Readings: Isaiah 29:17-24 | 2 Corinthians 3:4-11 | Mark 7:31-37
Text: Mark 7:31-37
Were you there? Have you heard? Do you know the miracle that happened right here in the Decapolis today? Call your friends! Call your neighbors! You might even call your in-laws—this is so big! Breaking news! Jesus of Nazareth has opened the ears of a deaf man and made him speak plainly! Rescued from a world of silence, suddenly able to join the hearing world. This healed man tells the story of just how great Jesus is. You have to tell someone about this! It’s too exciting not to! How often is the news this good? This Jesus “does all things well.” What He does is astonishing beyond measure. He makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. Is there anything He can’t do?
What has Jesus done in your life? What is your testimony about how great Jesus is? What miracle has happened to you that will keep this story going? What have you seen out there that will get the next person excited about our Lord? This Jesus has given a wave of pure excitement to ride, and so let’s ride it non-stop until the very last day…or so we’re led to believe. After all, “He has done all things well.” And that’s the good news, isn’t it? Especially when we can see the change in the our lives and of those we meet. In the words of Eugene Petersen’s The Message: “God’s instruments to…speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you” (based on 1 Peter 2:10)
But, of course, there’s always that one person who wants to rain on everyone’s parade. That one person who just wants everyone to shut up about all this stuff, who tries to tell people that these things don’t really matter all that much. It would be better for everyone involved if we stopped talking about it all already. It’s just that we never expected that one person to be Jesus Himself: “And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more He charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.” Well that doesn’t make sense, Jesus. It must be a little bit of “reverse psychology” to get the proclamation of Jesus going, right? Except this isn’t the first time Jesus has done this. All throughout Mark’s Gospel, Jesus asks people to not talk about His miracles. The unclean spirit is silenced in Mark 1:25. More demons were not permitted to speak in 1:34. He commands the leper to keep quiet about his cleansing in 1:44. In 3:12, He commands silence again. The disciples are even charged to not tell anyone about the great vision of His Transfiguration, “until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” (Mark 9:9)
In chapter four, Jesus speaks in parables with the expressed intent that no one understands what he’s doing. In chapter 5, He tells Jairus and his family not to mention the raising of their daughter, for whom they just had the funeral! In chapter 8, He tells the blind man who received his sight not even to enter his own village anymore. He tells the disciples not to tell anyone after confessing Him to be the Christ.
Can you imagine the man in our text? Jesus looses his tongue. He can speak rightly and clearly for the first time. And he’s told, don’t say anything? What could possibly be wrong with letting people know about Jesus? After all, Jesus is powerful. Jesus is victorious over the demons. Jesus works miracles. Jesus heals the sick. Jesus raises the dead. And Jesus does open ears. Jesus does indeed do all things well. And if I can tell someone that Jesus does those things, that Jesus has done some of those things in my life, they get to know Jesus. They get to have Jesus work in their lives too. How could that possibly be bad? And yet, Jesus commands silence.
Because that’s not how this works. The good news isn’t that Jesus helped you find your car keys. The good news isn’t that Jesus sent you a sign from heaven so you’d know what to do. The good news isn’t that Jesus did some miracle that affected everyone in the whole community. The good news isn’t that Jesus has power, and is using it to make things better for those around Him. These things aren’t bad, after all, Jesus does them. But none of those things are worth proclaiming until after you hear the real good news.
After telling everyone to not talk about the miracles, commanding silence from those he helped, Jesus did have one thing that He wanted said. Jesus let everyone know that He was going to die. And not just die, but be killed. And not just killed, but crucified. And He was going to be crucified by the very people who were thought to be the closest to God. The very people who were thought to have God’s favor in this life. Yet, despite all that, on the third day, Jesus would rise. On the third day, He would live. And that’s exactly what happened.
“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. 34 And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.” (Mark 10:33-34)
How that happened is the one story that saves. That is the one piece of good news that actually does something because that news opens ears. That news looses tongues. That news opens heaven for you and for me. There are no empty promises in that news. And that is the news that is to be proclaimed to anyone who will hear.
It is only when Jesus looks up to heaven praying in Gethsemane, does his looking up into heaven mean anything in today’s text. It’s only in His sighing at the cross, that His sigh here fits. It’s only in the “Ephphatha” that tore the temple curtain in two, that this “Ephphatha”makes sense. It’s at the cross that our ears are opened, our tongues loosened, and our forgiveness is won. It’s only because Jesus did one thing well, that He has indeed done all things well. And it is done. It is finished.
You don’t need a crucified and risen Jesus to find your car keys. You don’t need a crucified and risen Jesus toto send you signs. You don’t need a crucified and risen Jesus to do great miracles. You don’t need a crucified and risen Jesus to drive out demons, or restore hearing, or untie tongues. All you really need for those is a proverbial genie of the lamp.
You do need a crucified and risen Jesus to forgive your sins. You do need a crucified and risen Jesus to raise you from the dead. You do need a crucified and risen Jesus to be there with you now, with you in the grave, with you always. Those are all promised to you by Christ. And those are greater miracles than even opening someone’s ears.
This is who Jesus is. This is His good news. That He died for you. That He rose for you. That He washes you in His Baptism, where it is certain, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4) That Jesus the Lord feeds you His body and blood—the fruits of His death of His suffering and resurrection—“Take; this is my body…This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” (Mark 14:22-24)
This is what Jesus does well, and it lasts to eternity: To open heaven on our behalf and welcome us in. To cleanse us of our sin and all the destruction it has wreaked. To raise us in our bodies on the last day and to be with Him forever. This is astonishing beyond measure. This is all things done well. This is Jesus for you. That is the good news.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
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