Healing of Deaf Man

Unclogging their ears: the healing of the deaf man

Mark 7:31-37

I. What is your passion?

What are you passionate about?

What really grabs hold of your emotions and won’t let go? I could ask the same question like this: “What drives you?” “What sparks the fire in your soul and makes you get up and do something?”

When you watch the news at 6:00 does the murder of that family in DC move you? Does the fire that took out that tenement building bring up an emotional response? Do those who are homeless on the park benches strike you differently? Do those without enough food in Ethiopia affect you, or those who lobby for more money for abortion clinics, or those with cancer?

Or perhaps you are like the vast majority of Americans who watch this without even a minor emotional response. When you finally reach that car accident after sitting in traffic, you are just thrilled to not be sitting anymore and your mind feels nothing for the woman being wheeled into the ambulance. We are so calloused to the evil and even the hurt in the world that we don’t feel much of anything. And if you do have an emotional response, it certainly won’t affect you strong enough to do anything about it. And if it does, it sure isn’t much. Maybe you google the organization, think it would be great to volunteer if you only had the time. Maybe you even write a check for a few bucks because you think it is worthy. Everything well within your particular comfort zone.

I have to tell you, I don’t want to preach this sermon. What I am going to call us to is WAAAAY outside of my comfort zone. I hope none of you will ignore my challenge today, but if I am the preacher, I know I cant ignore it. I cant tell you to do it and then not even attempt it myself, so I am a little bit concerned about this week

You wouldn’t think so. All I will be calling you to is to be compassionate. That doesn’t seem hard. That’s the theme of this message today.

The word “Compassion” comes from the latin words com and pati. Meaning with and suffer. It means to suffer with. It is significantly more than empathy. It includes a strong desire to reach out and make a change. To be of service and help.

II. Are you compassionate?

So, do you have compassion? I have to admit, it wasn’t until recently that I have begun to understand this word. I made a huge breakthrough the year I moved to Africa. I am sure you can imagine.

Then two and a half years ago I was called to care for a church. And I realized that academic world was very sheltered from reality. I had learned a little bit about compassion in Kenya, but there was still so much to learn.

Then as if on cue, not too long after taking this church, my wife became terribly depressed—not connected with you. But it was real and debilitating and it kept me up many nights praying, talking, and comforting. She told me I could tell you this; it was a really dark year.

But it was also a year that God used to mold me a great deal. I came out with something I hadn’t ever had—emotions. Seriously. I am the guy who watched my first born son born without even a twinge of emotion. And I went back to work the same day.

After Kenya, my wife, and hearing your struggles I can honestly say I have come far. But I have so much farther to go.

My compassion still doesn’t break out of these walls very often. I can honestly say that every day I am caring more and more for the people in Poolesville. I really want to see them saved and living God fearing joyous lives. Some of this though is merely academic and theoretical. It doesn’t really grab my emotions and cause me to do anything. I am doing a little bit better. I was amazed at myself on Friday when I found myself walking down a cordoned off Hoskinson looking for the owners of the House that was on fire. I found one of the Smith boys and made sure he knew that we at PBC really cared about him and offered our services in whatever way he might need.

This is a big step for me, but I want to do far better. I want all of us to take new steps in compassion. I realize I can’t do anything about your emotions. I can probably manipulate them a bit, but what I want to do is call us to do something. And I am calling us to do it based completely on the compassion of another. On the compassion of the Christ.

Let me read the text to you. Mark 7:31-37

31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.

32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.

33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue.

34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!").

35 At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it.

37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."

Pray

III. Introductory information

Perhaps you noticed something. Since I defined the word “compassion” I am sure you were on the lookout for this word in the text. Its not there. How in the world can I preach a sermon about compassion and not even find the word in the text?

Well you are right. Not only does this word not show up here, I am not convinced that Mark is writing this primarily that you will be compassionate people. But I am not as much stretching the text as I am taking a background theme which is found in this periscope, in the immediate larger context and throughout the book of Mark.

I am doing this for a very practical reason. We simply cant get all the meaning of this passage without connecting it with all of chapter seven and half of chapter 8. Now if you want to give me an extra half hour, I can probably do it. So what I want to do is tell you about this passage as a bridge passage to a major theme that Mark wants you to know about.

We have already seen this throughout the book:

· In 1:41 he heals the leper—Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"

· In 5:19 he heals the demoniac and instructs him to tell his friends “what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.”

· Just a few weeks ago in 6:34 when Jesus fed the 5000 it says “he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

· And next week in 8:2 he will have “compassion for these people” who have been with him for three days with nothing to eat.

· In Mark 9:22 the parents of a spirit possessed boy beg Jesus… “if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And He does.

Now this individual story is part of Marks big story but its also part of a smaller story—its a literary cycle. It begins with

1. the feeding of the 5000,

2. continues to the confrontation with the Pharisees

3. and now to this healing.

This will happen all over again in the next chapter.

