Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Trinity 12 (August 29, 2004)

Mark 7:31-37 The Healing of the Deaf Mute

TITLE: “God’s Healing Power”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for today is the healing of the deaf/mute, with focus on the word: Ephphatha.

It is an oddity of our day that great speakers are rarely considered listeners.  Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, was often chided by some for not listening to his advisors.  Winston Churchill hardly listened to anyone.  Jesse Jackson is hardly known as a great listener.  And preachers, well, preachers are often criticized for not listening at all.  On the flip side, people who are good listeners often really have nothing to say.  You go to someone who is a good listener to unload your problems, not to hear what they have to say.

And yet at some deeper level, we all recognize that listening and speaking are inexplicably linked.  What you hear and what you say are connected, even if it isn’t always that obvious.  Perhaps this is how the old adage of GiGo was created: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

But when we talk about sin, especially sins of the body, we kind of play a game with ourselves.  We work very very hard to convince ourselves that hearing things I shouldn’t hear, saying things I shouldn’t say, going places I shouldn’t go, none of these things (including eating and drinking), that none of these things have anything to do with spirituality, God, the Bible, the Ten Commandments, or Law & Gospel.  They’re just things we do.  Sex outside of marriage is okay, then, because I really love the person.  Or gossiping about other people is fine, because I’m telling the truth about them.  Pornography, cheating on everything from tests to taxes, even killing with words of anger or hurt are fine, because none of these things are “spiritual”, just are just things we do.

But God, dear friends, does not look at the world that way.  The heavens declare the glory of God, as the Psalmist wrote, or The earth is the Lord’s and all the fullness thereof, or your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  In God’s eyes, there is no distinction between His realm and Our realm.  Everything is His.  Your family, your work, your play, all of it.  What sin seeks to do is separate and divide.  Sin tries to separate you from God by dividing up His kingdom.  And if you can convince yourself that certain parts of your life are off limits to His work, then Satan has convinced you of the great lie.

This is where our man in the text comes in.  He is dear and mute.  He can neither hear nor speak.  No amount of doctors are going to heal him.  No amount of well wishing was going to make things better.  He is lost, and He cannot get out of this himself.  He can’t even bring himself to go and see Jesus.  His friends have to bring Him.  It is clear that he cannot get out of his problem on his own.

This man is you.  Because of your sins of thought, word and deed, you cut yourself off from hearing God’s Word.  By convincing yourself that these things you do don’t really matter, you are deaf to hear the words of forgiveness and hope that God has to give to you.  You cannot separate your life that way.  You are His and He is yours.  Repent of your selfish control over your world.  Repent.

Now Jesus sees this man and his dire straits.  He sees him, pulls him aside, and does a couple things that to us seem rather odd.  Jesus first of all put His fingers in the man’s ears.  He knew where the problem was, and showed it to the man, even though the man couldn’t’ hear.  Secondly, he spat and touched the man’s tongue.  Jesus, the Great Physician, can diagnose the problem and get right to the heart of the matter.

Jesus then says this great word of comfort and hope to hurting sinners everywhere.  He says, in Aramaic, the word Ephphatha, which means be opened.  When you hear these words of Jesus, it hearkens us back all the way to the creation of the world, when God made all things by His Word; it reminds us of God opening the heavens at the Flood, and it reminds us of Jesus words to Lazarus, come forth.  For you see, God’s Word creates what it says.  When God’s Word commands an opening, it makes an opening.  The man’s hearing and speech were broken, just as sin has broken so much of our lives.  But God’s Word enters in where no one and nothing else can go.  His Word enters in and gives him the one thing that can help.  Be opened.

In ancient Christian liturgies, we reenacted this, so to speak, in our Baptism rite.  A part of the rite was after making the sign of the cross, the pastor would touch the ear and the mouth or nose of the one being baptized, and would say Ephphatha to them.  Be opened to hear God’s Word.

This, dear friends in Christ, is what God does.  God opens things that were once shut.  He is the one who can open doors where no one else can, and He is the one who can close doors which no one else can close.  How can this be?  This can be because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  When Jesus rose from the dead, Satan’s hold over us in sin and death was broken forever.  It matters not in God’s sight if our trials and heartaches come from sin, from sickness or disease, from heartache, or even from the grief of death itself.  It is all God’s, and He has defeated it all in His resurrection.

This is why the Lord opens our lips to sing His praise.  This is why we sing “Oh that I had a thousand voices”.  What goes in your ear shapes what goes out your mouth.  That is the way Christ builds the church, whether we’re talking about worship or stewardship or education or evangelism or building, or anything else that we do in our common life here together.  When Lutherans embrace that reality, that faith comes by hearing, things fall into place.  But when we forget it, and try to come up with some other way to grow the church, no good thing will come of it.

But there is hope for you this day.  There is hope because in Jesus all things become new.  God loves you with an everlasting love.  He longs to open your lips to declare His praise.  By the power of His Word, He will bring you into His everlasting kingdom.  He will see you through your trials.  He will heal your diseases.  He will raise you up out of death itself.  All this He does for you by giving you faith in His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ.  As St. Paul wrote, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

God give you hope this day.  Be opened, and believe the Gospel.  Amen.

And now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.