“Ephphatha!” – “Be opened!”

Consider the compassion of the Savior. Friends from the region of the Decapolis have brought their special-needs Gentile friend to Jesus (Mark 7:31-32). Their friend is both deaf and mute. Jesus takes him away from the crowds so that the man can focus on Him and so that He can focus on the man. Since the man cannot hear, Jesus does some visual actions to convey what He is about to do. He puts His fingers into the man’s ears as if to say, “I’m going to fix what’s wrong with your ears.” He spits and touches the man’s tongue. “I’m going to fix that, as well.”

We don’t know why Jesus used spittle. I believe that if a mom’s spittle can clean her child’s grimy face, surely the spittle of the Son of God can fix what once was broken.

Jesus looks up to heaven to communicate from where this blessing is coming. “I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).

There is one more thing Jesus does before He heals this deaf-mute man. He sighs (Mark 7:34). Jesus is moved with emotion as He deals with the damage that sin has done to one of His children. Jesus shared in our humanity so that He could free us from the devil’s power and pain (Hebrew 2:14). He is a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering (Isaiah 53:3). He agonizes over the results of humanity’s fall into sin that have caused this extreme physical suffering upon His precious child. God’s beautiful creation has become damaged. Jesus sighs. He echoes the sigh of all creation at the fall into sin (Romans 8:22).

And now Jesus is ready to commence with the healing. He speaks a word – a funny-sounding word, “Ephphatha.” (Mark 7:34) It may sound strange to our ears, but it is a powerful word – precisely because the Great Physician proclaims it. “Ephphatha.” It’s an Aramaic word, which is the language that Jesus spoke. “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And when the Son of God speaks, things happen.

The same fingers that formed man out of clay now reform the man’s inner ear canal. The same divine power that opened the floodgates to fill the oceans at creation, now opens the man’s ears to hear the flooding of sounds both strange and wonderful at the same time. The shackles of Satan are cast off this poor man. Perhaps for the first time he can hear sounds … words … music! He is released from his prison of silence.

The man’s ears are opened, and he hears for the first time! Imagine the overwhelming emotion the man felt! Tears of joy!  And it’s not just his ears that work now, but also his tongue. His tongue is loosed, and he speaks … clearly. No learning how to enunciate or form vowels and consonants. No speech impediment. He can hear and speak clearly. What a joy! What a blessing!

And when the people find out what Jesus did for this poor man, they are amazed and overjoyed also: “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak” (Mark 7:37).

Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of Italian landscapes. In his painting of “Christ Healing the Deaf Mute of Decapolis,” Breenbergh portrays the group of people, near ancient ruins, who have gathered around Jesus after the miraculous healing. Breenbergh did not paint Jewish or Gentile ruins, but rather what he was familiar with – Italian ruins. In this way, the artist draws the biblical account of the miraculous healing into the present day for those living in the 16^th century – his contemporaries.

Although the main scene with Jesus and the crowd is smaller in scale, Breenbergh draws the gaze of the onlooker to the crowd with the interplay of light. The family and the beggar are larger and in the foreground, but they are in the shadow. They, too, like the onlooker of this painting, is being drawn into the light of Christ. It appears like the family and the beggar are going to join the crowd and come to Jesus for healing next.

We, too, are drawn to Jesus for healing. It is always scary when we realize that we might lose our sight or our hearing or our memory or our independence. It may be part of Jesus’ divine will to heal us of our physical ailments.

More importantly, we know that it is definitely part of Jesus’ divine will to heal us of our spiritual ailments.

What are those spiritual ailments? Sadly, they are ones that are often self-imposed. We tune out God’s voice so that we can live in sin with our boyfriend or girlfriend. We turn a deaf ear to God’s peace so we can walk in the door after work ready for a fight with our spouse. We close our ears to God’s love so that our hearts are filled with resentment and revenge.

We turn a blind eye to the beauty of God’s creation so that we may complain about whatever piddly annoyance aggravates us. We fail to see God’s overarching will for our lives so we are consumed with worry and doubt. We are so nearsighted looking only at the trinkets of this world that we miss out on the treasures of the world to come.
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We shut up our mouths so that we do not give God the glory He deserves because of our lack of worship. We close our lips so that we do not avail ourselves of God’s almighty power because of our lack of prayer. We are afraid to speak God’s truths to our children so don’t share our faith in our Savior with them.

We don’t read our Bibles. We skip worship. We don’t pray with our children. We have no clue what the voice of our Savior really sounds like. We have no idea what God’s holy will for our lives really looks like. We live for ourselves and let the Savior just walk on by.

We have become comfortable with our deafness. We have become complacent in our blindness. We have eyes, but fail to see. We have ears, but fail to hear (Mark 8:18).

Thank the Lord that this is why Jesus came. To fix what Satan has broken. To heal what humanity has hurt. To save sinners from their self-imposed damnation.

“He has done all things well,” the people said when Jesus healed the deaf and mute man. Jesus definitely has done all things well, but the supreme thing He has done well is to rescue, redeem and reclaim a world of lost, blind, deaf, and dying sinners.

This happened, not by way of a modern cochlear implant to make someone hear again, but by way of a cross and an implanted word. The cross, which was planted on Calvary’s hill, is the place where Jesus does the fixing. All the damage that Satan caused – disease and disability and death – Jesus reversed it. All the people not living right and enjoying their sin – Jesus saved them from it. All the spiritual blindness and deafness that we allow in our daily lives – Jesus heals us from it.

We humans got out of step with God. We disobeyed God’s will and rebelled against our Creator. And everything got messed up – our bodies, our lives, even our souls. We are living in the darkness, in the shadows. We are being drawn into the light of Christ. We know we are not perfect – neither in our bodies, nor in our souls. We are being drawn to a perfect Savior.

And that’s who Jesus is.

Jesus is the perfect Son of God who came down from heaven to be our Savior. He took on our flesh. He came face to face with Satan. He came finger to ear and spittle to tongue with the effects of our sin. He came to be buried in our death. He lived the perfect life of always having an open ear to the voice of His Father and an open mouth to praise His Lord. Jesus gave that perfection to us. His holiness covers over our sinfulness, our blind eyes, deaf ears, mute tongues, and hard hearts.

Jesus then went to the cross to finish the job of fixing us. He bore the sins of our selfishness, our laziness, our lack of worship, our disobedience to His holy will, etc. He was the innocent who bore the penalty for the guilty. Jesus became our Substitute and our Savior. He spoke His own “Ephphatha” at His tomb and opened the grave so He could walk out. He has opened the graves for all those who believe in Him. Now, though the curse of sin will eventually kill us, the blessing of Jesus’ open tomb allows us to live once again.

This is the only way we could be forgiven. The only way we could be healed. The only way we could be saved. The only way we can enter the gates of heaven.

Thank the Lord that Jesus still utters His “Ephphatha” for us also. Because of what Jesus has done for you, now you can believe. Now you can hear. Now you can speak. Your ears have been opened to hear the voice of the Lord. Your tongue has been loosened to praise your Savior for what He has done for you. Your heart has been healed. Your soul has been saved.

But my once broken but now healed brothers and sisters in Christ, the best is yet to come. Because of Jesus you will soon see the glories of heaven. You will hear the praise of the angels. You will sing the song of the saints.

All because Jesus speaks His “Ephphatha” into our hearts at our baptism. He speaks His “Ephphatha” into our tombs upon our death as Christians. And He speaks His “Ephphatha” to the gates of heaven so we may enter for eternity.