The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity - September 11, 2011

The Church Season of Trinity
The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (September 11, 2011)

Readings:   
    Psalm 146
    Isaiah 29:17-24
    1 Cor. 3:4-11
    Mark 7:31-37

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
The text for today’s message is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 7th chapter of St. Mark

Mark 7:31-37 (NIV)
31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32 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. 33 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. 34 (Jesus)He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). 35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. 36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

There is a lot going on today.  It is the tenth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania.  Hijackers flew two planes into the twin towers and one plane into the Pentagon and there was also a third plane that was set to strike yet another building, but crashed because the passengers on board resisted the hijackers.  We certainly want to take a moment sometime today and think about these events.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus loosed the tongue which the devil had tied and opened the ears that the devil wished to stop.  Christ had come for this purpose and He continues this work among His people.  He is the Helper of suffering mankind and desires to heal all afflictions with which the devil burdens us, and to drive Jesus away from us.  It would be all too easy to remember 9/11 and say the devil won on this day.

But Christ shows us that He opens ears and unbinds tongues. He seeks to perform this work daily in His church against the devil.  It is a physical fact that God gives sound ears and tongues to those opposed to His Word, but only for Christians is this spiritual fact true, that He opens ears and looses tongues.  For we Christians must hear His Word with our ears and confess with our lips.  St. Paul writes to His beloved timothy these words, “Command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

This is sure, that we have our salvation alone through the Word of God alone.  What would we otherwise about God, about our Lord Christ, His sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit?  To this day the greatest miracle and mightiest work is giving a person ears that gladly hear God's Word and a tongue that honors God.

Whether we face the biggest tragedy in our lifetime like 911 or have seen bigger tragedies or if it is jut the biggest tragedy of the day, God stirs our tongues and causes us to speak, as St. Paul says, “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”(Rom. 10:10).

So it is through faith in Christ we come to have forgiveness of our sins; and our confession should also follow.  We must not be mute, but speak what we believe in our hearts.  And again as St. Paul wrote to Timothy how we should speak as pastors, “Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach.”(1 Tim 3:2)

Now hear of our Lord’s unusual performance in this Gospel reading.  The people bring the poor man to Him, asking that Jesus should place His hands on him.  With all His care, Jesus takes him aside from the crowd, places His fingers into his ears, spits, and in this way loosens the man’s tongue.  Then Jesus looks up to heaven, sighs, and says, “Ephphatha!”, meaning be opened.

We must note why the Lord employed such an unusual routine and procedure in this miracle.  He surely could have affected this miracle by a simple worked, for again and again in the Gospel that it merely requires His Word to cause something to be done, and it is done.  Lazarus, Jesus woke up with a word.  To the palsied man Jesus said, “Stand up and walk.!”  But with the deaf and dumb man He does not proceed in such a short and simple way, but takes unusual steps.

Our Lord employs such vivid action here for the sake of the spiritual miracle.  He wants to demonstrate how great an effort is required to cause a deaf man to hear and a mute man to speak.  He wants this lesson to be remembered.  He shows us that if we are to be loosed from the devil’s bonds and posses ready tongues and good ears, this can happen only through the external Word and preaching.  We must, first of all, hear the Word, not neglecting Baptism or the Sacrament either, and the Holy Spirit will then be present to free the ears and tongues.  And if the message is not conveyed properly the message is lost.

It is true that we all must be on guard against the fantastic spirits who despise the external Word and Sacraments, or those who would wait until God speaks to them in the heart.  But Jesus says, “No, here is My finger, the external Word, the spoken and preached Word that must sound in the ears’  My spit which must moisten the tongue.  In this way My work proceeds rightly.”  We see this wherever the external Word has free course and is delivered according to scripture and conveyed like a healing salve exactly and directly to the location it is needed.  There Christians will be found, for as goes the shepherd, so go the sheep.

We should all take care to be found on this path and gladly hear God’s Word.  Without the true inspired Word, God does not reveal Himself in your heart.  To see and know Him can happen only through the external Word and through the Sacraments.  The Holy Spirit works in no other way.  Proclaim that Word to those in need of hearing it, share it, hear it in this place, and beyond these walls, with those who are around you by your actions and deeds.

While we all live in this world, we live in a war zone.  We are both sinners and saints.  One of the battles in that war pits our natural desire to nurture a grudge against our holy desire to forgive.  Only the reconciliation with God that Jesus provided through His death on the cross gives us the victory.  Once again, we see that God does all the work.  It is His forgiveness working though us in Word and Sacraments that forgives our brother.  It is His forgiveness that gives us the victory and reconciles us with God and our brother forever and ever.  Receive the healing power of God’s forgiveness, it lifts you from the depth of the deepest and darkest despair.  Ephphatha, be opened, come hear, come eat, come receive Christ’s forgiveness, Christ alone makes you well to eternal life. Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
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