Around 700 years before Jesus was born in
In the passage immediately prior to this one, Jesus had gone to the city of
The first thing that strikes us in the passage is …
I. The Important Work of Intercession (32)
Jesus is met by a group of people who bring to Him a man who is described by Mark as deaf and speaking with difficulty. Notice here two things.
A. A Man with a Helpless Condition
We are told that the man is deaf. We are not told if his condition is congenital or if it is the result of an injury or illness. He also has a severe speaking disorder, not uncommon with people who are deaf. He was not a mute; he could speak. But, his speech is described with the Greek word mogilalos, literally rendered in the NASB as “spoke with difficulty.” This is the only occurrence of this Greek word in the New Testament. Interestingly, when the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek, a translation we call the Septuagint, the word occurs only once there as well. Where do we find it? We find it in Isaiah 35:6, where the NASB reads, “The tongue of the mute will shout for joy.”
So here is a man who cannot hear what others are saying to him, and cannot speak to others about his own needs. Others have heard about Jesus. He has not. Others have spoken their concerns to Jesus. He cannot. His friends are leading him about, but he can’t hear them say where or why. He can’t even tell them whether or not he wants to go. He is at the mercy of those who are leading him. He is a man with a helpless condition. But he is also …
B. A Man with Helpful Companions
Not content to leave their friend in the silence of his condition, his friends decided to bring him to Jesus. Perhaps they had heard of His healing power; perhaps they had witnessed the incident with the pigs when He last visited the region; perhaps they had heard the testimony of the man who had been set free from the legion of demons. Whatever happened, these friends were convinced that Jesus could help their friend. So they brought the man to Jesus and began imploring Jesus to lay His hand on him. They were confident that the touch of the Master’s hand could transform the life of this man.
When I was growing up we had some very close family friends who had a son who was deaf and could utter sounds, but not in plain speech. When I was just a young boy, I learned to say in sign language, “My name is Russ.” No matter how hard I tried to communicate with my friend, all I could do was say, “My name is Russ.” My guess is that my deaf friend got really tired of me telling him my name over and over again, but it was all I could say to him. Some of us know folks like this, others perhaps don’t. But all of us know people who are spiritually deaf and mute. We try to communicate with them about Jesus, but they don’t hear what we are saying. It does not register with them, and they often do not know the right response to make. Surely most of us have experienced this frustration. But we must get them to Jesus because only as He touches them will they be able to comprehend the spiritual truth about their condition and God’s salvation in Christ. The Holy Spirit must do the work of convicting and converting! And so our efforts to witness to our friends will only be as effective as our labor of intercession – bringing them to Jesus in prayer and imploring Him to touch them. And as He does, our witness will be understood by them and they will find the salvation that we so desperately want them to know. We cannot emphasize enough the important work of intercession.
Now, notice secondly in the text …
II. The Individual Manner of Interaction (33-35)
We don’t know how many people came with this man to see Jesus, but we are told that there was a crowd of people present. And Jesus takes the man off by himself, aside from the crowd. It is the way of Jesus to deal with people one on one. This episode is about what He is going to do for this man, not what He is going to do for the crowd. They would be amused and entertained to be sure, but that is not His purpose. Jesus’ purpose is to transform the life of this man and He takes him aside individually to interact with him.
A. He Interacts Privately (v33a)
Mark notes carefully here that Jesus takes the man away from the crowd and He takes him off by himself. We aren’t told why, but two things seem obvious.
1. The private interaction minimizes distractions
Being deaf, the man relied upon his other senses more heavily. It has often been noted that people who have lost one of their five senses have keener abilities in the others. Therefore it is important that Jesus deal with this man in private lest he become distracted by others moving about around him, brushing up against him as they crowd in to see and hear what Jesus is doing. It might have increased Jesus’ popularity to entertain the crowd as He healed this man, but Jesus was never interested in popularity. Most of it was misguided anyway. Instead, He minimized the distractions for this man by taking him aside privately.
2. The private interaction maintains dignity
The man had already been made a spectacle of, by being led to Jesus and made the focal point of a crowd of onlookers. But Jesus doesn’t further the spectacle by using the man as a prop in a sideshow act. It is very important that this man have confidence and trust in Jesus, and Jesus demonstrates that He is worthy of that trust by maintaining the man’s dignity interacting with him in private.
When I was in
No one likes to be made a spectacle of. Well, there maybe some who like it, but something is wrong with them. And in order to assure this man that Jesus respected his human dignity, He took him away privately to interact with him.
As we deal with those who are spiritually deaf and mute, we must also know the importance of private interaction. By talking one on one with a person away from the distractions of crowds and noise, and preserving the dignity of that person by not making a spectacle of them in front of onlookers, or causing them to put up a defense in order to maintain an appearance, we will have far more respect in their eyes. This is why I question so much of the stuff being done by so-called “faith-healers.” They rent out these big arenas and put on these grand and elaborate shows and people flock in there to watch them supposedly heal people. Jesus would have never done this. He deals with people one on one. And when He deals with a crowd, it is to preach the gospel to them, not to amuse them with His act. We must learn to value the importance of private interaction in dealing with people who don’t know Jesus, and we will be far more effective with them as we do.
Now notice, not only does Jesus interact with this man privately …
B. He interacts personally (33b-34)
Jesus does not follow a step-by-step method when He deals with people. G. Campbell Morgan said, “He never did anything the same way twice. There was infinite variety in all His dealings with men. He never healed more than one blind man in the same way. He never cast out the demon from more than one man in the same way.”[1] And so here, we see Jesus interacting with this man in a way He has not interacted with any other.
This man could not hear anything Jesus said, so Jesus communicates with him physically, using as it were a sort of sign language. First, He puts (or more literally in the Greek, He thrusts) His fingers into this man’s ears indicating that He was going to pierce the deafness of this man. Then Jesus spit. Now the NASB adds the thought that Jesus touched the man’s tongue with the saliva. If you are using the NASB (your own copy or one of the pew Bibles) you should notice that the words with the saliva at the end of v33 are in italics, which means that they do not occur in the original Greek text, but have been added with the intent of clarifying the passage. However, here they do not clarify, but rather add unnecessary information. “Mark does not say that Jesus spat on the man’s tongue, nor yet that He spat on His own hand and applied the saliva to the man’s tongue.”[2] We should be careful to note that neither does Mark say He did not do this. We don’t know.
Now, frankly, it kind of grosses us out to think that Jesus would put His own spit on another man’s tongue. But even if He did (and again, we don’t know if He did or not), it “would not have been as surprising to those in the ancient Mediterranean world as it is to us.” In addition to stories involving superstition and magic “where saliva was used as a curative agent, … there are also mentions of its use in more normal medical practice.”[3] Obviously, it was not important to Mark to indicate whether or not Jesus put His saliva on the man’s tongue or not. The more important question is why did He spit? Just as placing the fingers into the man’s ears signified the opening of the ears to hear, so here, spitting indicated that the impediment of the man’s mouth was about to be cast away. And then Jesus touched the man’s tongue to demonstrate that his speech would be restored.
Then Jesus looked into heaven. Looking up into heaven would have communicated to the man that what was about to take place was coming to him from God. This was to be no ordinary medical procedure, it was going to be a divine miracle. And then with a deep sigh, Jesus uttered the Aramaic word Ephphatha, which would have been an easy word for the man to lip-read, meaning “Be opened!”
So we see that Jesus went to great lengths to communicate to this man in a way that he could understand what was going on. Without hearing a word, he understood that Jesus was going to open his ears and loosen his tongue with power from heaven. And all of this was done so that the man would personally commit his faith in Jesus. It is not enough that his friends had faith that Jesus could heal him. This man must believe for himself. But he couldn’t hear the message that others were speaking about Jesus. He couldn’t ask others about Jesus. He had to come into personal contact with Jesus, who would communicate to him in a way he could understand. Everything Jesus did for him was to awaken and develop an intelligent faith within him concerning who Jesus was and what He was going to do.
And so Jesus continues to deal with people in this personal way. You may have difficulty sharing Jesus with someone, but as you witness to that person, you must be prayerful that Christ will make Himself known to that person in a way that the person will understand. You must pray that He will, as it were, thrust His fingers into the person’s ears and loosen their tongues as personally and individually as Jesus did for this man. And this should also cause us to beware of “one size fits all” evangelistic methods. I tell people that I don’t have any magic bullets that will always do the trick to convert a sinner. I just have the same gospel that you have. But as Morgan says, “If we are really going to deal with men in the name of Christ, we cannot deal with all men in the same way.”[4] For some, a gospel tract will suffice; others may need to hear our personal testimony; others may need a logical apologetic argument; others may need to see our faith demonstrated in our lifestyles. Some will respond well to a sermon, others to a film about the life of Christ. Some may need to be challenged to take up God’s word and read it for themselves. But each individual must be dealt with uniquely, just as Jesus shows us with this man. There is only one gospel, but there is a multitude of ways to share it. And this is why it is important for each of us to be about the business of sharing the gospel, because where one of us is weak, another will be strong, and together we join our efforts in reaching lost people. And it is also why we must be adaptable – not changing our message or compromising our convictions, but finding unique ways to bridge the gap of communication with each individual we come into contact with in order to share Christ with them.
