31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon,
down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.
32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly
talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.
33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers
into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue.
34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!”
(which means, “Be opened!”). 35 At
this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak
plainly.
36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he
did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were
overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said.
“He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
- Mark 7:31-37, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House) 1984.
In the name of Christ Jesus, dear friends:
A $5 dollar steak dinner is a pretty good deal. Olympic gymnasts are fairly flexible. The past summer in Wisconsin was a little on the wet side. So far, this sermon introduction is a bit confusing. What, if anything, do these four independent statements have in common? They are all understatements.
You would be hard pressed to find a good steak dinner for under $15 in the Milwaukee area, and $5 dollar steak dinners are a thing of the past. Every four years I am amazed by the strength and agility of the human body when I watch Olympic gymnastics. The athletes twist and flip and spin and almost always land on their feet. And who can remember a week during the summer of 2000 when it didn’t rain and rain hard? This summer was so wet that I didn’t get a single week off from mowing the lawn.
The sermon text for this morning contains yet another understatement. Jesus healed a man who was deaf and mute. In response to this miracle, the crowds exclaimed: "He has done everything well" (37). You might be thinking: "Of course, he does. Jesus is true God. He is our Savior. He is holy and perfect. He does everything well." But this particular understatement is not necessarily out of place. Remember that the crowds had just witnessed a miracle. They were amazed. And they were struggling to put their emotions into words.
Sometimes understatements are particularly powerful because they speak not only to our heads, but also to our hearts. What the crowds said about Jesus may seem obvious, but the words they chose can still teach us a valuable lesson. They remind us that…
We Have a Savior Who Does Everything Well
I. He supplies our individual needs
II. We proclaim his mighty deeds
We meet up with Jesus in the region of the Decapolis (Decapolis means "ten cities") on the eastside of the Jordan River. This was not the first time Jesus had traveled around the region. He had made a name for himself previously when he healed a man who was demon-possessed, and then sent the demons into a herd of two thousand pigs, who then rushed headlong into the Sea of Galilee and drowned. An event like that would have been pretty hard to forget, even if you only heard about it, so it should come as no surprise to us that large crowds flocked to Jesus when he returned to the region.
"Some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man" (32). People in the area were aware of Jesus’ miracles. They knew that Jesus was powerful. And at least some of them believed that one touch from Jesus’ hand could make a deaf man hear again.
The gospels are filled with one miracle of Jesus after another, but every miracle was unique. Sometimes Jesus laid his hands on people. Other times he spoke to them. In the case of Lazarus, Jesus waited until he died before he brought him back to life. Jesus could have honored the request of the people who came to him. He could have placed his hand on the man and then sent him home with perfect hearing, but he didn’t.
Jesus chose to do things his own way because he was concerned about the whole person who stood before him, not just his ears, not just his mouth, but his entire being, body and soul. Note that Jesus took the man aside. He didn’t want to be distracted by the crowds. He didn’t want to make this man a public spectacle. Jesus wanted his undivided attention.
Then Jesus did a couple things that may seem strange, but his actions are not so strange if we remember the context. "Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue" (33). Jesus was standing face to face with a man was deaf and mute. He could not hear. He could hardly speak. Still, Jesus was able to communicate with him. What Jesus did was symbolic, almost like a visual aid. He was about to restore the man’s hearing, so he touched his ears. He was about to restore his ability to speak, so he touched his tongue.
Then Jesus "…looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (which means, ‘Be opened!’) (34). The Word of God produced a miracle. Jesus said "Ephphatha!" and he opened the man’s ears. Jesus said "Be opened!" and he loosened the man’s tongue so that he was able to speak plainly.
"Does God provide for all your needs?" I wonder how this man would have answered that question before Jesus came along. He didn’t benefit from any kind of hearing aid or listening device. He didn’t have the luxury of American Sign Language or an electronic keyboard to communicate his thoughts. It’s likely that this man was very much alone, with no way to talk and no way to listen. Maybe his loneliness led him to doubt God’s love. Maybe his isolation caused him to question God’s existence.
Mark doesn’t tell us what the man did after he was healed. We don’t know if he used his new voice to sing God’s praises. We don’t know if he recalled that day every time he opened his mouth speak. What we do know is that Jesus changed his life forever. Jesus treated this man as an individual. Jesus addressed his individual needs. And I would like to think that we will be able to talk with him about his amazing experiences in heaven.
"Does God provide for all your needs?" What is your answer to that question? Does your answer depend on how your life is going? "If my health is good, if my portfolio is growing, if my marriage is strong, if school is going well, yes, by all means, God is taking care of me."
But what about when Christians get sick and they are slow to recover? What about believers who are struggling just to survive? What if some of your personal relationships are stretched and strained to the point of breaking? Is God still providing for you then? When things are not going smoothly, when God allows trouble and turmoil to come into our lives and we don’t have the answers, we might be reluctant to answer that question, at least honestly.
