“BEYOND MEASURE ASTONISHED”
Saint Mark 7: 31-37
12th Sunday after Trinity: 30 August Anno Domini 2020
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Being deaf is a defect. And, not a small one. “I believe that God has made me…that He has given me my body and soul…ears…and all my senses, and still preserves them” wrote the Reformer in your Small Catechism. Well, not so much for the poor mute that Saint Mark writes about this morning.
Man was made in God’s Image. Perfect and sinless to be sure. How else that Image redounded to Adam we’re just not sure. But before the fall Adam had God-like hearing and auditory acuity. After the rebellion, the attempted treasonous assassination of God, Adam’s hearing began to fail. Every day he grew imperceptibly more deaf. Deafness is the destruction of the body. The wages of sin is death; deafness, muteness. When one is stone-cold deaf (and the words “stone-cold” are where spiritual deafness indeed leads) one is usually incapable of speech. Speech is a gift from God that distinguishes His children from the animals. When one is spiritually deaf one cannot speak God; cannot speak God’s Word; cannot confess Christ Jesus!
Why did they want Jesus to put His hand on the deaf/mute? Was it just so the famous Rabbi could lay a “blessing” on him? No. Was it that the ones who brought the mute to Christ knew He could heal him? Yes. The Gospel good news that had been going out all through the “coasts of Tyre and Sidon, the villages around the Sea of Galilee” were accurate. This Man from Nazareth had power. He spoke as one with authority and healed the sick. Thank God for friends and family that know where to go in times of need. As Jesus said in John’s Evangel: “…believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him” [Jn. 10.38].
Brothers and sisters. Either you or a loved one is suffering. You/we all, sooner or later, suffer are own clogged ears and bound tongues—the strings tightly coiled like straitjackets. Don’t presume to tell God what to do. The Holy Ghost, by The Word, will lead you, by Jesus’s modern-day friends, to the real presence of the real God/Man. He will always give you more than you ask for. Not always the way you think is best or right, but the way that ensures your earthly absolution and your heavenly salvation—"The life of the world to come;” the resurrection of all flesh..
The Lord gives better than a “hand.” The hand of God is wonderful beyond description to be sure, but, a hand as hand is just a tad generic…what part of the hand…a palm…a backhand…an edge…just hand? The Christ goes from broad to narrow, from broadcast to laser-like narrow pointed sharp and precise. The fingers of God. Jesus had five on His left hand and five on His right hand—just like you! He still does. The five fingers of God are not here the Books of Moses, per se. Although the Law kills and this mute has been slain by the presence of sin—the world’s sin and his own sin; Original Sin and daily trespasses. But, he’s miserable and can do nothing and bring nothing to the table. Jesus is Mercy and brings everything to the man. The five fingers of Christ, as it were, created everything perfect, including Adam. They made the five empirical senses themselves.
But wait: there’s MORE!
Jesus touched the man’s tongue with spit—Jesus’ spit. Bacteria, Germs, Viruses, OH MY! No.
There is no disease in the spittle of God. The “water” united to The Word (made flesh) unlooses the mute’s tongue. The moist digits of Dei of Domini split the man’s ear blockage as sure as the Temple curtain would be ripped in two months later in Jerusalem. No contagion, no pandemic, EVER, from the moisture of Christ!
Diseases pass from people to people by droplets, sprays, blood… well, okay. Death passes to people by inherited sin from Adam to your parents to you. Okay. You can do nothing. Like Saint Paul, like the mute, you cry out: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” [Rom. 7.24]
The Blood of Christ washes, forgives, and fortifies your conscience and soul. The Blood of Jesus gives life and health and peace and eternity. Could there ever be sickness or death in The Cup of His precious and holy Blood? No. No.
The Blood is The Word and The Word is The Blood. Same with Baptismal Water. Same with Holy Absolution.
You may or may not be deaf physically, but IN Jesus, In The Word, your are no longer spiritually deaf, no longer dead in silence and darkness and solitary confinement. Jesus, The Word of God, busted open the gates covering your ear canals, your soul & spirit canals. Sin, Death, and Satan were rooted out like the feculent, foul, wax they are, and Jesus flowed in like the Water of Life and Light He Is. I AM.
“Let there me light!” [Gen. 1.3]
“Arise take up they bed.” [Mt. 9.6]
“Talitha cumi; (which is, being interpreted,) Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.” [Mk. 5.41]
“Lazarus come forth.” [Jn. 11.43]
“Ephphatha—be opened!”
Your Sins are forgiven by the Blood and + The Word of The Crucified One!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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