The Sound of Silence
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Intro
Intro
CHANGE INTRO:: In the song “Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel, we are presented with two opposing concepts painted on various canvas’.
Sleep and waking. Aware and unaware. Quiet understanding and boisterous ignorance. Light and dark. Connected and disconnected. Hearing and silence.
I don’t think there is accurate theology to be gained from the song, but there is an insight into our passage today.
Pray
31 Jesus left Tyre and went up to Sidon before going back to the Sea of Galilee and the region of the Ten Towns. 32 A deaf man with a speech impediment was brought to him, and the people begged Jesus to lay his hands on the man to heal him.
33 Jesus led him away from the crowd so they could be alone. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then, spitting on his own fingers, he touched the man’s tongue. 34 Looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened!” 35 Instantly the man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed so he could speak plainly!
36 Jesus told the crowd not to tell anyone, but the more he told them not to, the more they spread the news. 37 They were completely amazed and said again and again, “Everything he does is wonderful. He even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who cannot speak.”
{{Like the song, there is a series of opposing thoughts compared and contrasted with each other in this passage. Hearing and not-hearing. Public and private.
We see much of what Jesus does is done in public, but this passage show us Him taking a deaf man to be healed in private. }}
Any work for a giant corporation? There are benefits to it. Established systems, job focus, you can hide in the bureaucracy… But giant companies have tremendous resources to be able to implement market adjustments, even if they are sometimes slow and cumbersome when they do.
But what a vast company can’t offer is personality. By that, I mean they can’t offer a work schedule specific to you, with a benefit package for your coworker who needs something specific, and a work from home policy that is sensitive to someone else who has a specific medical need.
A small company can provide flexibility, community, an environment that works best for everyone. But sometimes they struggle with the resources to achieve their vision.
Maybe the same thing could be said of churches...
With that context, let’s look at the passage today. This section has always struck me as rather odd! There’s another record of Jesus healing someone that is equally as odd
1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”
What is odd is what ties these two passages together. Spit, in the context of baseball is not odd. Spit in the context of a miracle IS odd!
In Mark, Jesus sticks His fingers in the guys ears, then spits on His hand and touches the guys mouth. WIERD!
In John, Jesus spits in the dirt to make mud and then smears it on they blind mans eyes. Then He tells him to go wash in a particular place. It’s only after he washed that he was able to see. Again, WIERD!
Why did Jesus perform these two miracles in these unique ways? Why mud here and a finger in your ear there; a word from a distance now but a touch on the garment later? Why are Jesus’ miracles so unique when His purpose on earth was so specific? There was always only one problem to solve - separation from God as caused by sin. And there was always only one solution to sin - a perfect atoning sacrifice by God in the flesh. One solution to everyone's problem.
So why are the miracles so unique? Let’s ask that question of these, the most unique of Jesus’ miracles.
Unique situations.
Unique situations.
From what perspective you you consider these events? If your like me, you respond to them something like, “That sounds really weird TO ME.” I’m not being totally self-centered when it comes to God’s word, its just that I think it sounds odd.
Let me challenge you to shift your perspective from the hearer of a story to a participant. We take speech and communication for granted. What a different world the deaf man from Mark lived in.
Not only different from our world of audible communication, but also a world much less able to integrate him into society.
unique situation of the deaf and mute man
unique situation of the blind man
unique situation of the woman with the issue of bleeding
unique situation of so many Jesus healed
Each of these people had pain and loss from one problem - sin. Sin causes death. But because the condition of sin is a universal problem, the results are also universal. In John, the disciples wanted to know if the results of sin were attributable the man’s sins or his parents. Jesus clarified that the results of sin are universal, but the victory over sin is for the purpose of glorifying Christ.
There certainly are sinful things we can choose to do that have direct attributable affect. To put it very lightheartedly - Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I don’t need a show of hands if you have suffered under the direct results of your own dumb choices. We ALL have, at least a time or two! This isn’t a hard concept to come to grips with.
