“THAT’S THE WAY IT IS”
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, written for Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, September 6, 2009
Proper 18 -- Isaiah 35: 4 – 7a; Psalm 146: 4 – 9; James 1: 17 – 27; Mark 7: 31 – 37
“And that’s the way it is, Sunday, September 6, 2009.”
With all due credit to the late CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite, this phrase (which he used to close all of his evening newscasts) suits the gospel text before us today very well….
“That’s the way it is.”
This phrase can be taken with two meanings in mind:
- It can be an honest and thorough assessment of the reality of any given situation, as if to say, “OK, here’s what we’re dealing with.”
- It can signal an acceptance of the status quo, as if to say, “That’s the way it is, this situation will never change!”
Looking at our text for today, we see that Jesus is unwilling to accept the status quo for the man who was unable to hear, and unable to speak. Jesus addresses the reality of this man’s isolation and his exclusion from the body of the faithful people of God (we’ll have more to say about that in just a minute).
Neither are the ones who brought the man to Jesus unwilling to accept the status quo. If they were willing to simply shrug their shoulders and say, “This situation will never change,” they would not have brought the man to the Lord. But, instead, we see that those who did bring the man “besought” Jesus to heal him. The word “besought” suggests an earnestness in their appeal to the Lord. Later translations than the Revised Standard Version (RSV) translate the Greek word as “begged”.
But what about the others who either knew this man, or who witnessed the coming of Jesus to the area where he lived, but who did not bring the man to the Lord? What about them? Were they resigned to the man’s condition as being beyond hope? Did they shrug their shoulders and say, “That’s the way it is?” Maybe so.
But our Lord meets the needs of this man. Mark retells in vivid detail the actions Jesus took to heal the man’s hearing and speech. He put his fingers into his ears, spat and touched the man’s tongue, and looked up to heaven, as He said, “Ephphatha,” an Aramaic word meaning “Be opened.”
Now notice that all of this occurs while the man is away from the crowd. Jesus also tells the man not to say anything about what has happened to him. Why would that be?
In answer, biblical scholars say it is part of Mark’s narrative strategy, something called the “Messianic Secret,” a device found only in Mark’s gospel account. Mark takes great pains to say that Jesus attempted to keep His identity and His purpose secret until the proper time. That time – in Mark’s account – is found in Mark 8:31, where Jesus begins to teach His disciples the true purpose for His coming to earth: To suffer, die and rise again. Moreover, Mark tells us in 8:32, that He “said these things plainly.”
But – in the meantime – until the secret is disclosed by the Lord, the tension grows as Jesus demonstrates that the coming of the Messianic age, the age when “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped…” (Isaiah 35: 5) has arrived.
And so, the deaf man’s isolation is ended, and now he is able to hear with his own ears the great deeds that God had done for His people in ages past, and now he is able to tell the great story of the wonderful things that God has done for him, too. In so doing, the man joins countless others of God’s people who have heard the marvelous accounts of God’s mighty works, and have been able to add their stories to the ones they have heard, using their own mouths and their own words.
For, you see, that’s the entire purpose of the Bible’s existence: to recount for us the great things that God has done in ages past, which are the great things that God is doing in our own age. The saving acts of God are the same, then as well as now.
Holy Scripture records the witness of God’s people in ages past to the marvelous works of God. In ancient times, fathers would hand down to sons through the verbal recounting (story-telling) of the great works of God, passing the story from one generation to another. So, too, does the Bible serve as a permanent, written record of God’s healing, saving, and delivering. The Bible serves as the mouth of these ancient writers, while our eyes are opened to see God’s truth as we read the sacred pages of Scripture, and our ears are opened to receive the accounts of God’s people today who have experienced God’s movements of healing and redemption. For God is the same, yesterday, today and forever. God heals, God saves, God redeems His people from their isolation from Him and from each other. God acts today just as He acted ages ago.
But, you may say in response, “But that’s the way it is!”
Yes, I catch the meaning of the phrase. You might be saying, in essence, “Yes, I believe it’s true that God healed, saved and delivered His people ages ago. But I don’t believe those sorts of things happen to us today.”
But right here, in our midst, is proof of God’s healing power. Right here, at Trinity Church, we’ve heard a number of accounts of healing recently (physical, spiritual and emotional) that have come through prayer and the laying-on-of-hands.
I have rejoiced to hear the stories of those who can testify to God’s power to heal. I have heard quite a number of them recently, and some of these healings were a complete surprise to me.
So, I know from these accounts that God still heals.
Sometimes, the healing doesn’t come so dramatically and so suddenly as it did for the man who was healed in today’s passage. Sometimes, the healing comes quietly, and it surprises us when we see its effect. Sometimes, the healing comes through the diligent work of doctors, nurses and medicals staffs – for they are agents of God’s healing, too, as they use the wisdom and the intellectual capacities that are God-given to discover remedies for the illnesses and diseases that afflict us, as they bring healing and wholeness to life. We cannot discount their role in healing.
But, having said that, some of the stories heard recently clearly go beyond merely medical solutions. I am struck by the thought that God must be at work in these events. Yes, the same God who, acting through Jesus Christ, healed the man who could not hear and who could not speak. That very same God!
To that very same God be all power, majesty, glory and praise, for ever and for ever more.
AMEN.
