Sermon for Trinity 12
2 Corinthians 3:4-11 + Mark 7:31-37
The healing miracles of Jesus all teach the same basic things, about Jesus’ kindness, goodness, compassion, and power. We don’t ever want to overlook those basic things about our Savior, or turn His miracles into nothing more than lessons about something else. The real power of God was truly on display every time Jesus miraculously healed a disease or a malady, and so were His kindness, goodness, and compassion. But neither should we avoid the obvious and unique lessons that flow from each miracle, as we apply the rest of the Scriptures to them, where the Scriptures themselves have more to say.
The healing of the man with faulty ears and tongue is no exception. The Scriptures are full of references to hearing as not only a physical ability, but a spiritual one. The same is true of speaking. What’s more, the Scriptures are full of condemnation for ears that fail to hear, and tongues that are misused when it comes to the things of God. And so we consider again today the healing of the man whose ears were closed and whose tongue was tied, so that God the Holy Spirit may work on our ears and tongues as we do.
If you had to choose between being blind or being deaf, I think most people would choose deafness. Obviously, God created us to navigate through this life with both sight and hearing, and speech, intact. His design works best when all three are present. But of the three, sight seems like the most necessary. And yet, when it comes to spiritual things, the things of God, sight is often the least helpful. It’s hearing that matters most. The Apostle Paul summarizes that truth for us very succinctly in Romans 10, as you heard this past Wednesday at Vespers, Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Now, for Adam and Eve in their sinless state, they got to have all three things. They got to see God, walk with God, and talk with God. But now that mankind has plunged itself into sin and the corruption of our hearts, God has, for the most part, removed His visible presence among us and has chosen to deal with us through preaching done by men, through the word of God that reaches our hearts through our ears. So, for that reason, hearing is really the most important sense God has given us. And when that sense is absent, a person is at a severe disadvantage.
But even then, hearing alone is not enough. The entire nation of Israel, in Old Testament times, heard the word of God, to no avail. St. Paul asks the rhetorical question about Israel, “Have they not heard?” Yes, he says, they all heard. But most did not believe. To Israel, God says, All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people. It’s no different today. Most of the world has heard the Gospel, and most of the world still rejects it.
So the simple act of hearing, by itself, is essential, but still not enough. As St. Paul writes, The natural man, that is, the man who is not born again, man before his conversion, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. So physical hearing must be accompanied by something else, if the word of God is to have an effect on a person. The Spirit of God has to enter the ears together with the Word, and the hearer mustn’t resist His working. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not as if the Spirit sometimes accompanies the preaching of God’s Word, and sometimes doesn’t. He’s always working through the Word, when it’s preached and pondered. But sinful man has a terrible power of his own, a power which God has left to him, a power of which Stephen, the first martyr, accused the unbelieving Jews of employing, just before they stoned him to death: You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
The deaf man in today’s Gospel represents the natural man, before his conversion. Deaf to the truth, about himself, about God, and about the way of salvation. Only Jesus, working by His Spirit, can open our ears and hearts so that we hear the Word of God with understanding and with faith. At the same time, the natural man cannot speak straight, either. He can’t rightly pray. He can’t rightly praise God. He can’t rightly talk to God, or about God. So, again, the man in today’s Gospel is a good picture of man before his conversion.
But then what happens? The man has some friends who bring him to Jesus, the only One who can help. It’s not unlike when you Christians bring your friends or family or acquaintances to church with you. You don’t bring them so that they can admire the church building, or be entertained by the music. You bring them so that they can meet Jesus, through His Word. So that He can work on them, to set their ears and their tongues—and their hearts!—free from the bonds placed on them by sin.
Jesus gladly stopped what He was doing and took the deaf man aside. He always has time for those who come to Him for His help, and He always offers it freely and generously.
First, He puts His fingers in the man’s ears. That seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But it’s exactly what’s needed. It isn’t the noise of this world that we need to hear. We need to hear God, who doesn’t speak straight into our hearts when we pray. He shoves His fingers into our ears by His Holy Spirit, whom Jesus once referred to as “the Finger of God,” because it’s the Holy Spirit who enters the ears through the word of the prophets and apostles, through preaching, to work faith in the heart, just as Jesus’ fingers entered the deaf man’s ears in order to open them.
Jesus then spits and touches the man’s tongue. Our healing doesn’t come from within. It comes from Jesus, literally from His human body, which He took on in order to earn righteousness for us as a man, living under the Law. Through the spittle of Jesus’ body, and the word of His mouth, the man’s tongue in the Gospel would be loosed. Likewise, through the death of Jesus’ body and through the shedding of His blood, and through the Word that goes out from His mouth, now risen from the dead, a sinner’s tongue is also healed, as the Spirit of Christ enters your ears through preaching and creates faith, by which He applies the crucified body and the shed blood of Jesus to you. And when the minister hands out the body and blood of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar, the Holy Spirit is there, too, forgiving you your sins, and freeing your tongue, to give thanks to God, to praise Him, and to confess Christ before men.
Before He’s finished, Jesus looks up to heaven and sighs. Sighing (or “groaning”) is another symbol in Scripture of the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul writes, the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings (or “sighings”) which cannot be uttered. Very simply, Jesus teaches the deaf man to trust in our Father in heaven, as He looks up to heaven, and to trust in Jesus, who is standing before him, and to trust in the Holy Spirit—the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who cares for the wretched and yearns for our healing.
And then Jesus speaks the word of healing in Aramaic, “Ephphatha!” Be opened! And the man’s ears were immediately opened, and his tongue was opened, or loosed. And the people were amazed, at Jesus’ kindness, goodness, compassion, and power.
Let’s apply this lesson to ourselves. There was a time when all of us here were unconverted, not born again. Maybe you were too young to remember that time, or maybe you can remember it very well. At that time, you didn’t know God, didn’t believe in God, and, in fact, were hostile to God in your inner being. But in His grace, the Lord sent a preacher to you, and, as always, He sent His Holy Spirit through that preaching, and also through the preaching of Baptism. And it reached you. And your deaf ears were opened to hear, and believe, that you are a sinner, in need of the salvation that only God can provide. Your ears were opened to hear, and believe, how good Jesus is, how much God loves you, and how much He has done for you, that you might be saved, even giving His own Son into death on the cross, so that you might have eternal life with Him in heavenly glory. At the same time, your tongue was loosed, to pray to your Father in heaven with faith and trust, to praise Him, and to confess Him boldly before men.
And now, God says, you must use them. Use your opened ears to gladly hear and learn the Word of God, day by day. Use them to listen to edifying things, not filthy, sinful things. Use them also to listen with attention and compassion to your neighbor. As for your tongue, use it, day by day, to pray, praise, and give thanks to your merciful God. Use it to build up your neighbor and not to tear him down. Use it to share the wisdom you have learned by listening to God’s Word. And use it also to confess the Lord Jesus before men, to speak only what is true, and right, using every opportunity the Lord provides to make a defense of the hope that is in you.
None of that would be possible without the Spirit of God working powerfully through the Gospel, working in you, and through you. But with the Spirit of God, you are well-equipped to hear, and to speak, and to live as hearing and straight-speaking people, among all the spiritually deaf and dumb people of this world. May the Lord provide you with many opportunities to bring them to Jesus for help, so that the Spirit may work on their ears and tongues, too. Amen.
