Sermon - Trinity XII 2021 - Mark 7:31-37

Jesus Healing a Deaf-Mute, Bartholomeus Breenbergh, 1635

The miracles in the Bible are incredible! But, you might wonder, what do they have to do with us today? This healing of the deaf man is great, but why do we care? What does he have to do with me? Good questions. The miracles in the Bible are recorded not just for us to remember random miracles Jesus performed, but God teaches us these miracles to point us to the greater miracle of our salvation.

It’s always weird when Jesus tells people not to tell anyone about the miracles He performed, but He had good reasons. One of the reasons Jesus charged the people to tell no one was because His great miracle and work had yet to be accomplished. Namely, the miracle of Jonah, the miracle of dying, being laid into the deep for three days, and then rising again. Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection is the great miracle towards which all of His previous miracles point. Jesus isn’t to be known just as the guy who healed the deaf, fed the thousands, and cast out demons. Rather, Jesus is known as the crucified and risen One!

Because Jesus died and rose, because He accomplished the great miracle of our redemption, all of His other lesser miracles also apply to us today. God opened the ears and lips of this deaf-mute man, to teach us about what He has accomplished through His crucifixion. Namely, God opens our ears to His Word, so that He may also open our lips to speak rightly.

This miracle of opening our ears and lips is no small thing, even for God! With most of Jesus’ other miracles there’s very little ceremony, for example the woman with the discharge of blood simply touches Jesus’ cloak, and other times Jesus simply speaks and it’s done. But not here, not when it comes to opening the eyes of the blind or the ears and tongue of the deaf. Here it requires a great ceremony.

“Taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”” Like most reverent ceremonies Jesus performed this ceremony apart from the crowds. But then it gets weird; Jesus sticks His fingers in the man’s ears (normally we call that a wet willie), He spits and touches the man’s tongue (normally we just call that gross). Our modern ears cause us to bristle and cringe at the thought of that ceremony. But what this ceremony teaches us is that God doesn’t shy away from our humanity; healing and restoring us requires God to get His hands dirty. 

Our culture is so embedded in stone-cold sanitary screens that we become sensitive and disgusted by the realities of filthy humanity. God made us human, which means we aren’t just spirits, but we’re also bodies. God gave us fingers, ears, tongues, and spit, and those things are part of what it means to be human. God doesn’t shy away from it. He’s not afraid of some spit, because He’s also not afraid of the gory suffering and death which saving sinful humans entails. 

Healing us takes effort on God’s part. Looking up to heaven, Jesus sighs, or perhaps more accurately He groans, it’s the same word used for the sound a woman makes in labor. With great ceremony and exertion, Jesus opens the man’s ears and tongue. Likewise with us, it is with great effort that God opens our ears and tongues. What are the ears for? “How can they believe in one of whom they have never heard?” What is the tongue for? “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

So it is that God opens our ears to listen to His Word and believe the Gospel! That’s what makes this Biblical miracle something worth celebrating, because it reminds us that God has opened our ears to His Word. No longer are we deaf to God’s voice, but our ears are opened to hear His comforting promises of salvation. It is no less a miracle that you are sitting here in these pews listening to the voice of Jesus with your ears! It’s a miracle that you’re here today! It’s a miracle that God has given you faith! It’s a miracle that God has sustained your faith this long, that He’s preserved you in the midst of many false and lying tongues! It’s a miracle that God’s Word is still proclaimed here in this town! 

God has also opened our lips so that we may speak clearly and rightly. It’s a miracle that we may confess Jesus and be saved. It’s a miracle that our lips have been opened! What do our lips do? They sing! “My soul, now praise your maker!” Here we confess with our tongues the catholic faith in the words of the creed. We make confession of our sins before God and receive His forgiveness while speaking the “Amen” of faith. We unite our voices in praying to God our Father, imploring His aid and blessing upon us and others.

God has certainly performed a great miracle among us by opening our ears and our tongues! This is a miracle God urges us to treasure and abide in throughout our lives. It’s no small thing that God has opened our ears to hear His Word; Christ had to die and rise again, the Holy Spirit had to be sent into our hearts, all for our ears to be opened to God’s Word.

Because this miracle is so great and foundational to our salvation, Satan loves to attack this miracle. We Christians must be militant against Satan and falling back into voluntary deafness. In order to prevent us from hearing God’s Word, Satan likes to attack us with distractions and boredom. 

Distractions are everywhere, and frankly there’s no escaping them. Some of them you can minimize, like turning off the screens or reprioritizing your time. But most you can’t prevent, like noisy children, making supper, or the daydreams in your mind. Instead we Christians must fight these distractions in our own hearts and minds. Distractions are everywhere, we can’t control them all, but we can control the way that we respond to them. Remember, Christ has miraculously opened your ears and given you the Holy Spirit, you can fight against Satan’s attacks. You have the power! When distractions arise which Satan uses to keep you from hearing God’s voice, the first step is to recognize that Satan is attacking you. With that in mind, take up the sword of the Spirit and focus on the Word in spite of the distraction.

Another common tactic of Satan is to attack with boredom. Satan says: “You’ve already heard this before, you don’t need to hear it again; this is dull and uninteresting, who cares about this; you already learned this in catechism class, why bother now; there are lots of other things more exciting and fun, what are you doing here.” Satan loves to use boredom when he attacks us. 

So here again when we do battle against Satan, it’s good to first recognize that the Devil is using this feeling of boredom against us in order to destroy us. Then, it’s really helpful to get some perspective. God’s Word is not boring, our Creator and Redeemer speaking is not something that’s boring. Also remember, God is still speaking His Word. For thousands of years God has been speaking His word on repeat to millions of people and He doesn’t get bored. Just because something makes me feel bored doesn’t mean that it’s actually boring. It’s as a childhood friend would tell me when I would complain about being bored: “only boring people get bored.” The point is that life and God’s word is not boring, rather the problem is within my own heart. Satan attacks with boredom, but we can attack back with renewed zeal and interest in the scriptures.

Throughout your battle against Satan, dear Christians, be encouraged by this miracle of Jesus healing the deaf man. Our Lord has opened your ears, in fact He died and rose so that your ears may be opened. So don’t hesitate to open your lips and ask God to keep your ears open. He’s done it in the past, and He will continue. By grace, we pray that God will use our lips to speak plainly, and so open the ears of others to His voice of mercy.