Whenever I read this account, I think of Luther’s explanation of the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed. Luther wrote: I believe that God made me and every creature and that he gave me my body and soul, eyes, ears and all my members, my mind and all my abilities." In a single sentence, Luther piles up a mountain of gifts God gives us every day. How many of these gifts do we simply take for granted!
Don’t limit yourself to this text. Don’t focus only the ability to hear or the ability to talk. Think about all of God’s blessings: the ability to breathe, to see, to think, to communicate, to move around, to laugh to sing songs and play games. These are just a few of the physical blessings that we count on every day. God does not owe them to us, but we assume that they will be there for us when we wake up every morning.
What is even more amazing is that God doesn’t stop there. Even though we take God’s gifts for granted, even though we are ungrateful, even though we do not always stop to count our blessings unless they are taken away, God gives us even more. Listen to what Luther has to say in his explanation of the Second Article: He has redeemed me a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sin, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.
Our sin causes us to turn a deaf ear to God’s promises. Our sin separates us from God. Even though we were lost, Jesus found us. Even though we were condemned, Jesus rescued us. Through Jesus’ precious blood, God meets every person’s most basic need. God sent his Son, and to quote the crowds, he has done everything well.
Because we know that God supplies all our needs, because we know that Jesus has forgiven all our sins, because we know that heaven awaits us when we die, we react like the crowds who witnessed a miracle. We are eager to declare God’s mighty deeds.
If you have some important news that you want to share with others, what should you do? For example, if you and your spouse just found out that you are expecting, what is the best way to spread the good news? Here is a suggestion. Tell just one person. Tell them it’s a secret. And then tell them not to tell anyone else. That will almost guarantee that everyone will know within a matter of hours.
After Jesus performed this miracle, he found himself in a similar situation. "Jesus commanded them not tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it" (36). Why did Jesus want to keep this miracle a secret? Perhaps he was concerned that the people would get caught up in his miracles and lose sight of his message. It didn’t really matter because the crowds could not keep silent anyway. They had witnessed the impossible. They had seen a miracle. And they couldn’t help but share the good news with others.
These words of Jesus no longer apply. In fact, Jesus has given us the opposite command. He tells us: "Go and make disciples of all nations…" (Mt 28:19). "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation" (Mk 16:15). "You will be my witnesses…" (Acts 1:8). But how? In sermons, pastors quote these passages and others when preaching about evangelism. They remind us that we are God’s messengers, that we are Christ’s ambassadors, that God has called all Christians to preach the gospel. But how? How can we translate this broad command into specific actions? Allow me to make some applications, first in connection with the text.
In our country, 1 out of every 200 people is deaf, and 16 out of every 200 have some type of hearing loss. It is also estimated that 80-85% of deaf people are unchurched. Some people might consider these alarming statistics. God wants us to see them as a ripe field waiting to be harvested.
Some of the members of St. John’s are already involved in this work. They volunteer with our synod’s Mission For the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The purpose of this ministry is to educate people and to help congregations meet the needs of their members. Here are a few of the things happening in our congregation: Our Unity Sunday service at Wisconsin Lutheran High School was signed by one of our members. Beginning next month, the WELS Connection videos will be shown with open captioning for the hearing impaired. As of this Sunday, assistive listening devices will be available so that people with hearing loss are able to participate more fully in worship and bible class.
These are all wonderful blessings, different ways that God allows us to declare his mighty deeds and meet people’s individual needs at the same time. But what about the 199 out of 200 who are not deaf? What can we do to reach them? What can you do to reach them?
Evangelism doesn’t require years of training. Evangelism doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are just a couple suggestions. You can keep your eyes open for new families that move into your area. Welcome them to the neighborhood and invite them to church. You can invite friends and neighbors to different church activities and bible classes. If God allows, you can serve as an unofficial Christian counselor for a friend who desperately needs to hear about God’s love and forgiveness.
If you want to do even more, you can get involved in the outreach programs at church. You can make phone calls to people who move into our area. You can deliver welcome gift bags to people’s homes. You can call on people who live in nursing homes and institutions.
I don’t mention all of these things so that we can pat ourselves on the back and admire the great things we are doing to reach out with the gospel. The point is this. The Lord has given us countless opportunities to serve. And God wants us to be aware that he can use each of us, no matter who we are, no matter what we do, no matter where we live, to do his work. When we see what Jesus did for people in need, when we ponder in our hearts the difference God has made in our lives, it is only natural to tell others.
The God who is able to count the number of hairs on our heads knows exactly what we need. The God who chose us to be his children from the beginning of time supplies our every need. This miracle account only reinforces what we already know from our own experience to be true. We have a Savior who does everything well. Amen.