Mark 7:31-37
During his earthly ministry, Jesus performed many miracles of physical healing. A common feature in these miracles was that Jesus spoke healing into the person who was sick or disabled.
Usually this speaking was accompanied by his laying his hands on the person, but not always. In the case of the servant of the Roman centurion in Capernaum, Jesus was not physically near the sick person. But the healing power of his words was able to reach him anyway.
Sometimes other physical elements were used for the healing. An example of this is when Jesus healed a man who was born blind. Regarding that miracle, St. John’s Gospel reports that
“He spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’… So he went and washed and came back seeing.”
The miracle that is recorded in today’s text from St. Mark, involving a man who was deaf and who had an impediment in his speech, combines all three of these features.
Jesus spoke to him. “Ephphatha,” he said. “Be opened.” Jesus touched him – putting his fingers in his ears. And Jesus used another element – his own saliva, placed on the man’s tongue – as an instrument for the healing.
The bodily healings that Jesus performed in these ways during his time on earth were of great practical benefit to those who received them, and who had been truly suffering from a wide array of maladies. In and of themselves, these healing miracles were divine gifts of mercy and relief, for suffering people.
And we would not say that Jesus has stopped healing people physically. Even apart from the fact that God uses the medical profession, and the vocations of physicians, as his instruments in bringing physical healing to people, we are more than willing to believe that medical miracles are also still possible. There have been many such cases over the years and centuries, which have puzzled doctors.
But of course, the bodily healings from Jesus that are recorded in the New Testament were also images and symbols of the deeper healings of the soul that Jesus also performed, when he forgave sins, and put hope and salvation into the troubled consciences of people. And the methods he used in bringing physical health and restoration to people, also pointed toward the kind of methods he used, and still uses, for those deeper healings.
Often the words of Jesus, all by themselves, bring forgiveness and reconciliation to those who hear and believe those words. Sometimes the words of Christ are accompanied by a loving touch or by an embrace – nowadays not by Jesus directly, but by caring Christians who are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, and who in his name express compassion for a hurting person with a hug or with some similar gesture.
And in very specific and tangible ways, the healing words of Jesus sometimes accompany the use of material elements in the delivery of a miracle of grace to a needy person.
Now, however, it’s not saliva that comes from the mouth of Jesus, but it’s the bread and wine of Holy Communion that are placed into the mouths of communicants. Now it’s not mud that is smeared onto the eyes of a blind man, but it’s the water of Holy Baptism that is poured upon the head or body of a baptized person.
Jesus didn’t simply “think” healings into people in the days when he was walking the earth. He spoke healings into them, from the outside. And he used physical actions and material elements to accompany, carry, and reinforce his words.
He still does this. He still does this among us, and for us. And it is indeed healing – a deep, spiritual healing – that he accomplishes for us through his means of grace.
The primary blessing of the means of grace is the forgiveness of sins. Our sins alienate us from God, offend God, invite God’s anger, and make us guilty and fearful before God.
In these various ways they break our bond with God, and sever our relationship with him. But God’s forgiveness, for the sake of his Son’s life, death, and resurrection on our behalf, undoes and reverses all of that.
The relationship is restored. The offensiveness of the sins we have committed is removed, when the sins themselves are washed away and covered over. The guilt is also removed, as God assures us of his grace and mercy.
The remorse and shame that we may carry around for a time – when we have done something really bad, that we really regret – do wound us. But those wounds are healed when God’s forgiveness is pronounced and applied.
Our conscience is clear before God, when God promises that he will remember our sins no more, for the sake of Christ. Other people may still remember our faults and failures, and may still throw these things up to us. That’s something we will have to live with. But if God has healed us – deep down, on the inside – then we are healed.
God told his people of old, through the Prophet Malachi, that the Messiah would come to this world – for his saving mission – as a rising Sun of light and warmth. And he added this thought:
“To you who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise, with healing in His wings.”
And in the vision of heaven and of the new Jerusalem that John received in the Book of Revelation, he saw
“a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life… The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
In faith we can and should join our prayer to the prayer of Jeremiah the Prophet, when he says:
“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise. Indeed they say to me, ‘where is the word of the Lord? Let it come now! … Do not be a terror to me; You are my hope in the day of doom.”
So, when we bring spiritual sickness and injury upon our own souls, by defying God’s law and disobeying him, God brings healing when he brings his forgiveness – delivered through the gospel of Jesus Christ in Word and Sacrament.
But there is also another way – a very important way – in which the gift of God’s healing grace can be appreciated and rejoiced in. In Psalm 6, David offers this prayer:
“O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled… Return, O Lord, deliver me! Oh, save me for Your mercies’ sake! … I am weary with my groaning; all night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows old because of all my enemies. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity; for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer.”
We all know that David was certainly capable of willfully sinning against God, and of calling down upon himself God’s well-deserved wrath on account of his own transgressions. But this Psalm is not about that.
David’s anguish and depression, and his pleas that God would heal him emotionally and spiritually, have arisen this time because of attacks against him from others – from enemies and workers of iniquity.
David, as king, would normally want to keep a stiff upper lip, and preserve his reputation as a strong and unflinching leader. But here, in this prayer, he allows us to see his weakness and vulnerability.
As is often the case for people who have been grievously sinned against by others, their trauma has made them feel dirty and unworthy of God’s love. Their confused conscience blames them for what was done to them – by enemies and workers of iniquity – so that they would say things like what David says in his anguished prayer:
“O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.”
Jesus heals us of such wounds, too. And in this healing, he restores clarity to our confusion, and brings light to our darkness.
The Greek word that is translated as “forgiveness” in our English versions of the New Testament is “aphiemi,” which means “to send off.” When God pardons us for our own misdeeds, he sends the guilt of our sins off of us, so that he now no longer sees those sins and will not punish us for them. Psalm 103 exhorts and comforts us with these words:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. …”
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. … He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
But the healing power of the gospel also sends off of us, the sins of others, that were pressed upon us and that wounded us, when we were violated, degraded, slandered, ridiculed, disrespected, or in some other way wounded by the evil words or actions of others.
In this world of sin, there is, and has always been, much injustice. Terrible things have been done to people through no fault of their own.
Those who would have been called by God to protect these victims – fathers, husbands, or police officers, for example – either were not able to protect them, or were unwilling to do so. And God, in the mystery of his permissive will, allowed the crime or the insult to happen.
But God has not abandoned his children, even in the midst of their suffering. He brings healing through Christ: who also suffered unjustly, at the hands of wicked men. God, in Christ, pours the oil of grace and love onto the wounds, and bandages the wounds with compassion.
He does this through the means of grace, in the power of his Word and Sacrament to send all sin off of all of us. And he does this through other Christians, as his Spirit animates us to demonstrate to those among us who bear such burdens, that we are willing to help lift those burdens from them.
God uses us to help make good things happen for people who feel isolated and embarrassed, but who actually belong in the loving fellowship of God’s church and of God’s holy city and dwelling place. The righteousness of Christ now defines their lives, and clings to them always as they daily trust in him.
They don’t have to be defined by the wicked men who hurt them in the past. And the ghosts of a painful past can be cast out of their lives, so that they will no longer be haunted by them. As Psalm 147 confesses:
“The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. … Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite. The Lord lifts up the humble; He casts the wicked down to the ground.”
He speaks and, listening to his voice, New life the dead receive,
The mournful broken hearts rejoice, The humble poor believe.
Hear him, ye deaf; ye voiceless ones, Your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Savior come; And leap, ye lame, for joy. Amen.