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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you are physically present in Pilgrim’s Sanctuary, no technology is used to deliver God’s Word to you: I speak to the best of my ability, you hear to the best of your ability, and right now that seems to work pretty well for everyone, though we may need to consider changes in the future. Already now, however, if you are virtually present live via Skype, or if you stream or download video or audio files to watch or to listen to later, technology is involved, and so not only are you subject to my ability to speak and your ability to hear, but you also are subject to the limitations of the technology and its operators. A muted microphone or silenced speakers, and you will not hear a word. In today’s Gospel Reading we might say that Jesus works a communication miracle, taking a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment and opening his ears and releasing his tongue. Jesus works a similar miracle of opening for you and for me, and so this morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading directing our thoughts to the theme “Opened”.
As the Divinely‑inspired St. Mark uniquely reports, Jesus, having returned from the region of Tyre, went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis. In the Old Testament, including passages such as today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 35:4-7a), that area was connected with deafness, deafness that may not always have been a literal deafness but deafness that may sometimes have been a figurative deafness, referring to the Gentiles’ not hearing the Word of God (Marcus, ad loc Mark 7:31, 32, p.472).
There, in that area associated with deafness, people brought to Jesus a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged Jesus to lay His hand on the man. For all that Jesus did next, St. Mark makes clear that the most important thing was Jesus’s saying, “Ephatha”, that is, “Be opened”. And, after Jesus said “Open”, immediately, the man’s ears were opened, and his tongue was released, and he was speaking plainly (or, “rightly”). And, although Jesus charged them—usually understood as also including the man whom Jesus had healed—although Jesus charged them to tell no one, the more Jesus charged them, the more‑zealously they proclaimed it, being astonished beyond measure, and saying that Jesus had done all things well.
If we or our loved ones suffer from difficulty hearing or speaking or from any other health difficulties and we or they have begged Jesus for healing that has not yet happened, we might not be so astonished, and we might not say that Jesus does all things well. Likewise, we might be critical of the damage that Jesus allowed hurricane Ida to inflict. We might be critical of what Jesus is allowing to happen in Afghanistan. We might be critical of all that Jesus is allowing the coronavirus to do. We might be critical of any number of other things that we might misperceive Jesus as not doing well. We may be unwilling to hear the truth of God’s Word and to speak it rightly, and, of course, by nature we are unable to hear the truth of God’s Word and to speak it rightly. Difficulties hearing and speaking are the result of sin in the world. Our sinful nature and all our actual sin not only keep us from hearing and confessing our sin and faith in God, but our sinful nature and all our actual sin also warrant both our death here and now and our torment in hell for eternity.
But, God opens our ears to hear His Word, and He releases our tongues to confess both our sin and faith in Him to forgive our sin. And, when, so enabled by God, we so repent of our sin, then God forgives us our sinful nature and all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sin for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ, Who showed Himself to be our Savior by making the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.
The people in today’s Gospel Reading seem to recognize that Jesus is the God Who made everything very good (Genesis 1:31). They seem to recognize that Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecies such as that in today’s Old Testament Reading. They seem to recognize that not only had Jesus helped the man who was deaf and had a speech impediment but that Jesus also was there to help them, as Jesus was there to help us. Out of His great love for all people, God came down from heaven and took on human flesh, in order to take our sins to the cross and there die for us, in our place. Jesus’s resurrection showed Him to be victorious over sin and death for us. The crowd’s earlier astonishment at Jesus’s teaching may have led the Jewish leaders to fear Jesus and to seek a way to destroy Him (Mark 11:18), but they were unknowingly helping fulfill God’s plan to save you and me. And, save you and me God does, by giving us the benefits of Jesus’s death on the cross for us through His Word in all of its forms.
That Jesus made the deaf to hear certainly goes to the importance of hearing God’s Word read and preached to groups like this one and also of hearing God’s Word as it is applied to individuals: with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for you and the Blood of Christ shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Like Church Fathers before him, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther connected the words and actions of today’s Gospel Reading and the opening that they accomplished with the opening that God accomplishes specifically in Holy Baptism by its words and actions (AE 53:95-103), which words and actions work forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and give eternal salvation to all who believe the words and promises of God. As our opened ears hear God’s Word in all of its forms and we repent and believe, God forgives our sins and transforms our lives so that we who by nature were unable to hear God’s Word and speak it rightly now are able to hear God’s Word and confess our sins and faith in Him.
That Jesus made the mute to speak certainly goes to the importance of our rightly speaking God’s Word. Our released tongues not only confess our sins and our faith in God, but they also sing for joy, even when we might not see how God is doing all things well! Those who have anxious hearts can be strong and fear not, for God comes to save! As we sang in today’s Introit (Psalm 28:1-2, 6-7; antiphon 28:8), God is not deaf to us; as we prayed in today’s Collect, His merciful ears are open to our prayers, and we know that He answers our prayers in the time and way that He knows to be best. As the Divinely-inspired St. James discussed in today’s Epistle Reading (James 2:1-10, 14‑18), we give other people evidence of our faith by speaking and acting in love towards all of our neighbors with no partiality. Like the people in the Gospel Reading, we bring others to Jesus so that they also can go out zealously proclaiming what He has done for them. And, when we fail to live in these ways, as we will fail to live in these ways, with daily repentance and faith, we live both in the forgiveness of sins that we receive from God and in the forgiveness of sins that we in turn extend to one another.
Modern technology—not just cameras and microphones, computers and the internet, but also cell-phones and other mobile devices—modern technology does let us communicate in new and improved, seemingly “miraculously”, ways. But, as we have realized this morning, the greatest communication miracle—even greater than the man in the Gospel Reading’s having his ears opened and his tongue released—the greatest communication miracle is God’s opening our ears to hear His Word and His releasing our tongues to speak rightly. We thank and praise God for that miracle and for the blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation that it brings to us.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +