Mark 7:24-37 (Pentecost 16B)
St. John, Galveston 9/8/24
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    The message this morning is based on the Gospel reading from Mark 7. The reading is actually two parts. In the first part Jesus encounter a Gentile woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon. She came to Jesus to ask Him to cast the demon out. The second part of the reading, which we’ll focus on this morning, is about a man who was deaf and who spoke with an impediment. Some people brought him to Jesus and begged Jesus to do something for him.

    “Taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

    I recall a remarkable story from several years ago about two men whose boat capsized in the Gulf of Mexico. They both survived the ordeal and it’s their survival that makes the story so remarkable. The two men’s homemade catamaran flipped over while they were at sea, about 180 miles off the Texas coast. When the boat flipped over, the men were able to grab hold of the hull to use it for flotation. They remained at sea though, not just for a day or two, but for eight days. After they were rescued they were asked what it was like adrift on the sea. They said they had to fend off some sharks on at least one occasion. They also said they battled with hunger and thirst and even with a bit of delirium, as they wondered if they would ever be rescued.

    As if out of a dream, finally, some people on a pleasure boat saw them and took them on board and fed them a steak dinner. One of the men kept saying over and again that it was a miracle that they were found and plucked from the sea. In his own way, he was singing the praises of God. This very real, physical ordeal, lead the man to some spiritual conclusions. God was with him and his friend during those eight days and He delivered them from their ordeal.

    “Oh, Lord,” we often sing, “open my lips and my mouth will show forth Your praise.” No one, Paul says, can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. It’s true, you know, we do not, nor can we, sing the praise of God unless He opens our lips and gives us a new song, a song that acknowledges who He is and that “He does all things well.”

    On another day, at a different time and place, there was a man who was desperately trying to survive. He was confined to eek out an existence in a world where other people could speak and hear, in a world where people could trade and make a living, where they could tell someone else about their joys and sorrows, about their triumphs and failures, even their hopes and dreams.

    This man though couldn’t hear and he spoke with a great deal of difficulty. We sometimes say to people, “I know how you feel,” but, in many cases, we really don’t. I suspect this man felt abandoned, destitute, sort of like the men who clung to their capsized boat at sea, wondering if anyone would ever see them, if anyone would ever rescue them. Their plight lasted but eight days. His had lasted a lifetime.

    No doubt the man had reached that point in his life where he was keenly aware of how helpless he was, with limited ability to make any sort of meaningful changes in his situation. I wonder? Have you ever reached that point in your own life? It’s a pivotal moment really. Oftentimes it’s a life changing moment. For this man, a connection was about to be made between the physical and the spiritual, between not being able to speak with clarity and being able to sing the praise of God, not only with his lips, but with a heart reborn in Christ Jesus.

    There were some people who brought the man to Jesus. Perhaps they were friends of his. Or, maybe they were simply people who had a heart for the suffering, people with a compassionate heart. Either way, they begged Jesus to put His hand on the man. It takes a lot, doesn’t it, to bring someone to the point of begging, especially for someone else? Knees are scuffed and pride is hurt when you beg. Expectations and demands are cast off, replaced with modesty and humility. When you beg you don’t expect that you’re worthy of anything, you’re simply asking for pity, for mercy.

    It’s hard to say what these new found friends of the man expected from Jesus. Whatever it was, it sure seems like they got more than they expected. After all, Mark says, “they were astonished beyond measure” by what Jesus did.  That’s usually the way it is with God, isn’t it? As the Scriptures say, “He is able to do exceedingly abundantly, above all that we ask or think.”

    What God often does is move us to look beyond the everyday needs that we have, to something greater, to something more profound, more enduring. Beyond all of things we think we so desperately need, He shows us, through His word, our greatest need and how He satisfies that need in our lives. Indeed, as had been prophesied, in Jesus, the blind see and the lame walk, but beyond temporal gifts and blessings, they see into the eternal things of God. They see Jesus for who He truly is, God incarnate, God who came to save His people from sin and death.

    Ultimately, life goes on beyond this vale of tears and whatever it is that hinders our praise of God. There is a new day to come. As the apostle John wrote, “I saw a new heaven, and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.  Also there was no more sea.  I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.  And God will wipe away ever tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

    Samuel Morse was an American painter turned inventor. One day,  he tapped out a message on a new device called the telegraph in the capitol of the United States.  I imagine those men on the capsized boat would have rejoiced to have had some way to communicate their desperate situation to someone else. Morse’s message, which originated in Washington D.C., was received in Baltimore, and these were the words chosen on that auspicious occasion: “What hath God wrought!” Without boasting about his own accomplishments, with deep humility, with a recognition that he was only putting God’s laws to work, he wired the words that a hundred years later were sent around the world: “What hath God wrought!”

    Jesus has done all things well, my friends.  By God’s grace in Christ Jesus, ears are opened, tongues are loosed, and hearts are reborn to sing His praise. Indeed, “O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will show forth your praise.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +