor, I must have done something really awful as a child to deserve this.” They ask, “Do you think this is God punishing me for that night in college?” They wonder, “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.