right-click to save, or push Play
Sermon for Trinity 12
Isaiah 29:17-24 + Romans 10:9-17 + Mark 7:31-37
We have another one of Jesus’ healing miracles before us today. Before we discuss this particular Gospel, it would be good to review the two basic truths that the Holy Spirit always wants us to see and believe in every healing miracle recorded in the Gospels:
1) First, the sickness of all sinners and the compassion of Jesus, who, by the power of His word, gives immediate healing to all those who come to Him for healing. Now that Jesus has died and risen and ascended to the right hand of God, the healing God sends us to Jesus for is the spiritual kind, that we should look to Him for the healing of our sin-sick souls, the immediate healing that comes from the forgiveness of sins pronounced on you in your Baptism, and in preaching, and in the Sacrament of the Altar. This is the healing that saves you out of Satan’s kingdom, brings you into the kingdom of Christ, into the Church of God, and keeps you there.
2) The other basic truth in every healing miracle is the power of Jesus who promises one day to return to completely heal us—inside and out—of every sickness, weakness and infirmity—eyes, ears, tongues, backs, knees, feet, arthritic hands and all the ravages of age. Even as He healed the bodies of those who came to Him for help when He walked the earth, He will one day heal our bodies from every weakness, even from the curse of death itself. This is the healing that saves the Church from all the attacks of Satan and brings her into glory everlasting.
The first kind of healing, the spiritual kind, the forgiveness kind, is yours now—to all of you who look to Jesus for that healing. The other waits for the appointed time. Let every healing miracle of Jesus remind you of those two kinds of healing and give you confidence in the mercy and the promises of Christ.
Each healing miracle has its own special emphasis, too. Today Mark’s Gospel gives us the account of the healing of the deaf man whose ears and tongue didn’t work.
First, we see the faith and love of the friends of the deaf man. They had heard the good word about Jesus—that He is kind and compassionate and heals all the sick people who go to Him for healing. Maybe they even made the connection between Jesus and Isaiah 29, today’s OT reading, where Isaiah prophesies about how the Messiah would open blind eyes and deaf ears. These friends of the deaf man already had faith in Jesus, the Healer. Where did that faith come from? As we heard in the Epistle and sang in the Alleluia Verse today, “Faith comes from hearing the message.”
But their friend, the deaf man, couldn’t hear. He couldn’t even ask for help—his tongue didn’t work. So his friends who heard and believed that Jesus could help showed love for their friend and did for him what they could they could. They brought the deaf man to Jesus. They didn’t try to heal him themselves. They brought him to Jesus for healing.
Let’s make an application here. You have heard the good word about Jesus. You trust in Him to heal sin-sick souls, don’t you? You know that He heals all who come to Him for healing. Maybe you have a friend or loved one who is deaf to the Gospel and who is unable to speak, to confess the faith. What should you do? Throw up your hands and say, “They don’t believe the Gospel. They’ll never listen. They’ll never confess the same faith as I do.” Are you sure? They’re a lost cause, are they? So was this deaf and mute man in the Gospel. Don’t underestimate the power of the Word of Christ to convict sinners and to convince sinners of the goodness and mercy of God in the Person of Jesus Christ. Your unbelieving friend needs your friendship, your love and assistance, your invitation to come to church, to talk with the pastor, to accompany you to Bible class, to find healing with Jesus, the Healer.
Now, the friends of the deaf man came asking Jesus to lay His hands on the man, but Jesus did much more than that. He could have just spoken a word and performed this healing, but He didn’t. He could have done it without saying a word, I suppose, but he didn’t do that either. He performed a series of actions with the deaf man, and every action of Jesus in this miracle is a kind of “word.”
- He took the man aside and dealt with him one on one. Jesus wanted there to be no doubt in this man’s mind: “You are the sick one. You are the one who needs help, and I know it and am willing to help you, as if you were the only man on earth. You and I. Focus on me!”
