Daily Devotion – September 9, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Mark 7:31-37
7:31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.
7:32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
7:33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue.
7:34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
7:35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
7:36 Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
7:37 They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
This story from Mark is a very intimate story of healing. Mark is the only gospel writer to record it. Jesus is brought this man whose hearing and speech are faulty. Instead of just touching the man’s shoulder or waving toward him from a distance, Jesus takes him apart from the crowd and connects with him in a very physical, personal way, placing his fingers in the man’s ears and using his own spittle to touch the man’s tongue. He sighs, looking heavenward, and asks God in Aramaic, a language the man couldn’t have understood even if he could have heard Jesus, for the man’s senses to be opened. The man who was being healed certainly experienced a real human Jesus, working physically to heal him and asking heaven to help him. There was a profound human connection in this story that cost Jesus something and brought healing to the man.
Perhaps Mark includes these details of deep contact between two persons to show his readers that Jesus was completely human. Perhaps he wanted his readers to know that Jesus wasn’t magic, or even a human magician. Jesus labored on behalf of broken people to heal what was broken so that they might have full, abundant lives. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly.
And there had been prophesies in the Old Testament that had foretold that the Messiah would come and suddenly the deaf would hear, the blind would see, and the mute would speak and even sing. The people who remark about Jesus’s work in verse 37 were acknowledging that he might indeed be the one foretold in Scripture. The people were astounded beyond measure. And why not? Jesus was working hard, day after day, to make life better physically for the people he encountered, while teaching them spiritually as well. Wouldn’t we have been astounded beyond measure too?
Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for bringing healing and hope to human beings both while you were doing your ministry and even today in the stories your disciples wrote down. Help us to keep our astonishment about your works.  You are a God of wonders. Amen.
