Proper 18 (2024)

Mark 7:31–37 (NIV84)

31Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. 33After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). 35At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. 36Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

God Is Faithful to His Promises

Sermon Theme: Be strong, fear not! Cling to the comfort of Jesus when overwhelmed by the afflictions of our earthly existence.

Sermon Goal: That hearers not fear their afflictions but trust that the Lord will one day reverse all the ramifications of sin that he now asks them to endure with faith in Christ.

Introduction: The mighty Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. They would threaten to destroy Judah, the Southern Kingdom, as well. Imagine being a Judean in those days, with threats all around you! Fearful. Feeble. Fainthearted. And, no doubt, they deserved this. It was the ramification of all their idolatry and other sins against the Lord.

Nevertheless, Isaiah prophesied the destruction of their enemies. More than that, he pointed forward to a day when they would be saved from all enemies entirely.

Now, the people of Isaiah’s day might have thought the fulfillment of this was in 701 BC, during the latter part of Hezekiah’s reign. It was then that the Lord averted the Assyrians’ attack on Jerusalem and made Judah flourish again (Isaiah 37). However, like a flower, Judah quickly faded and eventually fell to the Babylonians in 597 BC.

The Lord’s promise through Isaiah, however, did not fade. And God’s kingdom has not fallen. It stands. Forever. Who can say that we are not surrounded by such troubles today, even as the faithful in Israel were tempted to despair in Isaiah’s day? Isaiah’s words are like pools of refreshing water to those dying of thirst. God is still there! He will be faithful to his promises! Be strong; do not fear! Christ Jesus fulfills this prophecy of the Lord’s prophet. And our text points to the greater hope of the new creation for all those who cling to the Lord Jesus and the ransom he gave on the cross. He will come in triumph to set creation free from Satan and the curse, and give his people the redemption of their bodies (cf Rom 8:19–23). He says to all of you today:

Be Strong, Fear Not! The Lord Will Come and Save You, Revealing the True Purpose of His Power.

Your God will Come

The Lord is coming with vengeance against his and his people’s enemies (Is. 35:4).

Isaiah 35:4 NKJV

4 Say to those who are fearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you.”

He did this with the physical enemies of Judah, the Assyrians. True, Judah then fell to the Baby­lonians. But then the Babylonians fell, as has every other kingdom except the kingdom Jesus founded, the kingdom of which you are a part—yes, every Baptized believer (see Dan 2:36–45). It still stands, and will forever. (Dan 2:44).

It stands because Jesus came to destroy our spiritual and greatest enemy: the devil. The Son of God became flesh “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8). Jesus did this in our Gospel (Mk 7:29), in his temptation (Mt 4:1–11), and then on the cross for us all (Gen 3:15), rising victorious over sin, death, and the devil.

Then why does Jesus allow cancer, disease, infection, and babies to be born premature if He has all this power?

Though sin and the curse have done all this to those who live on this earth, all who are a part of Christ’s kingdom have His promise that this will be reversed. Fear not!

The Lord’s vengeance is recompense, a repaying for all the evil the enemies have done against God’s people (Isaiah 35:4).

God used the nations of Assyria, Babylon, and others to humble and discipline his people. But he also repaid — that is, He avenged — those nations for all the evil they did against His people:

2 Thessalonians 1:6–10 NET

6 For it is right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to you who are being afflicted to give rest together with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.8 With flaming fire he will mete out punishment on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will undergo the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength,10 when he comes to be glorified among his saints and admired on that day among all who have believed—and you did in fact believe our testimony.

The devil, who works evil through so many agencies in the world, also appear to be winning, but God uses our setbacks and seeming defeats to discipline us. The good news is: the devil’s time is short (Rev 12:12). He has already been repaid in the crushing defeat of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension.

And recompense is finally and ultimately coming in the end when Christ returns and will avenge all our afflictions and persecutions. Then the devil—who is behind it all—is forever relegated to eternal fire prepared for him and his angels (Mt 25:41).

The Lord’s goal in this vengeance and recompense is salvation for his people (Is. 35:4).

The Lord is a God defined not by wrath but by love (1 Jn 4:8). While the immediate purpose of his coming for his Old Testament people was vengeance and recompense of the wicked, that had the decisive purpose of salvation for God’s people, delivering them from those enemies.

The same is true spiritually speaking. Jesus’ attack of the devil, the stronger man against the strong man, was to save you and have you as his own so that you might “live under Him in His kingdom” (Small Catechism, Second Article).

You need not seek vengeance (Rom 12:19) but can leave that to God. You can focus instead on the salvation he has already won for you and has in store for all who believe and are baptized into Christ. That salvation includes the truth that

The Ears of the Deaf will be Unstopped

Isaiah 35:5–6 (NKJV)

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing.

Judah flourished again after so much devastation.

The sins of Judah brought them to their knees, most literally King Hezekiah, who prayed to the Lord for deliverance from Sennacherib (sǎn·ḥē·rîḇ), the king of Assyria (Is 37:14–20).

