Mark 7:31–37
31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. 34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
The miracle is strange enough on its own. A man who is deaf and mute is brought to Jesus. Our Lord throws His fingers into the man’s ears. I know our translation says ‘put,’ but the word there is more aggressive and intrusive. It probably wasn’t comfortable for the man. But Jesus isn’t done being weird. Christ spits – exactly where, we aren’t sure. A collection of Jewish literature called the Talmud, which is an interpretation of the Old Testament, taught that saliva was a healing agent. Mark seems to indicate that Jesus’ saliva ends up on the guy’s tongue – either directly or from Jesus’ hand to his tongue. Jesus sighs and says, “Ephphatha,”which means, “Be opened,” and the guy can hear and speak. Again, strange miracle.
Why all the intrusiveness and all the ceremony? Why doesn’t Jesus just do as He had done all sorts of other times – speak the word and let the healing take place (Mt. 8:8)? Well, I don’t know. But what I can say for sure is that Jesus’ still has ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ is.
Through His Word, Jesus does amazing things. The same Jesus spoke all things into existence when He created the cosmos (Gen. 1; Jn. 1:3, 14). In the creation account, God spoke into the void and things that did not exist obeyed and came to be. Here, Jesus speaks to ears that He created but couldn’t hear anything, and they obey His command to open. He’s doing Jesus-type things – healing and fixing the brokenness that sin has brought to creation. Yes, the miracle is strange, especially the leadup to it. But what might be even more strange is what happens at the end.
Jesus tells that man to not use his newly loosened tongue to announce the healing to anyone, and He commands the crowds to be silent about it as well. In short, Jesus speaks to two different types of ears with two different responses. Christ speaks a command to deaf ears and a stuck tongue, and they obey. But then He charges hearing ears to keep their working tongues silent, but they zealously disobey (Mk. 7:36). They dismiss Christ’s Word and command.
The only clue we have to the mindset of these people who are blatantly disobeying Jesus comes from what they say, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” It sure seems like their intention is to say nice things about Jesus.
What they say is true. Jesus does do everything well. And He is good, good beyond our imagination. He has just made the deaf hear and the mute speak. That’s true too. However, we need to understand, saying nice things or saying true things can still be sinful. And we know that it is sinful here because, again, Jesus told them to not say anything about it. Exactly why Jesus told them to keep silent, we don’t know. Jesus repeatedly does this in the Gospel of Mark, and in other places where He does this and people disobey Him, we see that His ministry is hindered (Mk. 1:38-45). So, what are we to do with this?
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7 says that there is a season for everything and a time for every matter under heaven; there is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. And, certainly, when God commands you to keep silent, that is a time to keep silent. So today, God calls us to consider when and how we use our mouth, tongue, and voice and to regularly examine ourselves in light of the 8th Commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” In the Small Catechism, Luther’s explanation of it is so good: “We should fear and love God so that we do not deceitfully lie about, betray, backbite, nor slander our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and put the most charitable construction on all that he does.”
Of course, we break the 8th Commandment when we desire the truth to be different and lie. But we also break this Commandment when we hijack the truth in order to make our neighbor look bad and spread gossip. Yes, lying is bad, and we often have our conscience pricked when we lie. But gossip and tearing others down is just as bad. There are times when telling the truth is a sin and violation of this Commandment. For example, don’t tell Laura about Peter’s sin if Laura doesn’t need to know about it. You don’t like it when it happens to you. Don’t do it to others. So, don’t lie. Don’t gossip. But also know when to be silent.
We live in a world that is buzzing with communication. Technology has given you the ability chat with a person in Indonesia about a cat while you get into an argument with someone who lives in Spain about weather. With instant access to a majority of the world in our pockets, it is easy to get distracted and waste copious amounts of time communicating with people we don’t know about things that don’t matter, and when that kind of communication is happening, it is easy to use our tongues and fingers to break the 8thCommandment. So, hear this as a call to consider how you use your phone, social media, and the comments section on a news article to interact with others. You should be spending more time interacting with your family and the people around you than you do interacting with people on Insta-Snap-You-Twit-Face.
Also, in your regular in-person relationships and interactions, you need to use your God-given wisdom. Yes, absolutely, there are times when God is giving you an open door to proclaim the truth to those who blatantly deny it. There are times where you should correct, reprove, and rebuke evil and sin. But how do you go about doing it? Are you speaking the truth in love in an effort to correct the erring, or are you mocking, ridiculing, and belittling people and further turning them off to Christianity?
The tongue and all your communication has great power both for good and for evil. James spends a lot of time on this. In James 1:26-27, we read, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” And later, in James 3:2-8, he talks about how horses are guided by a small bit in their mouths and huge ships are steered by a small rudder. In the same way the tongue is a small part of your body, but it can set a huge fire.
Dear saints, what you say and communicate and how you say and communicate it, has great power to both tear down and destroy or to build up and edify. Guard your mouth, your pen and pencil, and, yes, your typing. Guard them in such a way that you declare God’s praise (Ps. 51:15) because faith comes by hearing (Ro. 10:17).
So, dear saints, hear again that Christ Jesus has forgiven you all the sins of your tongue and fingers. Know that His shed blood has covered all your iniquity. Continue to fight against your sin, as you live in Christ’s grace, now and forever. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
This miracle, on the other hand, is odd. It’s dirty. Maybe, you even find it disgusting. Jesus takes a deaf man who has a speech impediment off to the side. He sticks His fingers into wax-filled ears. God in the flesh spits (apparently, Jesus wasn’t taught how to give a proper wet-Willy). Christ literally seizes, not just ‘touches,’ the man’s tongue. And then, Jesus looks up to heaven. Sighs. And says, “Ephphatha,” which means,“Be opened.”
Jesus had come to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, not to be the audiologist who takes away the deafness of the world. Jesus had come to give eternal life through His death and resurrection, not to give a voice to the voiceless.
Yes, Jesus sighs and acts. He gets involved with us even though it hurts Him. He cannot help Himself. In His love and mercy, He gets bound up in the mess we make and that others have made for us. He gets entangled in our sin. In fact, He becomes sin so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).
Pastorsamwise 
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