Ephphatha

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message.

From Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark chapter 7 verses 24 through 37.

Jesus left that place and went to the...

Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.

He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it.

Yet he could not keep his presence secret.

In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came

and fell at his feet.

The woman was a Greek born in Syrian Phoenicia.

She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

First let the little children eat all they want, he told her, for it is not right to take the children's bread and

toss it to their dogs.

Yes, Lord, she replied, but even the dogs and the table eat the children's crumbs.

And then he told her, for such a reply you may go.

The demon has left your daughter.

So she went home and found her child lying on the bed and the demon gone.

When Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the

Decapolis, 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.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears.

Then he spit and touched the man's tongue.

He looked up to heaven with a deep sigh and said to him, Ephetha, which means be opened.

At this the man's ears were opened and his tongue was loose and he began to speak plainly.

Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone, but the more he did so, the more they kept talking

about him.

People were overwhelmed with amazement.

He has done everything well, they said.

He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

In the name of Jesus.

All right, two stories.

It's like a Jesus twin spin here.

Two of them very different, both of them taking place outside of Israel, technically in Gentile territory.

The second one helps us understand the first one, but the first one is a little bit complicated.

Last year I preached on the story of the Syrophoenician woman from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 15,

and this is one of those texts that is really rough, and the reason why it's rough is because it looks like

Jesus is racially insulting a woman, you know, calling her a dog.

Try that today, you know.

Like I pointed out last year, if this happened today, Twitter, Facebook, the news media would be abuzz.

I mean, people would be unfriending Jesus, like, faster than, you know, if he were a leper, you know what I'm saying?

But one of the things I hate about the story is it's so convolutedly difficult to

understand.

Why is Jesus insulting this woman?

And I've recently read a book by a gentleman by the name of Dr. Ken Bailey,

who is a Middle Eastern studies expert, and he's written a book called Jesus Through Middle

Eastern Eyes, and he makes a very compelling case that there's—the reason why we Westerners don't get

it is because we don't think in terms of community and culture, and as soon as you put a Middle Eastern

community and culture as an assumed thing in here, all of a sudden things start to crackle and come to

life.

And so I'm gonna—we'll tackle the first one using Bailey's idea, and then we'll take a look at the

second one as well.

And so we'll read it.

Jesus left that place, and he went to the vicinity of Tyre.

He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, yet he could not keep his presence secret.

Just by way of type and shadow, Old Testament type and shadow.

If you know the story of Elijah, 1 Kings chapter 17, the

showdown between the prophets of Baal and Elijah, well, that showdown begins with Elijah basically

saying, it's not gonna rain until I say so, because God told him to say that, and then he goes and hides.

He hides the brook Cherith for a while, and then the brook dries up, and then Elijah heads to the region of

Tyre and Sidon.

And he, like Jesus, finds a woman kind of in desperate need with a child, if you would.

And so you think of the story in the Old Testament of Elijah traveling to this same region as type and

shadow.

Jesus is now fulfilling it.

Where Elijah was able to keep himself hidden, Jesus is not able to keep himself hidden.

It's kind of fascinating how that works out.

So there's a direct connection here, type and shadow in 1 Kings 17, and the substance in

this text.

But we'll just put that in there so that we all have that marker.

Here's what it says then, verse 25.

In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil

spirit came and fell at his feet.

The woman was a Greek born in Syrian Phoenicia.

She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her.

We get from the Gospel of Matthew her actual words.

She calls out to Jesus, Lord Son of David.

It's her cry to him, Lord Son of David.

So she has, she knows who Jesus is.

She's got a little bit of theology training going on here.

She knows about the coming Messiah who would be the Son of David.

And so Jesus rebuffs her.

In the Matthean account, we had learned that the disciples, Jesus says nothing to her at first, and the

disciples say, send her away, send her away.

And this kind of helps us understand this.

So Bailey's thought on this is that we must understand that the

culture of first century Israel was extremely racially

biased against the Gentiles.

It's akin to what we saw here in the United States in the 20th century

in the South against African -Americans.

It's that kind of racial hatred.

And so you see this, by the way, if you want an example of what this looks like, go and read

Acts chapter 10 and chapter 11.

Acts chapter 10 gives us the story of the first Gentile believers in Christianity, the story of the

centurion Cornelius.

And Peter is sent by the Holy Spirit to go to his house.

And he shows up, he preaches the gospel, they receive the Holy Spirit, and they're baptized,

Cornelius and his whole family.

