Our sermon text this morning is the Gospel lesson you heard read just a few minutes ago. We’re going to focus specifically on the last two verses of the lesson, which read as follows: “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.’”
Does anything amaze you anymore? Does anything ever make you stop and go, “Wow!”? Doesn’t it seem that as we grow older and more mature, things don’t amaze us like they used to amaze us?
Let me give you an example. Just over 40 years ago – July 20, 1969 – Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the face of the moon and safely return to earth in the Apollo 11 space mission. I can remember watching in total amazement – along with countless millions of people around the world – those grainy black-and-white pictures being shown on TV as Armstrong put his feet – for the first time in history – on that dusty lunar soil. In December of 1972, Eugene Cernan and Jack Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to land on the moon and later they returned to earth in the Apollo 17 spacecraft, making a trip that was every bit as incredible and risky as the Apollo 11 trip just three years earlier. But by then, people weren’t amazed any more. They didn’t watch it on TV anymore. People didn’t care. They’d seen it all before. Going to the moon was incredibly expensive, and public support for spending all of that money virtually disappeared. Those amazing missions to the Moon came to an end. Today there’s talk and there are plans to send people to the Moon again, but our government leaders are finding that there’s little public support for spending the billions of dollars that it will take because people just don’t care anymore. Sending men and women into outer space and to the Moon or even someday to Mars just doesn’t amaze us like it did 40 years ago. It may never amaze us that way again.
Today, in the year of our Lord 2009, we’ve lost our amazement about oh, so many things. We used to be amazed by watching our favorite shows on a small black-and-white television set … then we were even more amazed by the ability to see our favorite shows in the magic of “living color.” Today those old TV sets won’t even work without a new digital convertor – and if you’ve gone shopping for a new TV lately, chances are you purchased one that gives you an incredible high-definition picture. But we’re not amazed by that high-def picture – it looks great, but we just take it for granted. Just like we take for granted our microwave ovens and our cellular telephones and our home computers. We’re not even amazed by the fact that our automobiles are controlled by computers that are many, many times more powerful than the computers that guided the Apollo 11 astronauts to the Moon and back to Earth. Man keeps inventing new and better machines – but we’ve pretty much lost our sense of amazement.
Sometimes it seems like we’ve lost our sense of amazement when it comes to our God, too. After a while, doesn’t it seem like you’ve heard it all before? For example, pause for a moment and think about all of the miracles that Jesus performed during his life on Earth. The majority of our Gospel lessons during this Church year have been taken from the Book of Mark. So far we’ve only made it to the seventh chapter of Mark, but already we’ve heard about demons being driven out, we’ve heard about people being cured of leprosy and other diseases, we’ve heard how Jesus healed a man who was paralyzed and a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, we’ve even heard how Jesus took the hand of a 12-year-old girl after she had died – and with a simple command brought her back to life. We’ve heard about Jesus calming a storm on one occasion and walking on water on another occasion. We’ve heard how Jesus fed 5,000 men and unknown numbers of women and children with just five loaves of bread and two fish. On Easter we heard how Jesus rose from the dead on the third day following His death on the cross. Do any of these miracles amaze you? Or have you heard them so often that you start to take them for granted?
Today’s Gospel lesson tells the story of yet another amazing miracle, the story of a deaf mute that was brought to Jesus by the man’s friends. They begged Jesus to help their friend. And just as Jesus had responded to the pleas of so many other sick and diseased and infirm people, he responded to this deaf man. He took the man aside, touched the man’s ears and tongue, looked up to heaven and sighed. Then Jesus spoke a single word – “Ephphatha” – which translated means “be opened” – and the deaf man’s hearing was restored. His speech was restored. He could hear perfectly and he began to speak plainly, probably for the first time in his life. Mark tells us that the people were absolutely amazed! They were so amazed that even though Jesus told them to keep quiet about what happened, they couldn’t keep it to themselves. They simply had to talk about what Jesus had done – they couldn’t stop themselves from talking! As we read in verses 36 and 37 of our lesson, “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.’”
The crowds were so amazed that they couldn’t stop talking about Jesus. We, on the other hand, find it all too easy to keep our mouths shut about Jesus. We find it all too easy to keep our mouths shut about our Christian faith. It’s not that we’re deaf or unable to talk like the man who was brought to Jesus – we can always find plenty of other things to talk about. We find it easy to talk about sports or talk about our children or our grandchildren or talk about politics or talk about the weather or talk about almost anything that comes to mind. But talk about God? Talk about Jesus? Not so much.
The word translated as “deaf” in today’s Gospel lesson can also be translated as “dull.” Has your faith become dull? Has your sense of right and wrong – your sense of sin – become so dull that your conscience no longer bothers you when you do wrong? Have you become deaf to the sins of this world – the sins that become so commonplace that after a while we just become numb to what we hear and what we see?
Has your faith become dull in the sense that coming to Church, reading your Bible or attending a Bible Class has become a chore instead of a joy? Do you find yourself focusing your attention on Christ on Sunday morning – but seldom on any other morning of the week? Are you so familiar with God’s Word that you find yourself taking it for granted?
My fellow redeemed, when you feel this happening, when you realize that yes, your faith has become a little dull, then there’s only one place to go – to Jesus. The friends of the deaf man brought him to Jesus with the prayer that he would open the ears and mouth of their friend. We, too, come to Jesus with that same simple prayer – that he would open our ears and open our mouths.
Last Sunday we looked at the Latin term sola Scriptura – Scripture alone – that is one of the foundations of our Lutheran, of our Christian faith. In the words of Holy Scripture – from the first word of Genesis chapter 1 through the final word of Revelation chapter 22 – Jesus works in our lives through book after book, chapter after chapter, verse after verse, word after word. He gives us the Law that exposes our spiritual deafness – our total sinful corruption – our complete and utter inability to please the God who made us. But He also gives us the Gospel – the most amazing news that we could ever receive.
He gives us the Gospel, the Good News that God the Father sent His only Son to this earth for the single purpose of redeeming sinners – all sinners – from the death sentence of the Law. He gives us the Good News that Jesus went willingly to His suffering and His death because that was the holy and perfect will of His Father. He gives us the Good News that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, conquering death not only for Himself – but for each and every believer. And He gives us the Good News that he has prepared a place for us in Heaven – a place so incredible that even though we can’t yet see it, we know that it will be more amazing than anything that our human eyes have ever seen.
Our Gospel lesson today tells the simple story of people who were amazed when Jesus spoke a single word of healing – and forever changed their lives as well as the life of the man who had been cured of his deafness and his speech impediment. As we join together in our Worship Service this morning, we give witness to this same Jesus whose word of healing has forever changed our lives, too. Each and every one of us was born in sin – and yet, the Holy Spirit has brought us to faith and made us believers in Jesus Christ. We have been washed by the amazing waters of Holy Baptism, and in a few minutes we will be fed by Christ’s holy body and blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. These are truly amazing things, my friends – things done by a loving God who will never cease to amaze us with His love.
“Ephphatha,” He says to each of us today. “Ephphatha” he says to each of us tomorrow and every day of our lives. Ephphatha – be opened. Jesus has opened our eyes, our ears and our hearts to be amazed. By His grace, our mouths will be opened as well – to tell the world all of the amazing things that He has done for us – and for them!
Return to Pastor page
