+ + + 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.
We all likely know relatives, friends, or fellow-members of our congregation (perhaps including yourself), who are, as we say, “hard of hearing”. We might even say these people are “partially deaf”, though, to the extent they can hear at all, they are not strictly-speaking “deaf”. Do we know anyone who has a speech impediment? How about anyone who is “mute”, or totally unable to speak? Often those unable to hear well or at all have difficulty learning to speak correctly, and so they have some sort of speech impediment. Some use their hands to communicate in sign language, and others resort to exchanging hand‑written notes. Not long ago when I was shopping in Walmart one night, a man presented me with such a hand‑written note. The note explained that he was deaf and begged for help. We wrote back and forth a few times, and, on behalf of the congregation, I was able to provide the deaf man and his son some food.
In today’s Third Reading, the divinely‑inspired St. Mark tells us how people in the region of the Decapolis brought to Jesus a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment and begged Jesus to heal him. Jesus said to him, Ephphatha, that is, “Be opened!” And, immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. The people were astonished beyond measure, saying of Jesus, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” This morning we reflect on “Making the deaf hear and the mute speak”.
In the Third Reading, people in the region of the Decapolis brought to Jesus the man who was deaf and had a speech impediment and begged Jesus to heal him. They knew the man needed healing, apparently believed Jesus could provide it, and were willing to do what it took to help the man get it. You and I are surrounded by people who desperately need what God offers here at Pilgrim. We even have people who have indicated that they want to come here for worship and Bible Study but who lack ways to get here. How willing are we to do what it takes to help them get here? In one case, we seem to be successful, but in another case we are not. What does our unwillingness or inability as a congregation to help a person get here ultimately say about the importance we place on what goes on here? What does our unwillingness or inability to help a person get here ultimately say about how we are listening to what God says about loving others? What does our unwillingness or inability as a congregation to help a person get here ultimately say about how we are speaking the Gospel? In some sense, the people in the region of the Decapolis were better than we are.
When I was in my first semester of undergraduate studies at Illinois State University, I seemed to be having trouble hearing people sitting around the big, round table in the cafeteria, and so I had my hearing checked. When the technician found my hearing to be normal, the technician told me that my problem was that I was not interested in what the people sitting around me were saying, and so, he said, I was not really listening to them. How interested are you and I in what God says to us? Are we in some sense deaf to the things He says, especially those things that we do not want to hear? Are we unable to speak about God because we do not listen enough to what He says? The Rev. Dr. Luther says the man in the Third Reading who was deaf and had a speech impediment ultimately was afflicted by the devil. His being deaf and mute may have appeared to be natural ailments, but, as Christians, we know that, even though the man was not a worse sinner than others, ultimately his afflictions were the result of sin being in the world. The devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh assault us in body and soul and want us to die in terror and not to attain true joy.
The devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh may assault us in body and soul and want us to die in terror and not to attain true joy, but, thanks be to God, God wants something else! By nature, when it comes to spiritual things, you and I are no better than the man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. By nature, we are deaf to God’s word and unable to speak His praise or tell others about Him. The Rev. Dr. Luther goes so far to say we are even unable to confess our sin apart from Jesus’s first making us who are spiritually deaf to hear and His making us who are spiritually mute to speak. As to the man in the Third Reading, so to us Jesus says: Ephphatha, that is, “Be opened!” Through the preaching of His Word, God calls and enables us to repent. God calls and enables us to be sorry over our sin—our sin of not helping people get here, our sin of not listening to what God says, our sin of not speaking of God as we ought, or whatever our sin might be—God calls and enables us to be sorry over all our sin. God calls and enables us to believe that He forgives our sin, and God calls and enables us to want to do better. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin, whatever it might be. As we sang in today’s Office Hymn: “Penitent sinners, for mercy crying, / Pardon and peace from Him obtain.”
Penitent sinners like us crying for mercy obtain pardon and peace from the Lord because of Jesus’s death and resurrection for us. His death on the cross made up for our sin, and His resurrection from the grave is proof of it. Jesus is the Messiah foretold by Isaiah in today’s First Reading. Jesus is God come to save us. That He unstops the ears of the deaf and makes the mute sing for joy are proof of His being the Messiah, God’s anointed Savior. In the Third Reading, Jesus uses a sign-language of a sort: Jesus’s fingers into his ears and touching his tongue and the looking up to heaven communicate to the deaf mute what parts of his body would be healed and from where the healing would come. Jesus the Word, Who created all things very good, by His word Ephphatha recreated His fallen creature, and the crowds conclude that He has done all things well. Jesus, the Word, Who created all things good, by His word well recreates us, too.
Jesus, the Word, Who created all things good, well recreates us by His word, the Word both preached and connected with visible means. In most cases, we who are spiritually deaf and mute are first made to hear and speak in Holy Baptism. There, God uses His Word with water to open our ears and release our tongues. The Church has long connected Jesus’s command Ephphatha, that is, “Be opened!” with Holy Baptism. Baptismal liturgies early on and continuing on through one edited by The Rev. Dr. Luther used that Aramaic word Ephphatha in order to emphasize, for example, the Spirit’s power opening ears to the Gospel. As Jesus used means to give grace in His ministry, so God continues to minister through means today. God ministers through such means as Holy Absolution, where we privately confess to our pastors the sins that trouble us most and receive individual absolution from the pastor as from God Himself. God ministers through such means as Holy Communion, where bread that is Christ’s body and wine that is His blood is present, distributed, and received for forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Through Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion, our Lord is “Making the deaf hear and the mute speak”.
As we have remembered our hard-of-hearing members with our remodeling underway, so especially in the Order of Matins we remember that the Lord opens our lips and so our mouths declare His praise. Made to hear and speak, we cannot help but speak and speak plainly about what our Lord has done for us: the forgiveness we have received by grace through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. His command then to tell no one (to avoid misconceptions at that time and place in His ministry) does not apply to us. Rather, as today’s Second Reading describes, our good works flow from and give evidence of our faith. We bring here those who need what is offered here. We listen to God’s Word, and we proclaim it to those God places in our lives. With them we live both each day with repentance and faith and praise Him now and for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +