Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Mark 7:31-37)
And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
Mëë cɛ nhial liɛc, cuɛ yiëë ŋɔk a di̱t, kä cuɛ wut jiök i̱, "Ɛ-pa-thä", mi lot ni ɣöö, "Lɛprɔ."
Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
When it comes to talking about miraculous healings and miracles, we here in Australia are always somewhat baffled by these passages.
In our reading today, Jesus heals a deaf and dumb man. Here is a man who has a particular disability from birth, and Jesus heals him.
But what about today? It seems as though there are miracles happening in all sorts of corners of the world, like Africa, China, but not here. Or it seems as though there are miracles in other churches, like in the Catholic church or Pentecostal churches, but not in the Lutheran Church.
On one hand, Jesus says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”
We see this happen in the New Testament. Jesus heals people simply by touching them, but in the book of Acts, chapter 5, Peter heals people simply by his shadow falling on them. A woman is healed by touching Jesus clothes, but in Acts, chapter 19, people are healed through handkerchiefs and aprons that Paul had touched. So we see these words come true: Greater works than these will he do.
But on the other hand, Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”
We see here that just because something happens that looks like a miracle of some sort, doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a sign of the working of the Holy Spirit.
We have to be very careful that we don’t just believe any overnight preacher that stops by, or any TV evangelist who wants money to go around healing people in a foreign country, or any crazy madman who says that if you don’t speak in tongues you are not a true Christian, or the reason why God hasn’t healed you from your sickness is because your faith isn’t strong enough.
Beware of this sort of stuff. But at the same time, what do you make of it all? Well, first of all, all the miracles of Peter and Paul came about to strengthen their preaching of the gospel. They were preaching to people the forgiveness of sins through the death of Jesus. If a person comes along specifically as a “faith-healer”, we should be very careful with them if that’s the only thing they are doing. Christianity is a whole package. Christianity includes the 10 commandments as a mirror for our life, the creed as the faith of our hearts, the Lord’s Prayer as the words of our lips, Holy Baptism as the means of salvation, the Office of the Ministry as the mouthpiece of God’s judgments, and the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper as our miraculous, heavenly food for body and soul. If someone is performing miracles, and at the same time is undermining one of these pillars of Christianity, then reject them. You know there’s something wrong if someone undermines your baptism, because baptism is God’s work, not yours. If someone says, “I don’t need the creed because I follow Jesus”, you know something’s wrong, because you can’t follow Jesus if you don’t believe what the creed says. The creed is the church’s answer throughout history of Jesus’ question to us: “Who do you say that I am?”
Anyway, I’m sure you get the message. As St John says in his first letter: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
All these crazy groups want to do everything fast and quickly, because they don’t have a future. But the church of God on earth has a future, so sometimes we have to wait.
But our problem is this: Many people say, “If only I had a stronger faith, I would be healed from my disease.”
This can be a real problem talking like this. God doesn’t save us because of how strong our faith is, but because Jesus is strong to save us. When we say that we are saved by faith, it doesn’t mean that on the last day we all roll up to heaven and say to God, “Look at how strong my faith is.” Being saved by faith means that you turn God’s attention away from you as much as possible onto Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
Most people who say, “I am strong in faith” are usually weak in faith because they put their trust in themselves rather than outside of themselves in Jesus.
Most people who say, “I am weak in faith” are usually strong in faith because they recognise their weakness, and helplessness, and sin.
If you think you are weak in faith, thank God for that, because it is the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus once said to a man: “All things are possible for one who believes.” And the man said: “I believe; help my unbelief.”
So don’t beat yourself up about your faith being strong or not strong. All the strength you need in faith won’t come from you, it only comes from Jesus and from his power over death.
But one more thing about this. In the western world, our great problem is this: It’s not that people do not have a faith in Jesus Christ as their only Saviour from sin, death and the power of the devil. In fact, I would say, that the trust in Jesus outside of ourselves is much stronger in Europe, Australia and America, then anywhere else in the world. And I would say further, that the Lutheran Church of all churches has really got this right. Salvation does not comes from inside of us, it is from outside of us. We only believe in the forgiveness of sins, not because we feel it, but because the word of God says so.
The problem is, though, that we don’t believe that God created the world. We’ve got the second part of the creed right. We all believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and all of that.
