An advertisement in a British newspaper went as follows:
'He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in still another village, where he worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty. For three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things we usually associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was thirty-three years old when the tide of public opinion turned against him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through a mock trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothes - the only property he had on earth. When he died, they laid him in a borrowed grave, given through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have passed, and all told, he is still the central figure of the human race. All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, not together, have they affected the life of men and women on this earth as much as that one solitary figure.'
Who is this man? That is the question that the gospel of mark centres upon. As we study these verses, we are going to see that this man is our kind friend, who has come to restore a broken world and calls us to listen and speak.
1. Our kind friend
A Church of England vicar was doing some door to door visiting. He walked up to a large house with a well-manicured lawn and rang the doorbell. The man who answered looked at his clerical collar and exclaimed, 'I am not interested in God.' The vicar replied, 'well, that does not matter, because I want to tell you that God is interested in you.'
Jesus is in the area around the Decapolis ('ten cities'). It is Gentile (non-Jewish) territory. He has been in these parts before. This is near where, in chapter 5, he had healed a man of a legion of demons. After Jesus had expelled those demons into a herd of pigs, who had then gone off the edge of a cliff, the people had begged his to leave their place. But although those people had rejected him, he has not yet given up on them.
The man who had been healed of the demons had begged to join Jesus in his travels, but Jesus told him to 'go home to your own people and tell them what the Lord has done for you, and how he has been kind to you.' I wonder does this man know that Jesus is back in town.
Some people had heard of Jesus' kindness and so brought to him their friend who was deaf and unable to speak clearly. They begged Jesus to place his hands on the man.
What Jesus does next is both beautiful and strange. He brings the man away from the crowd, and then it is as if he speaks to him through sign-language. He puts his fingers in the man's ears, 'I am going to unblock your ears'. He then spits and puts his saliva on the man's tongue, 'I am going to loosen your tongue.' He looks up to heaven, to signal that this healing is from God.
Mark has already pointed out that Jesus is compassionate. Yes see, while I want to know that Jesus is real and great, I also want to know that he is kind. he is our kind friend.
2. The restore of creation
Before Jesus healed this man, he let out of deep sigh. That must be significant, because Mark does not often tell us of Jesus' expressions and emotions. It would seem that Jesus is saddened as he sees how this world has been broken by sin.
In the creation story of Genesis, we are told that God created man and woman in a world with no death or sickness. But they were unwilling to live under God's loving rule, they rebelled against him, and now we live in a world subject to God's curse. In this broken world we all experience sickness, disabilities and eventually death Jesus has come to restore this broken world.
We see evidence of the fact that he is restoring and recreating in the words of the people who see what Jesus has done. They exclaim, 'how wonderfully he does all things.' These words are the same words used in the Greek version of the Old Testament (LXX), when God looks at his creation and sees that it was very good (Genesis 1:31).
Jesus restores the broken. Sometimes he restores the broken as he responds to the prayers of his people and heals the sick and broken. But such healings are only a taster of something that awaits us in the future. One day Jesus will return and then he will establish a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more sickness and crying and death (Rev. 21:1-3).
3. We are called to speak
Remember that the central question of Mark's gospel is, 'who is Jesus?' This miracle reminds us that Jesus is God's promised king (Messiah/Christ). Hundreds of years earlier the prophet Isaiah had spoken of a time when the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the mute tongue will rejoice' (Isaiah 35:4-5).
You might notice that Jesus tells the man not to tell anyone what he has done for him, yet. The reason for this strange command was due to the fact that Jesus must not be distracted from his journey to the cross. The people wanted a miracle-worker, not a suffering-saviour. But now that Jesus has been crucified, we are to be telling everyone. In the words of Isaiah, our mute tongues are to shout for joy.
I grew up in a church where we regularly sang the hymn, 'O for a thousand tongues to sing.' I only read about the story behind that hymn this week. Charles Wesley wrote it to celebrate the year anniversary of his conversion to Jesus. He was inspired by a friend who had said to him, 'if I had a thousand tongues, I would use all of them to praise Jesus.' Wesley wrote, 'hear him, ye deaf, his praise ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ.'
Conclusion
Chrissie Chapman was a missionary in Burundi (2006 and 2015). She took in orphans and gave them a loving home. One day she was asked to take a five-day old baby that had been found in the toilet of the local hospital. She called this little girl Grace.
Grace was slow to respond and smile. They discovered that this is because she was deaf. Grace had been found in such unsanitary conditions and so she had been given heavy doses of antibiotics. She had been given too high a dosage and this had resulted in her losing her hearing.
One day, when Grace was eight months old, their pastor came to pray with the orphans. Pastor Edmund anointed Grace's ears with oil. A few days later Chrissie noted how Grace was now restless. She realised what had happened when a door banged, and Grace jumped with fright.
Sometimes Jesus hears the broken in answer to the prayers of his people. In the gospels Jesus often speaks of hearing in terms of people's willingness to receive the gospel. We all need our ears opened. This healing also pointed to the fact that one day Jesus will restore this broken creation. Then we we will live in a new heaven and a new earth. Randy Alcorn wrote a big book on heaven. He explains that 'some of the best portrayals I've seen of the eternal heaven are in children's books. Why? Because they depict earthly scenes with animals, and playing, and joyful activities. It is the books for adults that portray heaven in philosophical and otherworldly terms, which is exactly the opposite of what the Ible aims to do.'
Those with an ear to hear, let them hear what Jesus is saying, and let your loosened tongues shout for joy!
No comments:
Post a Comment