Scripture Daily

Context No. 1308 of 4322 · Mark

Context · Reflection

Mark 7:29-37: in context

29He said to her, “For this saying, go your way. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” 30She went away to her house, and found the child having been laid on the bed, with the demon gone out. 31Again he departed from the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and came to the sea of Galilee through the middle of the region of Decapolis. 32They brought to him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech. They begged him to lay his hand on him. 33He took him aside from the multitude privately and put his fingers into his ears; and he spat and touched his tongue. 34Looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!” 35Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was released, and he spoke clearly. 36He commanded them that they should tell no one, but the more he commanded them, so much the more widely they proclaimed it. 37They were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes even the deaf hear and the mute speak!”

Two healings sit together here. First, Jesus tells the Syrophoenician woman that her faith has prevailed and her daughter is freed; she goes home to find it so. Then, back near the Sea of Galilee, they bring him a man who is deaf and can barely speak. Jesus takes him aside from the crowd, privately, puts his fingers in the man's ears, touches his tongue with spit, looks up to heaven, sighs, and says, Ephphatha, be opened. At once the man hears and speaks plainly. Jesus tells the crowd to say nothing, but the more he charges them, the more they proclaim it, astonished: he has done all things well; he makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

Notice how personal and physical this healing is. Jesus could have healed the man with a word from across the field, as he had just healed the Syrophoenician's daughter at a distance. Instead he takes this man aside, away from the crowd, and touches him: fingers in the ears that cannot hear, spittle on the tongue that cannot speak, a look to heaven, a sigh. For a man locked in silence, who could not hear a word spoken to him, Jesus communicates in the language of touch, meeting him exactly where his need was and dealing with him personally, one to one, not as a face in the crowd. There is tenderness in that, the way Jesus draws the man aside and attends to him individually, adapting even the manner of healing to the particular person before him. And the crowd's verdict is one worth keeping: he has done all things well. It echoes the refrain of creation, where God saw all he had made and it was good; here is the same hand at work, undoing the damage, making the broken body whole, and the onlookers cannot help but say it. He does all things well, and he does them personally, taking each of us aside to deal with us as we actually are.

Do I let Jesus draw me aside and deal with me personally, one to one, at the exact point of my need, and can I say with the crowd, even over my own broken places, that he has done all things well?

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