People have a harder time accepting that terrible things happen to innocent people. Understanding the reality of universal sin goes a long way to alleviating us of that misconception that there are innocent people.
But that doesn't actually resolve the issue entirely. Pretending it does doesn’t help with our credibility with non-believers. The other part of the answer is that sin is much worse, and much more messy than we tend to think.
Sin is more like a grenade than a sickness. When someone is sick, they can easily isolate and prevent the spread. But when a grenade explodes, everyone around gets hurt. Sin affects the evil as well as the one pursuing the righteousness of God. We all swim in the sea of sin - we are all wet.
One problem, but many situations. God’s mercy is made evident in that He addresses each person uniquely.
Unique solutions.
Unique solutions.
The blind man couldn't see Jesus, so Jesus’ miracle made a connection in another way. Someone with sight could see His face of mercy, this man could not. So Jesus showed mercy in a way he could see it.
The deaf man could not hear Jesus’ words of blessing, His tender love, or His words of encouragement. So Jesus expressed them in a language he could hear.
The same for so many miracles that Jesus did. And the same for us.
The gospel came to each of us as we were in our own blindness - our own deafness.
Pride? Abuse? Addiction? / Indifference? Depression? Self-sufficiency?
What was your blindness when Jesus found you? Jesus finds us each with a pedigree of sin. How He shows His love toward us while we were sinners/slaves/enemies is different for everyone. One Gospel message - many modes of delivery.
19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
Jesus’ unique expression of love is His mercy. But that unique expression in only possible when we are each doing our part to share Jesus’ love to our own. Our own neighbors. Our own friends and families. Yes.
But also our own kind of sinners. I know how someone who struggles with doubt and overthinking, who swells with pride from analytical prowess thinks. God saved me from that blindness. He put the mud of trust on my eyes. He put His fingers in my ears of addiction to my own thoughts so that I could hear the voice of the Creator. I know that healing - I am responsible for sharing that.
But there are others who have a different sin, different history, different struggle - who had a different healing. I don’t know how to love a gambling addict like my friend who was saved from that. I don’t know how to love an alcoholic quite like someone who was saved from that.
Please hear, I’m not saying I am free from any responsibility in sharing the gospel and loving them. Neither are you. Quite the opposite. We are both bound to that joy.
But I am saying that God has uniquely equipped you and me that we have been healed from the same hurts, found the narrow path out of the same swamp, learned to put away those things of the world we idolized and abused.
Each of us is uniquely trained by means of our own salvation salvation to minister to our own types of sinners.
Challenge: To follow Jesus’ example to love everyone in a unique way… To share a unique remedy of the one solution of the Gospel.
Complete fulfillment.
Complete fulfillment.
All that Jesus did, was an unbelievable blessing to the person healed. And when Jesus offers forgiveness of sin and salvation to a sinner, the relief is unimaginable.
But there is more that Jesus was doing when He heals, and set free. He is fulfilling prophecy.
37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
The things Jesus did were done well. The teaching, the life-by-example, the healing. This is part of what is ment as we say Jesus was without sin.
But the allusion is more. Jesus did more than just the task and talks at hand well. What He did astoundingly well stretched back into history, and into today.
He fulfilled well the entirety of scriptures. Whoever these specific “they” were in the region east of Galilee, to what extent they were astonished - it was almost certainly not enough.
But even if we look just at the book of Isaiah, we find again and again what the promised Chosen One of God will do.
Is 29:18 “18 In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.”
Is 35 5-6 “5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;”
Is 42 18 “18 Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see!”
Ps 146:5-8 “5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, 6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; 7 who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; 8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.”
All this, and so much more Jesus did amazingly well. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law, and then applied the mud of His own death to the blindness os sin and death, caused us to see and hear and breath life!
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Jesus did all things well speaks not only to the things of the past and the things He did in His lifetime, but also the things He continues to do through us.
That complete fulfillment is Christ living in us, and us living out His purpose for us.