But we don’t believe in the words: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
In every pagan religion, a god is not really in charge of the universe, but is beneath it in some way. So in Ancient Rome, there were various gods and then various things happened to them, and who did they blame? Fickle fortune! Unhappy fate! The gods were not in charge of things, they simply had to put up with whatever was their lot. In Hinduism, it’s the same. There are all sorts of gods, but none of them are actually in charge of the way the world works. In Sudan, I think people used to worship various animal gods, but in the end, these gods would die, of course. A crocodile can be speared or shot. It’s not a god.
In the same way, many people think that Jesus Christ is subject to the laws of nature. People say Jesus is a great person, but the universe is more powerful than him. So we look at this miracle in our gospel reading, and we say, “It’s not true. If Jesus were alive today, and there were a few brainy scientists around, we could work out a “logical” explanation for it.” We look at the Virgin Birth of Jesus and we say, “It can’t have happened like that. Because nothing happens outside of the laws of nature.” We look at the resurrection of Jesus and we say, “Well, he didn’t actually rise from the dead.”
Or take the Lord’s Supper. There are many churches who make it their public confession of faith that it is not possible that Jesus can give us his body to eat and his blood to drink in the Lord’s Supper. People say, “It can’t happen. It must be symbolic.” Well, it’s not symbolic. Jesus says, “This is my body, this is my blood.” Jesus said it, I believe it: that settles it.
Or take Holy Baptism. Many people don’t believe that baptism does anything, even though St Peter says, “Baptism now saves you”, and St Paul says, “through baptism we were buried with Christ into death”, and that baptism is a washing “of the Holy Spirit”. It’s not symbolic. You are not saved by your works, or your own strength.
So we look at our reading today about Jesus healing the deaf and dumb man. Jesus is not a magic-man freak-show with a few tricks up his sleeve. Also, he’s not Buddha, or Genesh, or Krishna, or Hercules, or Jupiter, among many. But he is true man and true God, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. He is able to perform this miracle, because he is true God, who was there at the creation of the world, who then took human flesh from the Virgin Mary and became a man. And if you want healing from Jesus for anything, then ask him. If he heals you, good. If he doesn’t, well, know that he will heal you in the next life, and in the meantime take up the words of Ecclesiastes 3 and say, “For every time there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.”
There’s no harm in asking, though. In fact, Jesus wants you to ask. “Ask and you will receive.” Remember though, that your suffering might bring greater glory to God and might bring more inspiration and strength to other people in the faith. Peter and Paul healed people, but they also got locked up in prison, they also fled for their lives, they also died cruel deaths. And nevertheless we say, “God has made everything beautiful in its time.”
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But what about this deaf and dumb man?
He is a perfect example of what it means to receive the faith. There was nothing in him that earned him Jesus’ help. Everything came outside of him from Jesus. He didn’t even know about Jesus – he couldn’t hear. He couldn’t even ask Jesus for help – he couldn’t speak.
Other people bring him to Jesus. Jesus puts his finger in his ears, and touches his tongue with spit. He sighs, he looks up to heaven. And Jesus speaks those words: “Be opened.” In Aramaic: “Ephphatha.”
That’s how faith works for us. I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called by the gospel. Everything comes about because Jesus opens us up through his own words, and his own words create faith in us, faith in the creating work of God the Father, faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ his Son, and faith in the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus died on the cross for us, the heavens were opened for the whole world and now we can walk in. He says, “Be opened.”
And even now in the church, we hear those words applied to each one of us, “Be opened”. The doors of the kingdom of heaven are opened for us each time we hear the absolution, the forgiveness of sins. The preaching of the word opens us up to salvation through the power of the Gospel. He takes us who are deaf and dumb, and he gives us ears to hear and mouths to speak.
Jesus gets his finger and sticks the Holy Spirit in our ears. He looks up to heaven and sighs, and the Holy Spirit and all the gifts of heaven come down upon us in the waters of baptism. He opens up our mouths and sticks his body and blood on our tongue. Everything comes about because Jesus opens us up, and from nothing else.
So be opened. Ephphatha!
And we read: “They were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, open our ears to hear your words, and send us the Holy Spirit. Heal our diseases, both of body and soul, and give us strength and peace. Amen.
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