Sermon for Trinity 12 2008 - Mark 7:31-37
HOW would you go about helping someone who’s suffering from hearing loss? We have a number of options nowadays. If there’s still some hearing left, you might just try speaking more loudly. A better approach might be a hearing aid. There’s also help for people with certain kinds of really severe hearing loss: I’ve recently learned about what are called “cochlear implants.” They go deep into your inner ear and can help someone who would otherwise be pretty much deaf to hear just about like normal. Sometimes, though, there’s nothing you can do. The truly deaf can at least communicate using sign language and even lip reading, but they’ll probably never be able to hear again, at least not until they receive their glorified bodies at the Last Day.
Although there are things that we can do to help the deaf, here’s something that definitely wouldn’t help: you can’t just tell someone to stop being deaf. For one thing, our words on their own can’t do anything to fix a physical malady. But even more than that, spoken words would be completely ineffective if they were addressed to someone who can’t even hear them! At least, that’s how it is with our spoken words. With Jesus, things are different. As we heard in our Gospel Lesson this morning, when Jesus tells a deaf man to stop being deaf, it actually works. That’s because
JESUS’ WORDS ARE GOD’S WORDS.
I. It was Jesus’ words that brought heaven and earth into being.
II. His words have the power to create what they say.
III. This is true even when someone else is speaking Jesus’ words in His name.
I.
Now the idea that it was Jesus’ words that brought heaven and earth into being is pretty difficult for us to wrap our minds around. In fact it’s so difficult that there have been all sorts of attempts throughout history to explain it, to make it simple enough that we can wrap our minds around it. All of these attempts have given rise to soul-destroying heresies. Some false teachers have taught that Jesus was just a man, maybe a man with extraordinary gifts from God, but a mere man, nonetheless. Of course that’s a basic denial of the Christian faith, which always holds that “Jesus is Lord,” that Jesus is not a mere man but is in fact the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That brings us to a subtler false teaching, that Jesus is indeed God, but that He only appeared to be a man, that His death on the cross was an illusion that never really took place. Now that’s a denial of another basic tenet of the Christian faith, that Jesus suffered and died to pay the penalty due for our sin. The fact is, to be a Christian you have to believe, teach, and confess that Jesus is the one true God and that He is a true man who really, physically died for our sins. To deny either of these two truths is to place yourself outside of the Christian Church and into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
If it’s true that Jesus is at one and the same time both the eternal God and a genuine human being just like the rest of us, then that means that we have to accept some pretty mind-boggling conclusions. For one thing, everything that we say about the Man Jesus we also have to say of Almighty God. It was God who was born of Mary on Christmas Day, it was God who ate and drank with sinners and tax collectors, it was God who was nailed to a cross and killed on Good Friday. God died for you. God shed His blood for you. It’s God’s body and blood that you eat and drink at the Lord’s Supper. Then again, everything that you say about God you also have to be able to say about the Man Jesus. Jesus is all-powerful. Jesus is everywhere, at all places and at all times. Jesus is the God who created heaven and earth.
So now you can see that what I said before is an essential article of Christian belief: Jesus spoke the words that brought heaven and earth into being. That’s why St. John in his Gospel calls Jesus the Word. You remember verse one: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That’s also why we confess in the Nicene Creed that it is Jesus “through Whom all things were made.” Now that doesn’t mean that the Man Jesus stood there at the beginning of time and used His vocal chords to create heaven and earth. But it does mean that Jesus and the Word through Whom all things were made are one and the same-they’re the same Person. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That’s why this congregation is called “Immanuel.” As you can read on the backs of your bulletins, “Immanuel” means “God with us.” Jesus really is God with us! And this God who is with us, the God who created heaven and earth, spoke to the deaf man in our text. He spoke to a man who couldn’t even hear.
II.
For one of us that would have been folly, but when Jesus said, “Be opened,” in effect, “stop being deaf,” it actually worked. Since Jesus’ words are God’s words, Jesus’ words have the power to create what they say. When the Word said, “Let there be light,” there was light. And now the Word become flesh says to deaf ears, “Be opened,” and they are opened. The same thing happens throughout the Gospels. Jesus keeps speaking to people who shouldn’t be able to respond, and His words create a response. In Mark 5 He says to a corpse on a bed, “Little girl, I say to you, arise,” and she arises. In Luke 7 He does exactly the same thing with the widow’s son, who’s being carried out for burial. And He gets the same result. In John 11 He speaks to Lazarus, who’s been dead in a tomb for four days: “Lazarus, come out,” and he comes out.
As amazing as all these miracles are, there’s a still greater miracle that Jesus performs in the Gospels. To make open ears out of closed is a superhuman feat. To make living people out of corpses is even greater. But to make a righteous man out of a sinner-that is the miracle of miracles. And that’s just what Jesus does earlier in Mark’s Gospel. In the second chapter He says to a paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” And soon thereafter He says to the unbelieving Pharisees, “That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” and then to the paralytic, “Rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And the paralytic does just that, walking proof that Jesus has forgiven his sins. And if Jesus has forgiven His sins, then Jesus has created a righteous man from a sinner, just by speaking His Word.
The reason that this is such an astonishing thing is that a sinner is just as dead as a corpse, or even more so. St. Paul writes to the Ephesians that they used to be “dead in the trespasses and sins in which [they] once walked.” He could have written the same thing to us. We were all dead once in our sins. We were all spiritual corpses at one time. Telling a sinner to be righteous is like telling a corpse to get up-or telling a deaf man to hear again. A sinner can’t even hear the call to righteousness. He’s deaf to it. But when Jesus speaks to a sinner, His words create the ability to hear what He’s saying. He doesn’t just tell you the news, He also gives you the ability to hear the new. When Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven,” those words give you the good news that God does not count your sins against you, but that good news does you no good if you can’t hear it. So Jesus’ words also grant you the ability to hear and receive that good news. That’s why St. Paul writes in our Epistle Lesson, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Here’s the order that St. Paul describes: Jesus speaks His Word to a deaf sinner. That Word creates in the sinner the ability to hear, and from hearing Jesus’ Word of forgiveness, the sinner comes to faith and becomes righteous, his sins forgiven.
III.
So does that mean that sinners can’t come to faith unless they hear Jesus Himself speaking? Well, in our text, the speaker was Jesus Himself, in the flesh. But Jesus continues to speak to this day, even if we can’t hear His physical voice. That’s because when someone speaks Jesus’ words in His name and by His command, those words remain Jesus’ words, with just as much power to create what they say.
This idea is essential to our worship as Lutherans. Take Holy Communion. On Maundy Thursday, Jesus said, “This is My body, this is My blood.” Those words created what they said: what Jesus held is His hands that night really was His body and blood. Then He added these important words: “This do in remembrance of Me.” This do. That means that the Apostles who were gathered in the upper room were supposed to speak those same creative words, “This is My body, this is My blood.” So when Pastor Loest speaks the Words of Institution over the bread and wine, he’s speaking the words that Jesus has given him to speak, and they still have all the creative power they had on the first Maundy Thursday. Jesus is still using His spoken words to create, even if He’s using someone else’s voice to do it.
This can also happen even when we don’t have specific formulas. For preaching the Gospel, no one has to use exactly the same words as those in Holy Scripture, as long as the message is still the same. That’s why St. Paul can say in 2 Cor 5, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” There’s no record in the Gospels that Jesus told His disciples to say these exact words, but St. Paul can still say that he and all ministers are speaking “on behalf of Christ.” That’s because the plea to “be reconciled to God” flows naturally from the good news that Jesus died to reconcile sinners to a righteous God. Whatever words a pastor uses, as long as he gets the message right, he always speaks for Jesus when he preaches the Gospel to poor sinners and gives them the forgiveness of their sins by his words. Those words have the same creative power as Jesus’ words did when He said, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”
And here we come to one of the most exciting things about Jesus’ words. They never lose their power to create what they say, even if it’s St. Paul speaking them, even if it’s Pastor Loest, even if it’s you. When you speak the words that Jesus has given you, they’re still just as powerful as when He spoke to the deaf man in our Gospel Lesson. When husband and wife comfort each other with Jesus’ words of forgiveness, His words still create and sustain faith where it may have become weak or even vanished altogether. When parents teach their children from Holy Scripture, Jesus’ words are there, just as powerful as ever, putting to death the old sinful flesh and strengthening the new man created for good works. When you tell a neighbor, a friend, a coworker about how Jesus died to win forgiveness and eternal life for poor sinners, your words, Jesus’ words, have the power to make eager listeners out of deaf ears.
And here’s the best part of all: Jesus’ words are always there for us, too. When our old sinful natures get the better of us, when your conscience rises up and accuses you of some sin, whatever it might be, Jesus is still there with the Word of reconciliation. It’s there in your Bible, it’s there on the lips of your brothers and sisters in Christ, and it’s here in the Christian service, where week after week Pastor Loest forgives you your sins in Jesus’ name and by His command. The Word is still there for you, to create you anew, to bring to life those ears that have grown dead.
So here we have the one time when it actually makes sense to tell a deaf person to stop being deaf. When God says it, it happens. Jesus Christ, true God, can make any deaf man hear, any corpse rise, any sinner become righteous, just by saying a word. And He does this whether He’s using His own voice or someone else’s. As the people said that day, Jesus really does do all things well. He makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. He makes the ungodly to believe and sinners to be righteous. He makes you who were dead to be alive everlastingly. Amen.
