WEEKLY SERMON

Pentecost 16           
Mark 7:31-37 – Has God Really Done Everything Well?                    
September 20-22, 2009 by: Pastor Wessel

Mark 7:31-37 ³¹Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. ³²There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. ³³After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. ³⁴He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!”). ³⁵At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. ³⁶Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. ³⁷People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Introduction – For those of us who have been blessed with the ability to hear words and sounds very clearly, it is hard to imagine what it is like to live in a world that is silent. For those of you who have hearing loss, at least to some degree, you probably don’t have to stretch your imagination too far to understand what it might be like to hear no sound at all. A person’s body may still feel the vibrations that sound causes, but the organ of the body that is supposed to interpret the sounds is unable to do what it is designed to do. Communication can be an adventure. Written words are valuable, but in normal conversation, it may not always be practical to write everything down. Sign languages have been developed so that people with hearing loss can communicate quickly. Additionally, keen vision can help a person read the lips of one who is speaking.

            It is good for us to be aware and sensitive to the needs of those who have hearing loss. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod has a Ministry for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing that helps churches evaluate sound production in their church services, whether it is by a choir or by the pastor or by the congregation members. It offers advice on how to best communicate the truths of God’s Word with those who may have challenges communicating because of hearing loss. If you are not aware, we here at Woodlawn have personal receivers by the sound system in back which receive a signal directly through the microphones, to help understand what is being spoken or sung in the services.

            Hearing loss is just one of the many disabilities that Jesus encountered during his ministry. When Jesus healed this man of his disability, it is just one of the many times when Jesus showed his compassion for people suffering terribly from the effects of a corrupted creation, scarred by a world polluted by sinfulness and decay.  Some people, of course, read the accounts of Jesus’ miracles and do not believe that they really occurred, because if they were real, why wouldn’t the same miracles be going on today? That is a challenge we can’t shrug off and ignore. That is an opportunity to speak the truth in love, so that the Holy Spirit of God might work through the words we speak to change those who are stuck in unbelief.   Those who heard that Jesus had completely healed the man who was deaf, responded with amazement and said, “He has done everything well.” Those who still see people afflicted with hearing loss and with disabilities that strike other parts of the body and also the mind and see doctors and scientists desperately searching for ways to do what Jesus did within a few minutes, may say to you, Christian people.                                              

Has God Really Done Everything Well?  Without a doubt, believing that what the Bible says is entirely true, know and share these facts about God which you can clearly see before your eyes today:

I. God Really Does Reach Out With Compassion
II. God Really Does Give Hope to the Hopeless

I. God Really Does Reach Out With Compassion      Jesus and his disciples had just finished a trip to the northwest, to the region of Tyre and Sidon, which were important port cities on the Mediterranean Sea. In the ancient world, the Phoenician people were successful sailors and used these ports for their business. These towns of Tyre and Sidon were places where mostly non-Jewish people lived, most of whom worshipped false gods. But people from these regions were attracted to the teaching of Jesus and the miracles he performed. It seems like this trip north and then back to the southeast was a time for Jesus to get away from his home territory around the city of Capernaum, where large crowds had been following Jesus.

          The area where Jesus healed this man was known as the Decapolis or “Ten Cities.” This was also an area where there were a lot of non-Jewish people. Jesus had been there once before and had gotten mixed reviews. He had driven out a demon from a man who was possessed. The man was overjoyed. But the demons went into a herd of pigs and drove those pigs into a lake and killed them. Some people became afraid and angry and told Jesus to leave their area.

          Jesus’ reputation must not have been too tarnished. He was still known as the one who could heal, so people brought the deaf man to him. Did the man know who Jesus was? Did he understand what was going on? With some simple sign language, Jesus helped him to understand what he would do for him. He took him aside. He stuck his fingers in his ears to show the man that he was going to do something about his hearing loss. He spit and touched the man’s tongue to show the man that his tongue which was tied up because of his hearing loss would become untied and he would be able to speak clearly. Did the man understand the sign language? It may have been too amazing for him to comprehend beforehand, but he certainly understood afterwards when his “ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.” Jesus showed compassion for this man in his time of need. He didn’t look for the man to heal him. The man was brought to him. But he did not turn him away.

          “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4) Jesus, of course, had the ability to do what we cannot do. We can offer our help. We can try to alleviate suffering, but we cannot heal completely.

          The word compassion really means to suffer with someone; to be empathetic. No one can truly experience the pain of another person’s life. But that doesn’t mean we are useless to each other. With the comfort we have received from God, we can comfort others. What comfort have we received from God? Well, no parts of my body have received any miraculous healing. But yet God comforts me with the knowledge of my salvation, with the assurance that no matter what afflictions my body may feel in this life, God was concerned enough about them that he sent his Son to die on the cross.   Jesus Christ suffered in his body. He suffered physical pain, like you suffer physical pain, yet with the intensity of hell, the horror of a man facing the justice of our holy, all powerful God. Jesus suffered in order to remove the curse that was hanging over the human race; to erase the black marks and the record of total failure from our account. He did it out of compassion, so that your body, afflicted by sinfulness and decay, will be made perfect in our heavenly home.

          II. God Really Does Give Hope to the Hopeless      If Christ really did this, why do we have to wait? Isn’t Jesus’ work done? Christ watches and rules at God’s right hand. The only work that he needs to carry out is the final judgment that God the Father has made his responsibility. When the final judgment comes, the rising of the dead comes. That is the hope that God has given to us. It is the renewing of our bodies in the perfect image of God, as they were when Adam and Eve were first created.  The man from the Decapolis was given a special blessing by God. Perhaps you are a little jealous when your backs are sore or your eyes are blurry or your ears don’t hear clearly. Perhaps you’re jealous of the man from the Decapolis when the cancer treatment drags on, when you have a miscarriage, when your diabetes seems to be getting worse. You wish you could be the friends of this man and bring the pain and the fear to Jesus and say, “Please, help!”

            Can you do that? Can you come to Jesus and say, “Please, help!” You can and you must, because without his help, there is no hope. Jesus Christ came to give you an unlimited amount of encouragement and hope. At the same time, we are restricted by what God promises to do for us. With persistent prayer, trusting in your Savior, go to your Heavenly Father because he has invited you never to give up on him and he has promised always to hear and answer. But just as mom or dad does not always answer with what we would like to hear, so God the Father does not always answer with what we would like to hear. Just as mom or dad, with their experience and hopefully wisdom have to make tough decisions about what is best, so God in his eternal wisdom makes tough decisions about what is best. God’s answer to our prayers may make us think that he hasn’t heard, that he doesn’t care, that he is a mean dad, and that it doesn’t pay to believe in him.

            God does not promise to change the laws of nature in order to help you, the way that he did when he performed miracles, personally through his Son or in his name through his faithful servants.      So what kind of hope is there when you are overwhelmed with a body or mind that doesn’t function properly? Is it just hope for the next world or is there any hope for this world? There may be times when God gives hope, through God’s people faithfully serving one another with love, guided by the Holy Spirit, and we are blessed by their compassionate care. There may be hope when even those who don’t honor and revere God are used by God to accomplish great good. For example, if there is a doctor who is an atheist or practices a false religion, that doctor using the wisdom and knowledge that can only come from God may alleviate or cure your illness – by God’s grace. Do not think that there is never any hope in this world and we might as well give up now.  But keep in mind the ultimate hope, the highest hope, the most reliable unchanging hope that rests on the foundation of, Jesus Christ: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:19-22)