8 September 2019
Text: Mark 7:31-37
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Deafness
deprives people of a full participation in many things that most of us take for
granted: verbal communication, music, audio books, movies, and even things like
hearing one’s children snoring, or a bolt of lightning, or someone calling for
help. The deaf are deprived of hearing
laughter and things like rain hitting the ground.
The
worst part for people in the ancient world was being deprived of hearing the
Word of God. Most people were illiterate
and almost nobody had scrolls containing the Bible. There was no American Sign Language, and
communication was frustrating. Deaf
people were typically reduced to begging on the streets.
And
this is why the deaf man in our Gospel “begged [Jesus] to lay His hand on Him.”
More than anything, he wanted to have his
hearing restored.
In
our day and age, the deaf have many options that did not exist in the first
century. We do have standard sign
language, not to mention access to books and captioned movies and videos. We even have medical breakthroughs that can
cure many kinds of deafness.
But
one thing that hasn’t changed is sin.
For
example, when the cochlear implant first came out, offering deaf children the
ability to hear by means of a surgical procedure, there were deaf parents that
opposed getting their deaf children the surgery. There was concern about what this would mean
for the “deaf community,” and there was a discussion about whether or not
deafness should be treated like something to be “cured.” Some parents (whose children inherited
deafness from a genetic condition) chose not to get the implant for their
children, choosing instead to keep them in a world of silence for the sake of
their “culture.”
But,
dear friends, something else has also remained unchanged: the power of the Word
of God to restore that which is broken, and to open that which is closed!
For
in response to the prayer of the deaf man, our Lord took him “aside from the
crowd privately, He put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched
his tongue.” The action of touch was
accompanied by the Word, as Jesus, the living and incarnate Word of God in the
flesh, spoke a miraculous command: “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened.”
Jesus
speaks the Word, and He makes use of a physical element and action – and as a
result, the deaf man is healed. The Word
that Jesus speaks becomes reality: “And his ears were opened, his tongue was
loosed, and he spoke plainly.”
Our
Book of Concord quotes St. Augustine’s famous explanation of a sacrament: “The
Word is joined to an element, and it becomes a sacrament.”
Sacraments
heal. They cure us of what ails us. The Sacrament of Holy Baptism heals us, as Christ
Himself gives us His cruciform life as our sins are washed away by the element
of water. The Sacrament of Holy
Absolution heals us, as Christ Himself forgives us by means of the element of
the pastor’s voice speaking words by Christ’s authority, and the sins that
weigh us down even to hell itself are released from us (the same word St. Mark
uses to explain the healing of the deaf man’s tongue: “released” – which is to
say, set free from bondage). The
Sacrament of Holy Communion heals us, as Christ shares His very sacrificial body
and blood with us to eat and to drink, fortifying us against Satan and
sanctifying us by His own holiness and righteousness in the flesh as the “medicine
of immortality.”
Sacraments
heal, because Christ heals us by means of the sacraments. A sacrament apart from Christ is no sacrament
at all. A sacrament not received in
faith is no sacrament at all. But when
Jesus touches us and speaks His Words upon us and over us, and we believe His
Word – we are truly healed. And in the
Greek language of the New Testament, the word “healed” is the same word as “saved.”
Salvation and healing are the very same
thing. To be healed is to be saved from
death. And when the deaf man was healed,
Jesus gave him his life back. That part
of himself that had died had been resurrected – that is, his ability to hear
and to speak.
And
in fact, even though Jesus told him to “tell no one,” the man with the newly
released tongue could not help but tell what Jesus had done for him. For the more that Jesus urged everyone not to speak about this (as the time was not
yet right for Him to be revealed), “the more zealously they proclaimed it.”
In
spite of our medical technology, our literacy, our ability to hear God’s Word
in many and various ways, there is a real sense in which we suffer deafness,
dear friends. We have so many
entertainment options, that almost nobody reads or listens to the Holy
Scriptures. It is as though we are deaf,
and our children are deaf, and we are content not to do anything about it,
because we like our culture.
We
are surrounded by movies and sports and entertainment. Our children are busy with every kind of
extracurricular activity that the Word of God is just sort of pushed to the
side. We don’t hear, because we don’t
want to hear. But nevertheless, Jesus
still comes to us. He still patiently
baptizes our children, still pronounces absolution and offers us a clean slate,
and He still communes physically with us in the miracle of the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus
speaks to us, and begs us to listen to Him. Jesus wants to open the heavens to us, even as
He promises to open our grave on the last day: a greater “Ephphatha” that will
herald the opening of the new heavens and the new earth, as well as our release
from death and the grave! And this
reality of what Jesus does for us is too good for us to keep to ourselves, as
we have been healed from death itself, and our pathway to eternal life has been
opened, and our bondage to sin, death, and the devil has been released. We too ought to be zealously proclaiming what
Jesus has done for us!
Jesus
is still speaking to us, dear friends. He
still heals us by means of His Word. He
still uses physical elements to save us.
Indeed, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute
speak.” Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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