“OPENED IS FORGIVEN”
Saint Mark 7. 31-37
Twelfth Sunday after Trinity: 10 August Anno Domini 2008
Fr Watson SSP
Paul wrote that the wages of sin is death; it is! All sinners will die. Everyone who has ever died already, was a sinner and that's why he died. Since everyone is a sinner everyone will die.
Some die before childbirth and some die at childbirth. Some die in the neo-natal intensive care unit and some die right before or right after they are taken home from the hospital. Some die in infancy or toddlerhood. Some die before they are baptized, confirmed, or graduate from high school. Some die before they ever marry and some leave behind a widow. Some die in old age. The wages of sin is death and that is why people die.
All people die and perhaps the ones who die quickly with the least physical trauma are the most fortunate. All of you die a little bit every day because of your sin. You lose your hair because of sin and get cavities because of sin. Bone density lessens, eyesight weakens and skin wrinkles because of sin. Polio is due to sin as much as the common cold. God punishes no one because of sin and no physical ailment whether temporary or chronic is due to a "specific trespass," but suffering is because of sin. If there were no sin you would be in the garden with Adam eating immortal fruit and living without pain (which is a little bit of death each day) and without death. The day that you sin said the Lord is the day that you die. Some days are just that "days" and some days take "three-score and ten" years.
The deaf man was deaf because he was a sinner. The deaf man was a "dead man walking" (and NOT hearing) because he was a sinner. You may not be deaf but you do have your own physical "crumblings" every day whether you feel them or recognize them.
To be deaf is to be boxed up, walled in, and locked away to self, in self, by self; by sin. To be deaf is to be closed. Deaf people don't talk; they don't know how. Blind people don't see for they are closed in by darkness. People who have their taste buds closed and imprisoned by disease cannot take in and experience the liberty and joy of new and unique tastes. People who have their sense of smell imprisoned by defect (temporary due to colds and congestions or permanent due to nerve and other damage) are filled with "concrete" and not accessible to delicious aromas both familiar and exotic. Closed is of the devil, the world and the flesh. Being open is the great gift of God!
Even worse than being a sinner who is going to die physically one day, even while he daily dies a little bit at a time physically, is to be an unbelieving sinner who has not been converted and adopted by the Lord Christ.
Christ is the Promised One Who has come and is now here-for you. Christ is the Anointed Apostle sent from the Trinity, the God-Head, to be the great OPENER! As Light overcomes dark; as Joy overcomes sadness; as Peace overcomes conflict; as Life overcomes non-being and death; Christ overcomes all that which is closed, blocked, barricaded, locked, imprisoned, and out-of-order.
Sin closes and Christ opens. Sin closes and Forgiveness opens. Christ is forgiveness, and as the most beautiful phrase in the human language states: "Where there is forgiveness of sins there is also life and salvation."
Yes Jesus heals the deaf mute. The Lord's miraculous (and LOVING) power makes the bound man the loosed man, makes the stuck tongue the singing tongue and makes the clogged ears the new open passage way of not only sound but of the Preached Word of Forgiveness. You brothers and sisters take great joy in hearing again this day of the opening of your distant relative back in the region of Decapolis. But there is so much more opening going on. There was opening and loosing, there is opening and loosing, there will shortly be opening and loosing, and one day very soon there will be the final-forever opening and loosing.
Jesus the Opener loosed man from the ground and breathed the Holy Ghost into his body making clay into a Sanctified Temple. When man fell from Paradise and was closed off forever from God by death and by eternal death & damnation, Jesus the Opener loosed man from damnation by promising him a great Opener would come in the fullness of time to open all prisons and set free all captives. Jesus the great Opener, opened His Divine Essence to take into Its perfection the humanity (body and blood and all that makes man "man" save for sin) from His Mother, the Ever-Virgin. Jesus opened His heart to do the will of His Father joyfully and fully. The Opener obeyed, and in perfectly keeping the law, forever opened up for man what the Ten Commandments really mean and truly require: Perfection. Jesus allowed His pure and undefiled flesh to be opened raw by iron and thorn, by wood and spear. Jesus allowed His sinless side to be opened so as to gush forth His Opening love and establishing sacraments for His people-His freed people.
Like the deaf mute brought by his own friends, his believing friends, to Jesus presence, to He Who in His Flesh and Blood is the Holy of Holies, Jesus pre-figured each of your own Holy Baptisms. You too were brought by your closest friends, your parents, your believing parents, to the New Arc of the Testimony, the Holy Font filled with the Opener's Blood and Water. Jesus' Blood is the ultimate "liquid wrench and '3-in-1' oil" opening even Satan's steely bands of sin. Jesus again opened His own pierced side in your Baptism's and placed you safely into His own heart. You're not a "joey" placed in a mama Kangaroo's pouch, you are a blood relative placed in the embrace of your dearest Big Brother.
Your own individual opening is ever present, constantly going on. Your ears were uncorked in Baptism which then allowed you to hear the Word as a believer, and which allows the same Word to move, relieve and fortify you right now! You have learned, marked, read, and inwardly digested this Word as both milk and meat for soul, spirit and body. You tongue was untangled in Baptism which then and now allows you to sing His Mercy and proclaim His Grace. Your soul, opened by Jesus has been filled by Jesus. Jesus in you allows you to believe and have it make a difference. You stood this morning open before God and Man admitting your daily sin, and then, completely naked, and open, had Christ once again fill you with Forgiveness-Holy + Absolution. He Who does all things well now brings you to His royal table, the Head Table, to eat His Body and drink His Blood. He opens your mouths so as to open again your hearts and He places and pours Himself the great Opener into you for forgiveness-for life-for salvation.
To have been opened by Christ, to be open to Christ, to be Open in Christ is "the" astonishment beyond measure. "Ephphatha" dear friends. In The Name of the Opener--
In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost