Isaiah delivers the promise of God of healing and redemption. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is revealed as the fulfillment of that promise. Mark focuses on the human aspects of Jesus; his hand, a finger, ears, a tongue, and spitting. Mark shows us that God has truly become man, is in the flesh. Jesus restores a man’s hearing and removes his speech impediment by putting a finger in his ears, spitting, touching the man’s tongue and, looking up to heaven saying, “Be Opened!” and the man could hear and his speech impediment was also gone and he spoke plainly. Jesus reveals himself to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise.
Jesus did all this privately, away from crowds of people. Though Jesus asked that this not be spoken of, they told many people about the healing and the people exclaimed, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” They said this because Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy.
Jesus healed a lot of people, but only some of the healings are preserved in narrative for us to read about. That makes those healings special in some way. What is special about this man’s healing? Why did Jesus take him off alone to perform the healing? Why did Jesus groan deeply, and then utter “Be Opened!” which is very different from other healings we have read about?
It may be that Jesus was opening this man’s heart as well as his ears, and maybe he took him off to a place of less distraction. Jesus may have opened this man’s heart and ears to the Gospel. Jesus wants to open our hearts and our ears to the Gospel, maybe we should remove the distractions so that he can perform that healing upon us. We can set aside our everyday concerns for a few minutes each day so that we can hear Jesus speak to us. He wants to say, “Be opened!” to our deepest soul. The healing that Mark describes shows us the intimacy of God’s love for us and how personal that love is, and how it is shared with us through touch, sound and spoken words.
Remove yourself from the clutter and clatter of life, imagine being alone with Jesus, and imagine the patient, kind and loving look upon his face and say, “Lord, remove the distraction from my life so that I can hear you! Lord, remove the clutter within me so that my heart may be opened to your word!”
The Psalm this week is Psalm 146: Praise the Lord My Soul This link will take you to Matt’s music website and there is a demo (music) and a lead sheet (words) link.
Have a blessed week! I’m going to try to schedule some quiet time with Jesus and ask for and open heart and restored hearing so that I may hear Him!