I am speaking here of the individual manner of interaction with people, and how Jesus dealt with this man privately and personally. But notice also …
C. He interacts powerfully (35)
Immediately the man could hear again and speak plainly. The effectual element in this miracle is the divine power and authority of Jesus voiced by the word of His power to speak authoritatively this divine decree that the man should be healed. Here is this Jesus who can speak and the winds and waves obey Him, the demons surrender to Him, and even physical ailments obey His command. Just as the word of God’s power spoke the universe into existence, so here with one word, the ears and mouth of this man are opened.
We must see here the power of proclaiming God’s Word. There are so many exercises and activities that can consume a church calendar, but only one thing transforms lives. It is the proclamation of this powerful Word. I once heard Howard Hendricks say that there are only two things on this planet that are going to last forever – the souls of men and the Word of God. So why should we not invest our time and effort into things of eternal significance and proclaim this Word to these souls?
This week, Christianity Today featured on their website a story about
And so it is significant that here as Jesus deals with this man, He does so by speaking. And what His word does for this man, it will do for us as well. Our ears are opened to hear God’s truth, and out tongues are loosed to declare His praise. And we now have this Word of God in the Scriptures. And now if we would see His power at work around us, it will be as we take up and proclaim this powerful word in our work and in our witness.
Now briefly and finally, notice here …
III. The Intriguing Nature of These Instructions (36-37)
Here again, as elsewhere throughout Mark’s Gospel, Jesus gives orders not to tell anyone. Let’s observe the reason for these instructions and the response to them.
A. The Reason for the Instructions
We’ve discussed it before, so we won’t dwell too long on this now, but the reason for this gag order was to prevent becoming popularized as a side-show magician out doing tricks, and to prevent misguided messianic fervor from diverting Him from His Father’s plan. His true identity and purpose could only be fully understood after the Cross and Resurrection. And so to speak of Him only in reference to these physical cures He has worked is to speak with only a partial understanding. These miracles were foretastes of the complete redemption that He would accomplish for humanity in His suffering, death and victorious resurrection. And so following the resurrection, the command is not to keep quiet but to go and tell, because His work of salvation has been accomplished, and He has been declared with power to be the divine Son of God by His victory over death. So no one today can claim to be keeping the Messianic secret, because we have now been commissioned to take the good news of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
B. The Response to His Instructions
So utterly astonished were these people of
1. The audacity of their disobedience (36)
The more He ordered them not to go and tell, the more they went and told – each time farther and wider. It is kind of funny – winds, waves, demons, diseases – all these obey Jesus. It is people who just can’t seem to do it. So Ezra Gould says, “The conduct of the multitude is a good example of the way in which men treat Jesus, yielding Him all homage, except obedience.”[5] Alan Cole says this is an illustration of “the strange perversions of human psychology.”[6] So totally depraved are we, that if God commands us not to do something, it creates a desire in us to do it all the more. Here Christ commands to keep quiet, and they go tell. And we marvel at the audacity of their disobedience, but have we overlooked our own? Now He has commanded us to go and tell, and we keep silent. We are as audacious in our disobedience as they are. But may we not view the Great Commission as a law which binds us as slaves, but rather may we be so caught up in utter amazement at the greatness of Christ that we must go and tell!
2. The Accuracy of their declaration (37)
Even though they were disobedient by going and telling, at least we can say that what told was true. “He has done all things well!” they said. Indeed He has. Just as God looked upon His work of creation and declared it to be “very good,” so we are able to look on all that Jesus has done and say that He has done it well. There are no mistakes in His will or His work, and like these folks of
And they said, “He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” Here they are not just reporting the facts. There is spiritual significance to what is being said. You recall from the opening words of this message that Isaiah had prophesied that when Messiah comes, “the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy” [Isaiah 35:5-6]. This congregation of people were witnesses to the fact that He had come in the person of Jesus, with all the accompanying signs that were promised. They understood exactly who He was and what this meant for the world. The salvation that God had promised for centuries to bring to all nations was here in their midst. And this was good news they couldn’t help sharing.
This same good news we share with you today. Each of us is born in a state of spiritual blindness, deafness, muteness, and lameness, but Christ has come to open our eyes and ears, to loose our tongues and raise us up. If we will turn from sin and recognize that He has died to save us, then we can receive this salvation in our own lives as well. So if you never have before, then come aside alone with Jesus and let Him do His powerful work in your life just as He did for this man in our passage today.
[1] G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Revell, 1927),176
[2] D.
[3] R. T. France, The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Gospel of Mark (
[4] Morgan, 176.
[5] Cited in Hiebert, 215.
[6] Alan Cole, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to St. Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 125.
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