Jesus will feed a multitude (4000),
he will be confronted again by the Pharisees
and it will end with a healing.

Each of these cycles is designed to present a group of people who are blind and deaf—both physically and spiritually and Jesus will heal them. It’s most clear when he heals the blind man in a couple of weeks, but keep that in the back of your mind even now. Because both cycles will culminate in the great confession of Peter, “You are the Christ.”

The first thing we should note in this passage is that Jesus is back in Gentile territory. In fact all three of these stories in a row are Gentile stories. The Syro-Phoenician woman, the deaf man and the 4000 fed. This is a very different setting than we saw in 6:52-56 where everyone was mobbing him and bringing the sick and imploring him and touching his garment in hopes of being cured. He is traveling all over now. Tyre is North West on the Mediterranean Sea some 35 miles from the Sea of Galilee. Sidon is north of that another 20 miles and the Decapolis is at least 50 miles south east of that. It’s a weird journey and almost entirely in Gentile country.

And one of the perhaps thousands of healings he does is of a deaf and mute man. Why another healing story? Here is where I start wrestling with Mark. The same thing you should do in fact, when you are reading. I would think by now, we pretty much get the point that Jesus is a healer. It seems sufficient to give a big summary paragraph that Jesus went about healing the deaf, the lame, the blind, the diseased, the ingrown toenails, the pattern baldness etc. (those last two were my attempts at humor.)

But while this story is remarkably similar to all the other ones there are a few differences as well. Both the similarities and the differences are significant.

IV. The man’s problem

First the problem was a common one, but Mark presents it very differently than the others. The man is deaf, but more than that, he cant speak well or clearly. The ESV says he had a speech impediment. What draws me to this particular phrase is that a very rare Greek word is used here. In fact it only shows up in this one place. The man is mogilalos—speaking with difficulty.

Why this is important is that most scholars suggest this is an allusion to Isa 35:5. I doubt you are able to pull up the history being spoken of in Isaiah but chapter 35 is pretty much the end of the first section of the book. The first section includes judgments on Edom, Egypt, Tyre, Israel and Jerusalem. But in chapter 35 there is a sudden shift to reveal the joy of the redeemed. And the reason--

your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

The healing of one whose speech is stopped up is huge because if it happens it is a sure sign that the eschatological day of the Lord has come. That day foretold by the prophets when the King will come. And particularly enlightening is the mention of Tyre and Sidon which are the location of these desert wastelands of Lebanon, mentioned in Isaiah.

So even the problem is foreshadowing something awesome. Its foreshadowing an almost certain healing, an unstopped mouth and maybe even more

V. Jesus solution

But let’s look at the solution

There are four parts to this solution

His look, his touch, his sigh and his word (From Maclarens notes)

A. His touch

The need is great. His friends are begging for help. And do you see Jesus reaction? He leads the man away. Takes him away from the crowd so that they might have privacy. He obviously didn’t want anyone to know about this. It even says later that he charged them not to tell anyone. This kind of scene always makes me wonder about the faith healers and their huge healing shows. Never do we hear that they went to the hospital or to someone’s home in private and healed someone.

But I wonder if there is more to it than this. I wonder if he wanted some alone time with this man. The reason I question this is because we constantly see Jesus looking for time alone, but more than that, he is about to perform a very personal miracle.

He puts his fingers in his ears, he spits, and he touches his tongue. I don’t know if he spit on his finger before touching his tongue, I don’t really know what is going on here. We do know that saliva was considered to be a healing agent and other healers would use it, so it seems likely Jesus is entering the personal worldview of this man. This man fully expected a healing to take place.

But even more than that, I want to emphasize the fact that Jesus touched. Remember the leper who came before him and he touched him. Jesus seems to care a lot about touching. Westcott says it was more even than superficial contact. He translated it “Take hold of.” He was touching a poor rotting fleshy leper and in so doing showing his reason for being here. In his incarnation he took on flesh and became sin for us, giving us his purity.

Too much application, lets finish the story first

B. His look

I don’t want to say too much about this, but just as the healing is about to take place, notice what he does in verse 34. He looks to heaven. He is about to bring hearing to one who could not hear. He is about to give speech to one who could not proclaim and he looks to heaven. After all, it is the fathers will that the world be brought right and Jesus acknowledges the father in everything he does.

C. His Sigh

This just adds more to the idea of Jesus compassion. Jesus sighs. Perhaps over the rampant sin that leads to physical difficulties. Perhaps simply out of a compassion and love for this poor man.

D. His word

Then he speaks. “Ephphatha.” “Be opened.”

The rest, as they say, is history. His ears were opened, his tongue released and he spoke plainly.

VI. Jesus’ call to us

There is much for us here

A. Kingdom is here for the nations…

This first point is in truth probably the key point we are to take from Mark. It’s a point that I will emphasize much more over the next few weeks as I try to put these passages together. But for now, a summary will suffice.