Hear the Word
16th Sunday after Pentecost
Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father and His only Son, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Everyone, at one time or another, has been powerless against another entity. The child may be powerless toward the parents in actions or behavior they wish to perform. The parent may sometimes be powerless to curb a child’s behavior. Even a spouse may seem powerless with the other in few or many ways.
Up and down the hierarchy of any group, one entity may be powerless to another. We may not succeed in changing the position or control of those who govern us and thus feel powerless in our society. Economically, we often feel powerless; especially if we are on a limited or fixed financial status.
Power, and thus control, over our selves is a constant fight. Why? Because we must interact with other people and with creation. Both creation and humankind have been affected by our sin and thus creates a power struggle.
This may be why we have constantly created fictional characters and systems that have an attribute of some kind that embodies supernatural power. An example of this can be seen in the popular productions from Hollywood in the forms of superheroes.
Many believe that the well-known Superman was the first superhero, but centuries earlier were heroes like Hercules or Achilles; Hercules had great strength because his father was the god Jupiter, and Achilles was invulnerable because his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx as an infant.
As a child, I too wished for my own superpower. The beauty of superpowers is, anything can be imagined. Usually, they are an extension and/or exaggerated part of our physical existence. We imagine increased strength, invulnerability or increased senses such as sight or hearing. Even the ability to read another person’s thoughts or to move object with our minds come into the realm of our imaginations.
More fascinating to me than super-human strength was the super-human ability to see through walls and other objects. Of course, like any super-hero, I would not use this power for evil but for good… or maybe, once in a while, peering through the teacher’s desk drawer for the answers on the future math test.
However, since we do not have X-ray vision, we cannot see what is behind a closed door. Because we cannot read the thoughts of another person, we cannot know what they keep closed up in their hearts and minds.
Much like a person who is deaf and mute, we must rely on what we see to interpret the actions and thoughts of others. We often have difficulties communicating our feelings and beliefs with perfect hearing and ability to speak, so imagine how much more difficult this would be without this capability.
How many of us have had the wish to be able to speak more clearly to be understood by others? How many of us have had the desire to understand others better when they speak? How many times has a person such as a doctor, lawyer or even your auto mechanic explained a concept or problem and your answer has been, “I don’t understand what you just said.”
At the very least, it is frustrating not being able to hear and understand; at the very most it can mean life or death. As human beings, we have developed a language that uses specific words to define specific meanings; but if a person does not know the meaning of such words, they will not understand that which the other person is trying to convey.
As children, we learn the meaning of words as they are connected with actions. The very first words an infant learns is ‘Mom-ma’ and ‘Da-da’ but we do not gain the understanding of what these words mean until we connect them with actions of others.
A child soon grows in understanding of the spoken language through hearing, seeing and speaking. Later, the same child begins to read and thus becomes able to discern how communication from others and from the past can be useful in gaining knowledge and understanding.
Our Father in heaven uses His Word to communicate with His children. In the past, He spoke directly with His people and by the prophets, and even to this day, follows His words with actions. Just as a parent nurtures their children with love, God also takes care of our every need.
To be sure, some of God’s words are commands that are to be followed to the letter, and just as we were commanded not to run with scissors, God’s commands are given to us to protect us. We are to obey God and listen only to Him. We are not to hurt our brothers and sisters in thought word or deed.
Unfortunately, and to our eternal demise, we choose not to listen or, through our sin, we are not able to understand. Our inability to understand does not eliminate the law nor does it remove the consequences; and this means we will die of our own transgressions.
God saw His words of life fall upon the deaf ears of His children. Like a loving father who sees his deaf child run into the path of a moving vehicle, He took action to save us.
Jesus Christ came to us to speak the life saving words of our Father in heaven. ‘Follow me.’ he said. ‘I am the truth and life.’ This true man, born of the virgin mother, speaks with all authority of heaven and earth because he is also true God.
Jesus Christ shows his authority by forgiving sins and fulfilling the law of God perfectly. He follows up the words of God with the actions of God. He says:
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the mute sing. [Isaiah 35:5-6]
By his hand, Jesus heals us from our afflictions, spiritually and physically.
Knowing our actions will lead us to death, Christ ran to save us. The consequence for our sin is our death, but Jesus took our sin from us and pushed us out of the way of this certain loss of life. It was his body and blood that was mutilated by the juggernaut of our iniquity. He gave his life so that we could live.
God knows that we cannot save ourselves from death. The resurrection of our Lord could only have been done by God and not by man. We cannot stop the onslaught of sin that attacks us every moment of our lives. God knows we are powerless and thus he came to save, just as he promised.
Yes, we have been given new life in Christ Jesus. We have been saved to stand before God as holy and righteous children, but this is not the end of Christ’s redeeming work.
He has saved us from the consequence of failing the law but he did not eliminate the law. He has given us his words and he commands us to follow.
What are these commands? What are these words? Jesus tells us himself in Mark 12:29–31
“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” [Mark 12:29-31]
With our words, we are to love the Lord our God and we are to follow these words with our actions, with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. We are then to love our neighbor as God so loves us.
Jesus Christ has given us life. He has given us a mission to bring that life to all people. The power to do this is given to us through the Holy Spirit. We are commanded to carry the gospel of his redeeming grace to those who have not heard.
The word Jesus used in healing the deaf mute is an Aramaic word. The definition of the root word of “Ephphatha!” can mean ‘be opened’ as an imperative and it can be used as an intransitive verb meaning to ‘be set free’, such as a person from prison.[1] This word is used in Isaiah 51:14
“The captive exile hastens, that he may be loosed, (Hephatheca)
That he should not die in the pit,
And that his bread should not fail.” [Isaiah 51:14]
We have been released from our captivity of sin and death and we will not die in the pit. Our bread is the bread of life in Christ Jesus and he will never fail.
Jesus Christ has given us the word to speak and he has given us the Holy Spirit to proclaim his word properly. He has looked up to heaven and has said to you, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” Our Lord has touched your ears so that you may hear his word and understand. He has touched your tongue so that you may speak plainly.
This miracle was done for the man in the region of the Decapolis and all those who witnessed it could not be silenced. They were astonished beyond measure zealously proclaiming it.
The power of the Holy Spirit has been given to you! Let your astonishment in your own salvation be beyond measure so that you may zealously proclaim it.
Amen
[1] William Lee Holladay, Ludwig Ko?hler and Ludwig Ko?hler, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 301 (Leiden: Brill, 2000).