Mark 7:31-37
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost - 9 September 2018
Rev. John Derme
The very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, records the creation of the universe. For six days God kept saying, “Let there be …,” and everything that has ever existed was created. As you read Genesis 1, you notice something else that gets repeated over the course of those six days: “God saw that it was good.” Finally, on the sixth day of creation it says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
If another human spoke about his or her own work like that, it might sound a little prideful. But God could look at his work and see that it was very good. He could speak even more strongly: his creation was 100 percent perfect. Not one detail could have been even slightly better.
God did good work at creation, and – to continue speaking the Bible’s understatement – he still does good work today. In fact God has always done good work. We see an example of a job well done in our Gospel for today from Mark 7, and the people praise him for it: “He has done everything well!”
But if God does such good work, why is his world so full of problems? Over 33 million people in the world have AIDS. Each year as many as 500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide and over one million of those result in death. Three million people die every year from tuberculosis. In the United States, one-and-a-half million new cases of cancer are reported every year, and over half a million people die. Heart disease is our number one killer, the cause of over a quarter of this country’s yearly deaths.
What is your health condition? Or maybe I should ask, what are your health conditions? It seems that when one thing goes wrong with our bodies, other problems follow quickly. Some of you aren’t aware of anything that is going wrong with your bodies right now. That’s wonderful! But I probably don’t have to warn you that things could change at any moment, that the onset of illness is usually unexpected, that eyes and ears and arms and legs wear out without warning. Even if you make it to your golden years without disease or injury, your body will eventually stop working.
If God does everything well, why are you and I and those we love stricken with these ailments? The things that happen to our bodies are so often beyond our control. Have you ever wondered why God lets them happen to you? It’s enough to make you feel completely helpless.
“Why me, God?” I so often ask. “Why us?” ask the ailing husband and wife. “Why now?” ask the parents of young children. Could it be that God just isn’t doing his job very well? We don’t want to say it, but it’s hard not to think it when all the evidence seems to point that way.
If you and I could control our health and body, we would make sure that those things didn’t happen to us, wouldn’t we? If I were in control, I’d cure everyone’s diabetes, clear everyone’s arteries, and banish colds and flu. Think of how this world would be a better place! Are you like me? Could you do a better job than God is doing, too?
When we see all the suffering around us and experience the pain ourselves, doubts may begin to rise in our minds. We may not always express our thoughts out loud by telling God that we could do a better job than he. But isn’t that exactly where our doubts lead? When we doubt, we're saying that God is not doing a good enough job for us. We're showing a lack of trust in him, and a greater trust in ourselves. That misplaced trust is the same sin that brought illness and disease into God’s perfect creation in the first place, when Satan told Adam and Eve that they could be like God!
Brothers and sisters, do not trust in yourselves! Trust the one who created the world and called it “very good.” Trust the one who came to earth and did everything well.
Mark writes, “Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis.” Jesus had visited the region called the Decapolis before. The last time he had driven many demons out of a man who was notorious for living among the tombs, crying out night and day, and cutting himself with stones. Jesus sent the demons out of the man and into a herd of pigs, which subsequently ran down a steep bank and into the lake. When the residents of the area heard and saw what happened they begged Jesus to leave their region. The man who had been possessed wanted to go with Jesus, but he didn’t let the man come. Instead he told the man to go home and tell everyone what the Lord had done for him.
The man’s witnessing about Jesus was apparently successful, because this time when Jesus came into the region, a crowd welcomed him. “There 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.”
Can you imagine what it was like to be this man? He must have been frightened! He must have felt completely helpless! He couldn’t hear, so nobody could tell him where they were taking him. He couldn’t talk, so he couldn’t tell them what or what not he wanted them to do with him. All he could do was go with them and wonder what was happening.
The crowd had their idea of what Jesus should do: “Put your hand on him and heal him right in front of us.” Jesus, however, knew what this man was experiencing as he saw and felt the people crowding around him. He took the man away from the crowd to help him personally and individually.
The process Jesus used to help him seems strange to us. “Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (which means, ‘Be opened!’).” Jesus could have just said the word and the man would have been healed. Why did he go through such a procedure? The man couldn’t hear, so he wouldn’t understand if Jesus told him what he was doing. Instead Jesus calmed his fears by communicating through his actions. With his fingers in his ears and on his tongue, he indicated that he was helping the man with his disabilities. By looking to heaven, he told the man from where his help was coming. And with a deep sigh, he showed the man his compassion. Then he spoke his almighty word, “Ephphatha!” “At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.”
Jesus told the people not to tell anyone about his miracle, because he only had a few months left before going to Jerusalem to suffer, and he didn’t want more false ideas spreading about him and getting in the way of his bearing our infirmities. But the people were so amazed that they wouldn’t stop talking about it. “‘He has done everything well,’ they said. ‘He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’”
You might say, “Sure, he has done everything well for that guy! But what about for me?” Jesus cares for you in the same way that he cared for the man in the Gospel. You’d like a miraculous healing, too? The guy who was healed would probably argue that, from a human perspective, the Lord has taken better care of you than him, since you haven’t had to live most of your life without speaking or hearing. In reality, our God doesn’t take any better care of one or the other person. He does all things well, so he takes good care of all his people. Since each person is different, he cares for us differently and individually. In his wisdom, he allowed this man to live with his disabilities so that he might show his power and love to him and those who knew him. Then Jesus personally dealt with his needs to make his body function fully.
In his wisdom, your Lord may have allowed you to live with physical problems as well. If you don’t have them now, you may have them in your future. Why does he give them to you? Maybe you can see ways that he has blessed you through them. Or maybe you will have to wait until you can look back on your life from heaven before you can see how God used infirmities for your benefit. But whether you understand your ailments or not, don’t doubt for a second that Jesus is with you now and always to help you with them.
You may have heard present-day stories about injuries and illnesses that have suddenly been healed. I’ve heard many. Perhaps you’ve even experienced one. As far as we can tell, these healings seem to be as miraculous as the healing in our Gospel. Jesus also heals many people today in less attention-getting ways like medical help from doctors and other health care professionals. Have you ever gotten over a cold or the flu? Then Jesus has healed you, and you may not have even noticed it.
I once saw a billboard that advertised a hospital, which claimed that its doctors provide personal care. Personal care is the kind of care that the Great Physician has always provided, taking the man away from the crowd, calming his fears, and healing him; talking to you individually through his Word, placing his hands on you in the sacraments, assuring you of his constant care for you. Unlike the doctors at that hospital, this Physician knows your every pain and every anxiety. Maybe he will take away your pain, just like he took away your sins of doubting his care for your body. Or maybe he will strengthen you to endure your pain until he calls you away from the crowd in this world to his side in heaven, where he will personally heal you of every sickness and injury forever, where on the Last Day he will give you a 100 percent perfect body, just like he gave to Adam and Eve on the sixth day of creation.
Until that day, when he creates a perfect new heavens and new earth, trust the one who in the beginning created all things well. You can trust him, in sickness and in health, because time and again, in Scripture and in your life, he has shown that his work is good. Trust his care, because he has done everything well for you.