From the Archives: A Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
Cover artwork: Philippe de Champaigne (French, 1602–1674), Christ Healing the Deaf-Mute, c. 1650–1660, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Museum of Art.
A Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
Rev. Aaron A. Koch
The following sermon is from Gottesdienst Volume VI, No. 2, Trinity 1998. This sermon was preached at Mount Zion Lutheran Church, Greenfield, Wisconsin, on 17 August 1997.
He has done all things well.
Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee. Then they brought to Him on who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him. And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly. Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” (St. Mark 7:31–37)
+ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. +
Jesus has just traveled from the region of Tyre and Sidon, a place where He cast out a demon that held a young girl in its grip. Now, our Lord is by the Sea of Galilee, and again He comes face to face with a person in the bondage of Satan. The people bring to Jesus a man whose ears are imprisoned with deafness and whose tongue is bound by an impediment of speech. For when a person cannot hear, neither can he speak clearly or rightly. Such is the goal of the devil: to disrupt and tear down the lives and the capacities of those created in the image of God, to cause people trouble in both soul and body. He does this in an attempt to turn our hearts away from the Lord.
It is not incorrect to see the working of the devil in one’s physical troubles. For was it not through Satan’s temptations that sin entered the world, bringing with it sickness and pain and death itself? Indeed; that is why St. Paul refers to his “thorn in the flesh,” his bodily ailment, as “a messenger of Satan to buffet me.” Likewise, the Old Testament reading connects deafness and blindness and poverty to the work of “the terrible one” and “the scornful one,” namely, the devil. Nevertheless, the Lord uses even Satan’s destructive schemes to accomplish His own righteous purposes. The Apostle Paul spoke of how although God wouldn’t take away his physical troubles, He taught Paul through those troubles to trust entirely in His grace and His power in Christ. Thus, the devil’s onslaughts are turned upside down so that they cause us to cling more tightly to the Lord’s promised salvation. The devil is turned against himself. Though we may be weak ourselves, yet we are made to be strong in the Lord. For our trust is then directed ever more fervently to His strength and mercy. When Satan buffets us, the Spirit draws us to pray in faith the words of the Introit, “Make haste, O God, to deliver me! Make haste to help me, O Lord!”
However, we cannot pray in this way unless the Lord first opens our ears and unlooses our tongue. For like the man in the Gospel we are by nature deaf and mute towards God. Being bound by Satan even from birth, our ears are closed off and calloused towards God. We don’t naturally grasp His words or perceive what He says. We don’t “speak His language.” Jesus often said after His teaching, “He who has ears, let him hear,” because many who listened to Him still didn’t get what He was saying. Jesus even once said to His own disciples, “Having ears, do you not hear?” And if there’s an impediment in our hearing, then there’s also going to be an impediment in our speaking. Our words won’t rightly reflect the Lord’s words and His teaching. Our mouths won’t properly declare His praise. Indeed, we are in the very same shoes as the man in the Gospel.
The people bring to Jesus this man who is deaf and has an impediment in his speech, and they beg Him to put His hand on him. Notice the emphasis here on the touch and the physical meeting of Christ and the deaf mute. The people see the need for there to be that direct, personal contact for him to be helped.
You may have heard before the sad story of a man who took his own life. The last thing this man did before committing suicide was to go and get his hair cut. He did that simply so that someone might touch him. In his dying loneliness he craved that direct, physical contact.
Beloved in the Lord, we need never feel deprived of that personal contact with our Lord Jesus. For He is One who consistently provides us with His healing touch. And it is a very literal and physical touch. For He Himself took on our flesh and blood, real eyes and ears and feet and hands, that He might deal with us concretely and on our level. Even now our Lord comes into contact with us not only according to His divine nature but also according to His bodily human nature. He touches us tangibly in the Sacraments. We meet Him face to face in the Supper of His Body and Blood. He lays His hands on us in Baptism and in Private Absolution and speaks to us His words of forgiveness and release. Indeed, our Lord still attends to His people personally, by hand.
Jesus takes the deaf mute aside from the multitude, for what He’s about to do is not for the entertainment of the crowd. And our Lord does two things to the man: First, He takes His fingers and puts them into the deaf man’s ears. Second, He spits and touches the man’s tongue with the spittle. He makes direct physical contact with the deaf mute’s problems in order to heal him.