And rather than rejoice that the gospel has now gone out to Gentiles in chapter

11, we learn that the circumcision party within Christianity, that they were

actually very upset at Peter for daring to eat a meal

with Gentiles.

And so they called Peter on the carpet and he had to give an explanation about his actions.

And so that gives you kind of a frame of mind that you can understand here as far as what the Jews thought

of the Gentiles at this time in history.

It's a very, very strong racial prejudice.

And so that is part of what's going on here.

There's a racial barrier.

But the other thing is, is that when we have to understand this, is that women are not permitted to

talk to men.

And men don't talk to women in this Middle Eastern culture.

And so this woman, she broke through two rock -solid

barriers to talk to Jesus.

Two of them.

First, by way of the fact that she's a woman and she is uninvited and basically

engaging in a conversation with Jesus and calling out to him.

And on top of it, she's a Gentile.

So in the Mithian account, the first response is Jesus says nothing.

And the disciples say, send her away.

Get rid of her.

And so what's going on in this text, if you understand the culture, is that Jesus has every

intention of meeting her need.

This is a woman who has faith.

She absolutely has faith in Jesus.

And Jesus is not going to turn away somebody who has faith in him and not meet their need.

His ears are open to his children's plea for mercy.

And because she has faith, his ears are attentive to her.

But the subtext here is that Jesus, in his response, is preaching to two

groups.

And you have to keep them teased out.

The first group is the woman, the Gentile woman.

He's challenging her faith, knowing that her faith is going to come shining through.

But the other thing he's doing is he's challenging the racial prejudice of the disciples.

This is Bailey's theory, and I think he's on to something here.

And so what Jesus does then is that she persists, and then

Jesus voices these painful words, let the little children eat all they want, for it is not

right to take the children's bread and then toss it to the dogs.

And what Jesus was doing there was literally giving voice to the racial

prejudice of the Jews of his day.

And the disciples, they had that prejudice still in them because they were telling him to get rid of that woman.

So Jesus takes up their cultural hatred, if you would, not because he

possesses it, but because he's going to give voice to it.

And by giving voice to it, he's going to show how absolutely ugly it is.

And so he says, first let the little children eat all they want, for it's not right to take the children's bread and toss it

to their dogs.

Called her a dog.

And the fact that the disciples record this account and memorialize

this woman's faith is critical for us to understand what's going on here.

Because Jesus here, you can almost see the disciples wince and going, ouch, man, that

doesn't sound right, right?

But she has faith.

She's a penitent sinner.

And so rather than get incensed and upset and blow up on Jesus and say, how dare

you call me a dog?

She responds with faith.

Yes, Lord, she replied.

But even the little dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

She's not going away.

She's got Jesus by the hand.

She's not letting go.

And so her faith comes shining through.

And then Jesus says, for such a reply you may go.

The demon has left your daughter.

And in the Matthean account, in Matthew 15, Jesus says, woman, great is your faith.

So we know that she has faith.

And so the idea here is that Jesus, who is our God, his ears are attentive.

They're open to the needs of his children who have faith in him.

And this woman, although she's a Gentile, and although she's a woman in this culture, men and women are not supposed to be talking to

each other.

And she's broken through all these cultural barriers that have been set up.

And her, culturally, what she's doing is like unbelievably beyond the

pale.

Still, Jesus knows that she has faith, tests her faith a little bit,

and knows that she's going to pass just fine.

And at the same time, there's a secondary thing that's going on here, is that this begins to unwind

the racial prejudice in the minds of the disciples against the Gentiles.

This is what begins to unwind that.

And part of the reason we know this is because of the next story that we read.

Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee,

into the region of the Decapolis.

The region of the Decapolis is not Jewish territory.

Decapolis means the Ten Cities.

This is in the northeastern region of the Sea of Galilee, and extends all the way up into Syria.

And so there, people brought to him a man who was deaf and could

hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.

Another Gentile, by the way, by the fact of where he lives.

Now, we've all experienced and understand this man's difficulty.

In our lifetime, we all probably met with and talked with and spoken with people who are deaf.

This is a lonely existence, to not be able to hear.

And deaf people, they can learn how to speak, but you can always tell by how they speak that they don't have

the ability to hear.

There's a certain way in which all of them kind of talk.

And I, you know, from time to time, you see somebody posting on Facebook, you know, a link to one of those

videos where somebody receives their hearing for the first time, because we now have medical technology, these cochlear implants,

or whatever the thing they're called, where somebody has a medical procedure and they're finally able to hear with

the help of some technological device.