The Lord did save them, striking down 185,000 in the Assyrians’ camp so that Sennacherib (sǎn·ḥē·rîḇ) fled and later died (Is 37:36–37). And that very year, the people saw a reversal of the ramifications of their sin (Is 37:30–32).

But, again, this was just a foreshadowing, hardly the fullness of what God meant by this magnificent prophecy.

When Jesus came, “then” (Is 35:5, 6) God’s kingdom came to reverse sin’s ramifications.

When Jesus came, he healed bodies just as Isaiah said (cf Lk 7:22). The “eyes of the blind” were “opened” (cf Mt 20:29–34). The “ears of the deaf unstopped . . . and the tongue of the mute [sang] for joy” (cf Mk 7:34–35). The “lame man [leaped] like a deer” (cf Mt 9:6–7). Jesus showed himself to be the one who made all these appendages and could heal them, reversing the curse of this world.

And what he did physically, he also did spiritually (Jn 9:39). The Gospel of Jesus Christ enlightened the eyes of the disciples’ hearts and those of many others who sat in darkness (Eph 1:18; Lk 1:79). He opened their lips so that their mouths declared his praise (Ps 51:15).

Christ’s apostles continued this ministry of healing both physically (Acts 3:8; 8:7; 14:10) and spiritually (Acts 16:14; 26:18).

Christ Jesus also reverses sin’s ramifications for you now and will bring it to completion on the Last Day.

He does so now spiritually in the kingdom of grace. We all were born spiritually blind, deaf in our understanding, lame in our ability to walk in God’s ways, mute in confessing his name and singing his praises. But now, through the Gospel proclaimed in church, the eyes of our hearts are opened, we hear his promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation, we follow him and sing hymns of thanksgiving for his salvation.

On the Last Day, you will experience this completely, both body and soul, in the kingdom of glory. All of sin’s ramifications will be reversed forever. The curse that now leads to being blind, deaf, lame, or mute will forever be lifted from God’s people in the resurrection.

Imagine what this will look like for yourself and all believers:

Imagine the typical scene when you go into the nursing home. You walk in and see Nancy in a wheelchair, sitting at a table alone in the dining room. Harvey is at a nearby table. He didn’t catch that you came in because his hearing is just about completely gone; that’s why he doesn’t talk much anymore either. Shirley is there too, and she can hear just fine, but she can’t see who you are, her eyes not responding to the injections she’s been receiving for her glaucoma.

Then, inexplicably, Nancy jumps out of her wheelchair with a big smile on her face, opens up her arms, and runs toward you like a deer leaping in the field. Harvey actually hears her, his ears suddenly unstopped, and he begins to sing the doxology in as beautiful a tenor voice as you’ve ever heard, bidding you and everyone to join in with him. And Shirley sees it all, eyes not only opened but also clear and bright, looking right in your eyes with a tear just ready to be wiped away.

This is just a small picture of what the day Isaiah is describing (Is 35:5–6) will look like when Jesus returns to reverse the ramifications of sin for all who trust in him and bring us into the new creation.

Water will Gush Forth in the Wilderness

Isaiah 35:6–7 (NKJV)

6b For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert. 7a The parched ground shall become a pool, And the thirsty land springs of water…

Isaiah’s words here about water in the wilderness are sym­bolic of the joy the Spirit’s work brings to God’s pilgrim people.

It is an allusion to Exodus 17:1–7 (cf Num 20:2–13). There the Lord provided refreshment and joy to Israel in the wilderness through the water from the rock.

God’s people of Judah certainly saw this as well when Judah flourished briefly toward the end of King Hezekiah’s reign (Isaiah 37).

When Jesus came, the great reversal of sin’s ramifications brought this joy to those in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The same joy of water in the wilderness brings joy to you today.

To the one who believes in Jesus, he promises, “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water,” referring to the Spirit (Jn 7:38–39), no matter how difficult things get in this life.

The water that brings you joy is that of the “water and the Spirit,” Holy Baptism (Jn 3:5).

This is a well of salvation that never runs dry but always brings joy in the Lord (Is 12:3).

The Spirit is a guarantee of what is to come to you in the new creation.

So, dear friends, find joy in your baptism, where God gave you the Spirit (Acts 2:38), for he “is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:14).

All of creation is waiting with you, longing to be set free from the ramifications of sin and see you revealed as “the sons of God” (Rom 8:19–23).

Then all the ramifications of the fall into sin will cease forever for all who trust in Christ and love his appearing.

So “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Eph 6:10). Have no fear of your enemy, Satan, and of the ills that he and your own sin have brought upon you, for Christ Jesus has defeated him and all his works. Jesus is coming to repay all your enemies and will save you — revealing the true purpose of His power — reversing every ramification of sin in body and soul and throughout creation. This great reversal will bring great joy to all who trust in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.