Let Us All Hear and Speak the Gospel Clearly :: Mark 7:31-37

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[Introduction]

Maybe you’ve seen the videos on YouTube or Facebook ... videos of babies and children and teens and adults alike all hearing sound for the first time in their life through a device called a cochlear implant. Their reactions are priceless and overwhelming. They are left with WIDE eyes, HUGE smiles, and tears of pure joy as they HEAR the word of their loved ones for the first time. If you’ve never seen one of these videos, let me tell you, when you watch, you can’t help but cry. 

What must it be like not to be able to hear a Word ... or anything at all ... ever? 

I know many of you have hearing aids, and if you turn them off, you might have a sense of what the man in our Gospel reading experienced when Jesus said Ephphatha. But what would it be like to live years and years never hearing anything? How disorienting would that be?

In our Gospel reading, Jesus healed a man such as this. Because he could hardly speak, I suspect that means there was at least a time in his life he could hear something because a person who is born completely deaf is able to learn to speak only through intensive, specialized speech therapy. But given that this guy was deaf, he likely had never heard a word that would give faith.

Losing one of your five senses ... sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell ... can be deeply frightening, just like not having faith, because it alters how you experience safety, independence, and connection with others. I can’t imagine never having tasted my grandma’s lemon meringue pie ... never having listened to Beethoven’s Sixth and Seventh Symphonies ... never having seen the birth of my children ... never having felt the hug of Valerie ... never having smelled vanilla. 

1.

When we lose our senses, how long does it take to feel alive again?

Our Lord knows. He has felt and experienced every weakness of body and mind. He saw the suffering of people, nature, and cities around him, and wept for them. He heard the wind blowing through the trees ... our voices rising in praise ... and the crowds shouting crucify him ... and was moved to compassion. He cradled infants in his arms ... worked with his hands ... and bore our stripes in crucifixion. He smelled the flowers of the field and the odor of the grave ... and laid down his life for us. He enjoyed the taste of his supper with his friends. 

And then ... when people brought the sick and the lame, the weak and weary, the blind and the deaf to Jesus ... he took their infirmities upon himself ... healing them and giving them life so they too could smell, and touch, and taste, and see, and hear. That’s what’s happening in Mark 7. 

Jesus is returning to the Decapolis from his trod of a rather rough road. The first time he was here, the people chased him out of town because he cast out a legion of demons into 2,000 pigs, which promptly jumped a cliff. Then after hearing a crowd gathered around Jairus’ daughter mock him ... after his hometown became a thorn in his side ... after confronting people who “honor” the Lord only through lip service, Jesus took a journey we never would have expected. He went to Tyre and then, farther north to Sidon, to save those who had not heard. 

This is the land of those who not only have not heard, but who were idol worshipers. 

On the way, he would have passed Zarepheth, where Elijah raised the widow’s son and received daily bread from above through bottomless jars of flour and oil. Then he let the dogs taste the crumbs falling from his table before healing a woman’s demon-possessed daughter. 

Which brings us to today’s reading. And again, having come out of the region of Tyre, [Jesus] went through Sidon [before returning to] the Sea of Galilee, [and] up into the midst of the region of the Decapolis. And they carried to him [a man who was deaf and could hardly speak], and they pleaded with him to lay his hand upon him. 

When Jesus took the man aside privately, he put his fingers into [the man’s] ears, and after he spit, he touched his tongue. And having looked up to heaven, he groaned, and he said to [the man], ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his hearing was opened, and the chain of his tongue was released, and he spoke clearly (vv 31-35).

2.

Notice how Jesus does this healing. He doesn’t merely speak the word from a distance, the way he calmed the storm or cast out the legion ... the way he announces absolution to you ... He takes the man aside and makes it personal. He puts the tips of his fingers into his ears. He touches his tongue. He groans. He uses spit and touch and breath ... ordinary, earthy, physical things we can see and feel and hear and smell ... to deliver an extraordinary gift.

That should sound familiar to you. You too felt the water being poured on your forehead during baptism. And you too continue hearing the Gospel. You too taste the bread and wine set on a table for a feast of forgiveness of his body and blood. You too hear his plain words, spoken by your pastor. His absolution actually absolves your sin. His means of grace are not vague spiritual feelings, they are all from the Lord who comes to you ... who touches and speaks just like he did with this deaf man in the Decapolis. 

Now had you NEVER heard any of this, how could you believe ... have faith ... be saved?

Which is why it matters so much that you recognize ... know ... who Jesus really is. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the crowds in Mark’s Gospel are still working this out. To most of them, he’s simply a miracle worker, a water-walker, a prophet, a teacher, a healer ... nothing more. That’s why they brought the deaf man to him. 

And that confusion hasn’t gone away today. Plenty of people inside and outside of the church will say the same thing about Jesus today ... that Jesus is nothing more than a man. They actually deny he is, in fact, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God who shed his blood on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins. They deny that True God and True Man died on the cross. 

Plenty of people will share the blasphemy that his sacrifice wasn’t enough to deliver forgiveness to you. 

Plenty of people will say you need to do something for Jesus now!

Plenty of people deny the efficacy of the means of grace that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper actually are the body and blood of Jesus, given and shed by our Lord, for the forgiveness of sins, and that God is with us in this way. 

Plenty of people actually deny that God comes to us in the water of baptism ... cleansing us, healing us, bringing us salvation. 

Plenty of people all around us have not heard the actual Gospel of Jesus and do not believe the word that so clearly proclaims, baptism now saves you (1 Pt 3:21).

But you have, haven’t you. You know the Gospel, don’t you?

3.

You know that ... when Jesus speaks ... beautiful things happen!

His ministry to the man who was deaf and could hardly speak is a great example. It recalls the prophecy of our Old Testament reading that the deaf will hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind will see (Isa 29:18). It recalls the praise of our psalmist today of how the Lord sets the prisoners free (Ps 146:7). And it brings us back to the overwhelming emotion the man must have felt when he could hear the word of Jesus himself and speak clearly what Jesus had done for him. 

How wonderful is it for you to actually hear what Jesus actually has done and continues to do for you ... of how he has come to save the entire world, wherever the lost sheep of the House of Israel have gone ... of how God with us has come to see and touch and hear and feel and smell ... just like you? 

We have a Savior who is able to sympathize with our every weakness. We have a Savior who comes to us to be despised and rejected by men ... who comes to us to carry our sorrows ... who comes to us to be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. We have a Savior who heals us and makes us whole. We have a Savior who loved us in this way, dying on a cross for the forgiveness of your sins. And because Hallelujah! He is Risen! ... we can join the Psalmist singing praises to our Savior while we have our being (Ps 146:2).

[Conclusion] 

Now we don’t know exactly why Jesus told this particular crowd not to tell the world about this miracle (v 36). Maybe it was because Jesus controls the unveiling of his identity, which will happen fully through the cross and empty tomb and return on the clouds in glory. But God’s word still achieved the purpose for which he gave it. 

So we pray that our ears are opened and that our tongues are set free to declare to everyone around us that Jesus has done and continues to do all things beautifully (v 37) here at Trinity. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, share that good news with your family and friends and neighbor ... in his name.

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