HE HEALS THOSE WHO CANNOT HEAR OR SPEAK

Mk.7:32-35 – And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.

And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;

And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.

And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.

Having deaf ears and an inability to speak makes it very difficult to navigate in the natural world. In a similar way there is such a thing as spiritual deafness which hinders our ability to speak properly and navigate the spiritual world. The strange thing about spiritual deafness is that we have no idea that we are handicapped, we think everything is fine and have no clue about the voice of God having ears that cannot hear the voice of the Savior. This was one of the things Jesus often said, “he who has ears to hear let him hear”. The beauty of this particular miracle can only be understood by reading between the lines. You could say that this man was suffering from a case of double deafness, he was physically and spiritually deaf until Jesus opened his ears and loosed his tongue. In a moment of time he could hear sounds in the natural world that he had never heard and also he began to hear the sweet voice of the Lord. Here are some comments from the Christ Centered Expository Commentary about this miracle.

“The man could not hear Jesus and he was also incapable of verbal communication. So Jesus “spoke” to him in the language he could understand—sign-language. The fingers placed in his ears and then removed meant, “I am going to remove the blockage in your hearing.” The spitting and the touching of the man’s tongue meant, “I am going to remove the blockage in your mouth.” The glance up to heaven meant, “It is God alone who is able to do this for you.”

As Jesus looked up to heaven, first He sighed. I believe this is an expression of our Lord’s love and compassion for this man and also His great grief over the fall of man and the terrible consequences of sin. It is the sigh of God over a broken creation. Second, He said, in Aramaic, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” The result is given in simple, straightforward language: “Immediately his ears were opened, his speech difficulty was removed, and he began to speak clearly”.

So I like to think of this miracle like this, the first sound this man heard was the voice of the Lord. The first sound his tongue made was praises to our God. This is the miracle all of us need to receive; our ears opened to the Word of God and our tongues loosed to sing His praise.