“OPENED”
Saint Mark 7. 31-37
12th Sunday after Trinity: 11 September Anno Domini 2011
Fr Watson SSP
God has made haste this day. He has delivered you!
The fact that the Christ was in the land of the Gentiles-the non-Jewish coasts of Tyre and Sidon was due to sin. He came to seek and to save that which was lost-sinners. A healthy man does not need a physician. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes thought they were healthy and well. They thought that they did obey the Law of Moses and that repentance and "washing" was only for the unclean-the Gentiles.
Jesus came first to the "People of Israel" but He ALSO came for the entire world [Jn. 3. 16]: Greek, Roman, German, English and American. He also most assuredly came for the Hmong, Mexican, Haitian, Pakistani, and Iranian sinner.
If you are not a sinner than you have no place in His pasture or in this part of His pasture denominated as Augsburg of Shawnee.
The fact that people are born deaf and dumb is because of sin-all of your sin-all of the world's sin. The mute in this morning's text was not being punished for any specific or particular individual trespass of his, in thought, word, or deed. He was simply suffering in a particular way in a generally suffering world. He was broken in a broken world.
You know that the "wages of sin" is death. But, you tend to push death way-back and far-away; something to come some day in the distant future. Maybe--maybe not. "Keep death daily before your eyes" said the Benedictine monks. There is great Lutheran wisdom in this aphorism. The "wages of sin" also produce daily sorrow.
You hurt and you are NOT complete, "right" or at peace. And this is because of your sinful state. You are "hard-wired," that is, your "default setting out of the box" is SINNER. You may not be a deaf mute but you are, of yourself, as sinner, every bit as bound & tortured as the man in this story.
You are aged, or aching. You have illnesses: chronic, life-threatening, debilitating, painful or in remission. You wear eye-glasses for vision that is being "bound" and hearing-aids for sonic captivity. You are bald, arthritic, head-ache prone and depressed. You are ALL this deaf mute, because deafness and muteness were but his symptoms for the universal and underlying captivity to this body of death! Sin!
If this wonderful text was ONLY about a miraculous healing than it's not even worth our time. You KNOW God is powerful and that He can perform wonders whenever He desires; okay fine-so what? You haven't seen many of these in your own family and friends' lives lately have you? I don't mean penicillin, successful surgery or the body's own healing properties and the passage of time; I mean withered limbs un-withering, leprosy vanishing, and eyes blind form birth seeing again? Have you been more special than Saint Paul in that your own "thorn in the flesh" was speedily removed; Paul's wasn't! Mark's Evangel for today is not an object lesson in the way to live your life more successfully; it is not a program for physical empowerment by a more disciple-like faith wherein you increase in youth, health, and germ-free vibrancy.
"They bring unto Him." Oh what good news those words of the pericope are! This is exactly HOW lambs are birthed; how Christians are made. Sinful pagans are brought to Jesus by the Word. The Word as "words" has no feet and arms of its own. The Word does not magically float off the pages of Hebrew Scripture and seep into a perspective convert's pores like germ warfare. The words of The WORD are preached, spoken, broadcast, trumpeted, explained, sung and given freely (and often) through the mouths of Pastors and of Christians. Friends just tell friend about the Lord.
Those dear and blessed friends of the deaf mute were believers in Messiah. They were, like the four friends who lowered the man in the pallet down through the hole in the roof (in another famous story)…believed Jesus WAS the "Anointed of God" and that He would help their crippled loved one. They were believers because the Holy Spirit had given them ears to hear. They had listened by the Power of the Spirit in The Word that was Christ and had seized on to the Message and Messenger! They trusted that the "Kingdom of Heaven was at hand!"
They are you and you are them! They knew that the Lord was good and that only God is good. They knew that it delighted Him to show His goodness. They desired that Christ place the very hand of god upon their deaf mute friend. How like a Holy Baptism this sacramental meeting was.
The devil wants a world of pagans; a world of broken, dying and damned refuse. Jesus reverses all of these wicked works. The devil chains infants and adults alike in unbelief and Jesus unlocks in the washing of regeneration. The devil wants people in the prison of guilt and despair over sin and failure to obey the Law but Jesus rips the jail door off its hinges by keeping the 10 Commandments perfectly in your stead. Even as Christ "took you aside" at the Font for a one-on-one sanctification/holy-ing/separation/distinction apart from the mass of perdition, so too He made the deaf mute His very own by taking him apart from the multitude. He placed this healed man into His own Church, His ekklesia, i.e. His set-apart ones, for this is How the Church is made-by the Hands of the God/Man and not by our own decision or selection.
The fingers of God stuck right into your ears this day by the preached words of the Word in the Flesh. HEAR! Believe that His obedience has satisfied and justified your disobedience. Believe that His substitutionary suffering and death has filled in and stood in for your own hard-earned death sentence. He cleans out the ear wax of Satan, the tar of trespass even as He cleanses all of your body in His precious Water and Blood. His Words are the very Water of Life and water gives life and refreshment; cleansing and purity. Spittle from the mouth of God is a Baptism of freedom for it is placed onto your own tongue: "O Lord, Open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise."
When God spoke the Word, by the Word, "for the Word was with God and the Word was God" [Jn.1] the universe was created. When Jesus spoke the word "siopa" i.e. "be silenced" to the roaring waves of Gennesaret, the sea became as calm as glass-for nature itself is re-created and made right again by Christ. The falleness of the world is soon, very soon to be made perfect again at the Last Trump. This day He spoke "BE OPENED" and the deaf mute was no longer deaf or mute. The man's tongue was as free, liberated and at peace IN CHRIST as His whole soul, spirit and conscience were by the loosing of His sins through the Holy Ghost's gift of faith. And soon, very soon, Jesus the Word would speak another word that was good and everlastingly efficacious for the healed man, his friends, and all of you-Tetelastai, i.e. "it is finished."
And so that you would know and believe all the more that He has done this and that "He does all things well" He speaks an additional word of Love and Peace to you this Mass day: "Take Eat, This Is My Body, Take Drink, This Is My Blood" for the forgiveness of sins and for loosing.
In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost