August 23, 2026 – the 12th Sunday after Trinity – Mark 7:31-37
31 Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, [Jesus] came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee. 32 Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him. 33 And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
Jesus heals the deaf mute
In this account of Jesus’ miraculous healing of the deaf mute, Jesus not only performed one miracle but two. He made the man’s ears able to hear and he caused his tongue to be able to speak a language which he had never heard or spoken.
Imagine for a moment what it must be like to have no hearing at all…no sound to enter into your ears and no reliable way of communicating with other people. There may be times when we wish we could just turn off our eardrums for the sake of silence, but most of the time we enjoy having the ability to hear and in turn to speak what we hear.
So what about this man in our text? He was deaf. He couldn’t hear anything. How frustrating that must have been. To make matters worse, his limited means of communication was made worse by the fact that he had an impediment in his speech. He must have attempted to learn some type of verbal communication, but because his tongue was tied, his means of communication was very limited. It must have been very difficult for others to understand him.
People pitied this unfortunate man’s condition. He was all alone. He was likely avoided by many, because they failed to understand what this man wanted. Yet, this group of people that heard of Jesus felt compassion for the man and knew that he needed to be brought to Jesus. The news of Jesus’ words and works preceded and followed him wherever he went, and this deaf mute man would be the beneficiary of Jesus’ next miracle.
Knowing that Jesus had within himself the power to heal, they begged Jesus to put his hand on this man, to cure him from his ailments. Jesus took compassion on this man and gave to him the gift of hearing and the ability to speak. Jesus miraculously healed this man by His power as God and we get a glimpse of that power through the manner in which this man was healed.
First of all Jesus took this man aside and separated him from the rest of the crowd. He wanted this man to focus on Jesus and Jesus alone as the miraculous healer. It was not the crowd’s faith or the compassion of the crowd, but it was Jesus alone who would perform this miracle. Jesus took the man aside so that the man would have no reason to doubt who this man was who was about to heal him. Mark’s account of the details are very specific, and they paint well the picture for us and for the man of what Jesus was doing.
Jesus had performed miracles without even coming into contact with some people, but Jesus saw it as pertinent that this man personally experience Jesus’ miraculous power. Jesus touched the man’s ears as if to say…this is what I am going to do. I am going to do something to your ears. Then he spat and touched his tongue…saying to him I have something for your speech as well.
Just for a moment, ponder Jesus’ divine touch. He could have said “be healed”; he could have just thought it, without even saying it. But rather, he provided healing in such a way as to show the man what he was doing. As if he was saying, I, the Son of God, am giving you your ears; I am giving you divine saliva to loosen your tongue-tied mouth. I am going to spit out your speech impediment so that it troubles you no more.
Then he looked towards the heavens, showing us from where our help comes. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth (Ps 121:2). Jesus acknowledges for this man that his help comes from the Lord, who at creation gave man perfect hearing and speaking, and now gives to this man the ability to hear and speak plainly.
Then Jesus sighs… it is not a sigh of relief or a sigh of regret, but it is a sigh which God spoke so long ago after seeing the sinful condition of man upon the earth. Just before God commanded Noah to build an ark, He saw that the people on earth were very wicked, and in their hearts were always thinking only evil. Then the Lord was sorry He made people on the earth, and he felt sick at heart.
Reflecting on this great miracle, Jesus saw the fall into sin, which forever changed man’s use of his ears and his tongue. After the fall, man could no longer bear to hear God’s Words; man could no longer speak the words of God’s wisdom properly. Man could no longer speak well of his neighbor. When Jesus sighed, he saw our wretched sinful condition flash before his eyes. Luther phrased it this way: He looks not upon those two ears, but upon the whole number of men who had come from Adam, and were to come. This Gospel lesson sets forth Christ as being the man who is concerned about you and me, and about us all in a way that we ought to be concerned about ourselves, as though he were sunk in those sins and afflictions in which we are sunk, and that he sighs over the fact, that the devil has brought about this ruin. He saw all the damage which the fall into sin had caused to us, and ultimately he saw where this would lead his life as well. He sighed, knowing that our sins would lead to his death, but his sighing did not stop in the hopelessness of our sinful condition.
He saw beyond the sighing and the trouble which mankind had brought upon themselves and the punishment which they would bring upon him. He saw the heavens being opened for sinful mankind. He looked to the man and said, Ephphatha, Be opened. He, by his miraculous power, opened the man’s ears and removed the impediment of his tongue. In that Ephphatha, he saw his work of redemption being completed and the gates of heaven being opened. He saw the book of life being unlocked, upon which our names may be written. He saw his death, but through it He saw the salvation of his people.
Jesus’ divine Ephphatha is the only word that opens our ears and loosens our tongues. Man is born into this world sinful and an enemy of God. Man doesn’t want to hear God’s Word, nor does he have the power to properly speak it until Jesus, the divine Word, comes to us and he says, “Be opened”. The deaf and mute man symbolizes our spiritual condition before God. Man is by nature deaf to the voice of conscience, to the call of God’s divine care, to God’s Spirit, and to the Gospel. Man is also unable and unwilling to speak because our tongues are tied; we are averse to prayer, confession, and to faith. Communion and fellowship are cut off by sin, and they can only be restored by Christ.
Through the spoken word, he works miraculously to open our ears and our hearts. Martin Franzmann, in his hymn Thy Strong Word, puts it this way: Thy strong word bespeaks us righteous; Bright with Thine own holiness, Glorious now, we press toward glory, And our lives our hopes confess. His word speaks us righteous. His word opens our ears to hear Him. His word tells us God sees Christ in our place. His word tells us that we have been forgiven. His word tells us that we have life in him.
God, through his word, puts his fingers into our ears and touches our tongues. At the baptismal font we became hearers and speakers of the Word. God, through his Word, spoke life into our deaf ears and continues to feed his Word through our ears so that those words which come out of our mouths reflect the words that He has spoken to us.
In the Lord’s Supper we hear Jesus speaking to us, saying, take, eat…this is my body; take, drink, this is my blood. Then we taste with our mouths the salvation that he won for us on the cross. We taste the Ephphatha: It is finished! We can depart from the Lord’s Supper in peace, knowing that he has spoken us righteous.
When we hear the glorious news of this Ephphatha, we should react like the people who long ago couldn’t help but share the news of Jesus’ miracle. We do not commend the people for spreading the news of Jesus’ miracle, since they were commanded not to. But we are not prevented from sharing the miracle of the new life in Christ with others. We can learn something about sharing the Good News and the eagerness with which it is to be told. They admired the miracle; we too should admire and appreciate the miracle that God has granted us by bringing us to faith…opening our ears and untying our tongues.
Our song should be the same as theirs. He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. We too are the deaf mutes to whom he has granted healing. He continues to provide an opening to our ears so that through our thoughts, words, and actions our tongues may continue to proclaim the greatness of the Gospel. Amen.