Worship Service on Sunday, October 20, 2024
In our text for today, we again see another miracle that Jesus has performed. Mark is the only gospel writer to speak of this miracle. Historians tell us that Decapolis was predominantly a Gentile region. However, it was not completely without a Jewish influence, as there were several settled communities of Jews living in the region. Several people brought a man to Jesus who perhaps was their friend. The man has a two-fold condition. He has both a hearing problem and a speaking problem. The man is deaf. Deafness means the total or partial inability to hear sound.
This week I came across an article called “A Classic American Underdog Story”. I personally gravitate to underdog stories. This story, however, has a bit of a twist. It is about a football team at a California high school for the deaf in Riverside, California. Since it is football season, I thought sharing this story would be appropriate. Plus I’m talking about deafness.
For 70 years, this football team could not win a season. But in 2022, the Cubs, having perfected their skill and system of football, specifically with sign language, made history as the first deaf football team in the state to be crowned champions. They went on to win the championship again in 2023. Their wins turned the team into community heroes. At one point, thousands of people packed the stands. You know, everyone loves a winner. Even a New York Times correspondent, Thomas Fuller, gave up his job to write a book about the Cubs titled “The Boys of Riverside”. The school’s football program started in the 1950s and suffered defeat each season, sometimes not even winning a single game. Those losses were aggravated by the discrimination that the athletes suffered because they were deaf. At times, they were accused of faking their deafness.
The deaf community in Riverside is very tightly knitted together. Many of the Cubs players have grown up together. Their coach, Keith Adams, who is also deaf himself, credits the bond of their success along with rigorous training, a fleet-footed playing style, and unique ways in which their deafness makes them stronger. He said, when you watch deaf players and coaches communicate with each other on the football field you realize maybe hearing people have a disadvantage describing the speed with which they trade thoughts via sign language. He goes on to say they are not affected by noise and they can speak over long distances. It’s fast and it’s effective. And to kind of go with that, if you’ve noticed, if you watch any football games recently in the last couple of years, you notice that there are a lot more hand signals being set in from the sidelines and hand signals in the huddles, especially when the crowd gets loud because they can’t hear. So now people are basically using sign language in sports because the crowd is too loud. He also said these boys were eager to change hearing people’s perspectives and get the opportunity they deserved. The statement of not being affected by noise and that being deaf was an advantage instead of a disadvantage really hit home with me. How often in our lives do we allow the noise around us to affect us in an adverse way? Are there times when silence is truly golden?
Getting back to our text, here Jesus heals this man with a very personal touch. He healed a deaf man with just the touch of his hand. Jesus cures a man of his deafness and speech impediment and gives him a whole new life. This man certainly experienced the very human side of Jesus. It also shows us how much compassion Jesus has, but he looks to heaven and sighs. “And looking up to heaven”, verse 34, “with a deep sigh, he said to him, Ephetah, this is to ‘be opened’.
Healing for Jesus is a spiritual battle. His groans and sighs are not because he’s annoyed, It is because he is our agent of redemption and all that sin and misery is placed squarely on his shoulders. Jesus is groaning because he is talking. He is taking all of the pain of this deaf man on his shoulders. Sometimes the Bible uses being deaf and mute as an analogy for our spiritual inabilities. Isaiah 6: 9-10, “And he said, go and tell this people keep on listening, but do not perceive. Keep on looking, but do not understand. Render the hearts of these people insensitive. Their ears dull, their eyes dim. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, return and be healed.” This passage is not referring to the people’s physical eyes and ears, but to their spiritual eyes and ears of seeing and hearing.
We as Christians don’t ever want to hear God referring to us as spiritually deaf, blind, and dumb. That would not be good. Now, you know, as you know, I run these sermons always by somebody and I ran it by my son and daughter-in-law. And I found the Greek word for speech impediment is mongolois, lois, mongolois. Well, as we were looking up that word, that is not the true word of speech impediment in the Greek. There’s another word that means speech impediment. But this particular word, mongolois, talks about a person’s speech when they are deaf and it says a hoarse low speech. So, if you’ve ever heard a person who is a deaf person speak, their voice is low, right? So the Greek word for speech impediment is different than the Greek word for someone who is deaf and they’re speaking and that is mongoloius. It is only used once in the New Testament. The other time this word appears in the Bible is in Isaiah 35: 5-6. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”
So the word was translated from Greek into the word mute in this particular Old Testament reading. In this verse, Isaiah is describing the future coming of Jesus to save his people. He’s telling us that when the Messiah comes, there will be certain signs, like the blind will see, we’ve seen that in miracles throughout the New Testament, the deaf will hear, we just talked about that, the lame will walk, and the mute will sing. Maybe the people of that time in the Old Testament thought these verses were referring to their spiritual hearing and seeing. They were right in their thinking. But when Jesus was on the earth, he not only restored spiritual hearing and seeing, but he performed the miracles of physical hearing for the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the sick.
We as humans are more amazed by physical healings than by spiritual hearing. In Romans Chapter 8, Paul talks about the Greek word for deep sighs. That’s in our passage. Paul says that God not only hears the groaning of his children, but God gives ear to the way that the whole earth groans in suffering. Romans 8:22-25, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he’s already seen? But if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it.”
God listens to our sighs, our cries, and our groans. Verse 26, “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings, too deep for words. God himself does not simply listen to our groans. The Spirit joins us in our groans. That’s what it tells us. The Spirit comes along with us in our sufferings, our pains, and our struggles.”
The miracle reminds us of how much of an impact Christ can have on our lives. We may not even realize the tiny blessings that he sends us each day or the little miracles that he works in our lives. Maybe it’s simply a sweet note from a friend, an unexpected promotion at work, or a reward to get through a hardship. It tells us to trust God and have faith and he will answer all our prayers. In times past Jesus has ordered people to go out and tell of the miracles. Now in this passage he insists on silence, but the more he commands them to be silent, the more they spread the word. The act of Jesus putting his finger into the man’s ears and then his saliva on the man’s tongue, for many of us, that might be a little bit too close for comfort. Jesus is not removed from or unaware of the physical bodily nature of being a human with all its joys and all its frustrations. The very reason God became flesh was because flesh matters. Our bodies matter. God created us with bodies and declared them to be good. He cares when our bodies cause us pain. Saving physical bodies was equally as important to Jesus as saving spiritual hearts, demonstrated by the many miracles of healing the physical. Body, soul, mind, and spirit all matter to Jesus.
So is silence golden? In some cases, being silent is good. We sometimes can say things that we shouldn’t, so being silent is good in one sense but being silent when it comes to sharing the good news? Nope, that’s when we need to shout it from the rooftops. So, is being deaf good? In the case of shutting out the noise of the outside world, it is important to our spiritual being. Being deaf to outside influences that tell us to do things that we know aren’t right is a good thing. So being deaf in some cases might be good. In the case of the boys playing football, deafness, which was considered a disability, became an advantage to them. The outside influences of all the noises did not affect them when they were playing football. It can be a two-edged sword. Being spiritually deaf is not a good thing. We need to listen and hear what God through the Spirit is telling us. We need to as the prayer of the church tells us, blessed Lord who has called cause all holy scripture to be written for our learning. Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them. Not just let it go in one ear and out the other. When the Lord returns, everlasting joy shall be upon your head, and you shall obtain joy and gladness. And yes, on that day, sorrow and sighing shall flee away. May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others, and may you use these gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. Amen