And when they turn it on for the first time, I mean, the videos on YouTube of people hearing for the first time, it just

brings tears to your eyes.

But even after they hear, they still talk as if they're deaf.

Does that make sense?

It's going to take them a long time to learn how to not speak that way, because that's the way they've been speaking their whole lives.

And so this is a man like that.

He's deaf.

He has some ability to communicate.

Like many deaf people, they can learn how to talk, but he doesn't speak very well.

So Jesus, watch what he does.

He took him aside, away from the crowd.

Big deal, by the way.

Because one of the things, if you have had the opportunity to speak with people who have, you know, don't have the

ability to hear, being in a crowd is a very difficult thing for them.

And so Jesus, extremely sensitive to this man's

feelings, and sensitive to his disability, doesn't put on

a circus in the crowd.

Instead, he takes the man by the hand, leads him away, and then privately begins to

deal with him.

And you'll notice that up above, when Jesus healed the little girl of the

demon that the mother had come for, he just gave a word.

Jesus does something different with this man, and what's going on here is that he is actually being

very sensitive to him to let him know that he's being cared for.

So this is a tactile healing, if you would.

So he took him aside.

Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears.

So the first thing, he's touching his ears.

He can't hear, but he's touching his ears.

Then he spit, and he touched the man's tongue.

Very tactile.

Then Jesus looks up to heaven.

And just do it.

You look up to heaven, and you now know what's going on.

This is a signal to the man, it's heaven that's going to be healing you.

So he looks up to heaven, and he sighs a deep sigh, and he says this word,

Ephetha.

That's the way he says it.

And so all of this is a signal to the man who can't hear, to let him know Jesus has got him.

I'm gonna heal your ears.

We're gonna give you the ability to speak.

And then he sighs, you know, looking up to heaven to let him know that heaven is doing this.

He looked up with a deep sigh and said, Ephetha, which means be opened.

At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak

plainly.

Given the ability to hear, and to no longer speak as one who has been deaf.

Total healing, total restoration.

And you'll notice Jesus does this privately.

When you turn on the television, you have the televangelist, they put on a big show, right?

Bring somebody up on the stage, and they do their faux fake healings, and people, you

know, applaud and stuff like that.

And afterwards they send the buckets to the audience, you know, to get the money out of the people's wallets, right?

Jesus doesn't do this.

It's not a show.

It's not a circus.

He doesn't make this man pay for his healing.

He doesn't make the crowd pay for his healing by sending the buckets to the crowd.

The one who pays for this man's healing is Jesus.

That's the one who pays for it.

How does he pay for it?

By going to the cross and bleeding and dying for this man's sins.

In fact, Jesus is not some kind of charlatan, huckster, showman, circus,

you know, ringleader, right?

He says this after the healing, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone.

But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it, and people were overwhelmed with amazement.

He's done everything well, they said.

He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak, which is exactly what Isaiah prophesied the Messiah would

do.

We read it this morning.

Jesus has truly done everything well.

Now, if you remember, as we've been working through the Gospel of Mark, one of the things we've heard Jesus say on several

accounts is, the one who has ears to hear, let him hear.

The one who has ears to hear, let him hear.

All of us, we all were born with the ability to physically heal, to hear, right?

But all of us, because we're descendants of Adam and Eve, we've been born deaf to

God's Word, to his Gospel, to his law.

And Jesus has had to open our ears.

And it's important for us to remember that we are very similar to this man and very

similar to that woman.

We both have faith, but here's the important part.

You were born without the ability to hear God and his Word, but Jesus opened up your ears in the

waters of your baptism.

Speaking his Gospel is a privilege to be able to do and to speak it plainly, and it's important for you to remember

today as we celebrate the Lord's Supper that this morning, Jesus is going to touch your tongue.

He's going to touch your tongue with his body and blood broken and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins, to

open up your mouth so that you can sing his praises and proclaim the mercies

and the wonder of God, and to let the world know that Jesus truly has

done all things well, and he's done all things well for you and for me.

He lived a sinless life so that we can be clothed in the righteousness of God, and he took

our sins upon himself so that we would never have to face the wrath of God.

So Jesus has opened our ears and opened our mouths, opened our eyes.

We who are deaf, blind, and mute to the things of God are no longer blind,

no longer deaf, no longer mute, and we thank and praise God that he has done this to us

and he has done this for us.

And so it is truly true that Jesus has done everything well.

He's done it all well for you, and he even makes you, who are deaf and mute, to

hear and to speak the wonders and the great mercies of our God and King,

Jesus Christ.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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