- He put His fingers in the man’s ears. “Your help comes, not from the inside, not from you and your works, but it comes from outside of you, from me, from my Holy Spirit.”
- He spit. “Healing comes from my mouth alone, from my Word, from my saliva, from my blood shed for you, from my body given for you.”
- He touched the man’s tongue. “When my body touches your tongue, you are healed.”
- He looked up to heaven. “God the Father has sent me to be your Healer.”
- He sighed. “Sin has done such terrible damage to the human race and caused so much pain and sickness and trouble.” But…
- “Ephphatha!” “Be opened!” The Word of the Son of God is more powerful than all the pain and destruction sin can bring.
The power to heal, the power for the deaf to hear, the power for the unbeliever to believe, comes, not from the deaf man, not from the unbeliever, but from the Speaker, Jesus Christ. He speaks to deaf ears, which seems foolish. But when the Son of God, by His Holy Spirit, speaks to deaf ears, they open.
What a comforting Gospel for all who mourn over their sin and its consequences, for all who recognize how deaf we are by nature to God’s truth, how speech-impaired we are to confess the faith rightly and to praise the grace of God! Jesus has taken each one of you sin-sick people aside and done for your soul all that He did for this deaf man. He took each one of you aside at your Baptism, and with that holy spit, has cleansed you from all unrighteousness. He has put His Holy Spirit into your ears, calling you to faith through the Gospel. He has placed His own body and blood on your tongue for the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of the Altar. And He has opened the ears of your heart to hear His Word and believe in Him and has opened your tongue to confess His name. You were deaf to His Word, but He spoke to you anyway, and faith comes from hearing. And it is with the heart that a man believes and is justified, and it is with the mouth that a man confesses his faith and is saved.
The Gospel account ends in such a mixed way. Jesus healed the deaf man’s ears and tongue, and then ordered the crowds not to use their tongues to spread the word of this particular healing. He didn’t want this word to get out. Then they went on to misuse their ears and their tongues, to not listen to Jesus’ direct order, to disobey the Son of God by telling everyone about this miracle. Surely they did what they did from good intentions. They wanted people to hear this good news of what Jesus had done, but it doesn’t matter. Jesus had His reasons for the order He gave them, and they were to obey His Word, whether they understood or agreed with His order or not. Could God have gotten the Word out about His Son in a God-pleasing way? Of course He could have! He didn’t need these people to despise the word of Jesus in order to fulfill His plans. What they did was wicked, sinful and wrong. The end didn’t justify the means. And yet, in spite of their wickedness, God worked to spread the news of His Son. God worked their evil for good, as He always does.
We can apply this part of the Gospel in any number of ways. For now, consider just this application. You want people to hear the Gospel. You want people to know Jesus, to be part of His Church, to stay members of this church. That’s a good goal, a God-pleasing end.
But it doesn’t justify the means you use to get the word out to people. It doesn’t justify sinful behavior, even if you might have the goal of saving someone’s soul through your sinful behavior. For example, Jesus does not authorize any and every activity under the sun to get people into church. He calls us to avoid all things that would give people a wrong impression about Jesus or about the Church or what it means to be a Christian. He calls us to be honest with our neighbors and to simply tell them the truth about God’s law and His Gospel.
Or, Jesus comes along and charges you not to tell your friend, your loved one who has stopped coming to church, or who is living together outside of marriage or living in adultery—that everything is OK, that they’re doing fine. Jesus has charged you to rebuke your fellow member who is living in impenitence, even if you think such a rebuke would not be taken too kindly or heard very well.
Remember, deaf ears open when the Son of God speaks to them. He doesn’t need us to disobey Him in order to fulfill His good purposes. And if you have disobeyed Him in the past, all is not lost. Here is forgiveness again, along with the reassurance that God gets His work done, sometimes through our obedience, but more often than not, in spite of our disobedience.
Deaf ears open when the Son of God speaks to them. May your hearts take courage again today. May your ears be opened by His Word, and may your tongues be loosed to declare the praises of our Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