But why does Jesus do it in this particular way, a way that might seem a bit odd to us? What can we learn from Jesus’ actions? Firstly, in the Scriptures, the “finger of God” is another term for the Holy Spirit. So when Jesus puts His fingers into the man’s ears, that shows us that it is only by the working of the Holy Spirit that our ears are opened rightly to hear God’s Word. It is only by the Spirit’s power that we are made able and willing to listen to and understand and believe His saving Gospel. I Corinthians 2 says, “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them.” “[But] we have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” Jesus opens our ears by His Spirit, the finger of God, that we may hear and hold to His words of life, as it is written, “Faith comes by hearing.”
Secondly, when Jesus spits and touches the man’s tongue, that is clearly a picture for us of Holy Baptism, in which our Lord touches us with water and unlooses our tongue rightly to sing of His glory. The Psalmist says, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” In Baptism, the Lord puts His name on us, that we may call upon His name in prayer. And the Lord places into our mouths His own words, His very saliva, so to speak, that our once muted tongues may sound forth with the words of the faith—the confessing of the creed, the singing of the church’s hymns, the proclaiming of His marvelous deeds and His life-giving teaching. It is written, “[The Lord] has put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.” By first opening our ears to hear His Word rightly, the Lord also opens our mouth to sing and confess the faith rightly. First the ears, then the mouth. The speaking flows from the hearing. Christ puts His words into our ears, and they flow off of our tongue back to Him in prayer and praise.
Jesus looks up to heaven. He sighs and says to the deaf mute, “Ephphatha,” which means “Be opened.” Immediately his ears are opened and the impediment of his tongue is loosed, and he speaks plainly. Notice that when Jesus says, “Be opened,” He speaks not just to the man’s ears and mouth but to his whole person. For the words “Be opened” can also be understood in the original language as meaning “Be released!” Jesus is here releasing this man from his bondage to Satan. He is setting him free from that hellish prison. Jesus’ miracle is more than just evidence of His power over bodily ailments; it is evidence of His triumph over the devil. Jesus’ words shatter the chains by which the evil one holds his victim bound.
Our Lord’s words also shatter the chains which bind and enslave you. He says to you, too, “Ephphatha! Be released!” And by water and the Spirit you are set free from the powers of darkness. Back in Martin Luther’s day, the baptismal liturgy actually included an exorcism that contained these words, “Depart, O unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit.” So it is that at the font the Lord liberates you from the control of the oppressor—and that is a miracle no less marvelous than the one here by the Sea of Galilee. Christ releases and frees you from Satan’s grip and brings you into the loving and uplifting hands of God, as we prayed a moment ago, “The Lord gives freedom to the prisoners.”
But that freedom does not come without a price. As Jesus is about to speak, He sighs, He groans. Our Lord groans because He takes on Himself all the things that cause us to groan—the pain, the loneliness, the troubles—whatever binds and imprisons us. For in order to release us from the captivity of Satan, the Lord put Himself under that captivity. He let Himself be placed into the hands of the powers of darkness, who finally killed Him. There on the cross He made direct contact with our sin, groaning and breathing His last in our place. However, through that death He was not defeated but victorious. For in so doing Christ took away the sin that gives Satan his power. He overcame all that makes us sigh and groan in this fallen world. And by rising bodily from the grave, He restored the bodies of all the faithful to life that is whole and immortal and imperishable. That resurrection life will be revealed to us and to the whole creation when Christ returns on the Last Day, as Isaiah has said, “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The humble also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. For the terrible one is brought to nothing, the scornful one is consumed.”
It is because Satan is indeed consumed and brought to nothing that this man’s tongue is released to speak plainly and truthfully about the immeasurable goodness of Christ the Savior. In fact it’s not just the deaf mute who now speaks but also all those with him. Although Jesus commands them not to tell anyone, they can’t hold it in; they are driven to speak. The more Jesus commands them, the more widely they proclaim what He has done. Is that not how it is with the Gospel? The freeing Gospel of Christ cannot be restrained or bound but proceeds ever onward in the ears and on the lips of His Church, even as it is to this very day with you.
God grant, then, that you who have had your ears opened and your tongues loosed by Christ may confess before the world with these people in the Gospel, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
+ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. +