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Gospel: Mark 7:31-37
Jesus left the district of Tyre
and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
into the district of the Decapolis.
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment
and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone.
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it.
They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well.
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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At this point in his ministry, Jesus is trudging his way through Gentile territory, tearing down many of the boundaries that once kept the Jews and Gentiles apart.
One of the significant sticking points was food. According to the Old Testament, Jews are forbidden from eating pigs; doing so would defile them. But while preaching to the crowds, Jesus declares all food as clean.
“Hear me, all of you, and understand,” he says. “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within – from the heart – are what defile.”
This was a revolutionary teaching, challenging the heart of Jewish identity.
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In today’s Gospel, Jesus breaks another boundary by healing a Gentile man who is both deaf and mute.
It is by far the most physically intensive miracle that Jesus performs, involving seven steps in all, as he literally digs into the man’s ears and spits on the man’s tongue.
It’s likely that the Lord pulls him aside, away from the crowds, so as not to embarrass him. But when the man returns fully healed, he demonstrates with his very own body that healing is not only for the Jews. It’s for everyone.
Of course, the greatest form of healing being salvation itself.
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Mark also uses this miracle symbolically to emphasize the spiritual deafness and blindness of Jesus’ disciples. At this point, if asked to explain the meaning behind Jesus’ barrier breaking ministry, they’d be tongue-tied.
Perhaps we would be, too. Faith can be hard to put into words.
Jesus remains an endlessly enchanting, mysterious, even elusive figure. He bridges the gap between God and man. He’s divine, yet he suffers and dies in his humanity. He preaches perfect love and lives it. He’s powerful yet humble. A barrier breaker, bridge builder.
Entire libraries have been filled with books about him, yet they cannot box him in.
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Although the Lord will always be greater than our understanding, what he came to proclaim was salvation for all. May he give us the eyes to see him, the ears to listen to his word, and the wisdom to proclaim it with our lives.
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Image credits: (1) Jesus Pantocrator, Sinai (2) Credo Magazine (3) Christ of Saint John of the Cross, Salvador Dalí, 1951