He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
The crowd was often an impediment to having an encounter with Jesus. We think of Zacchaeus climbing a tree, or the friends lowering down the paralytic into the room where Jesus was, or the hemorrhaging woman who had to push through the crowd to touch him. Sometimes the crowd was an obstacle to which seekers were able to respond with a persistent faith. But here we see that the crowd was a sufficient hindrance that Jesus took matters into his own hands. In this case it wasn't just an obstacle to surmount that was at issue, but rather the environment in which the man, once healed, would find himself. Jesus did not desire one who was once deaf to experience a cacophony of voices as the first sounds he heard. Rather, he wanted the focus to be on his own voice.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)
Just as the first man was fashioned out of clay, so this man was refashioned by the power of Jesus, recreated in accord with the original intent of God's design. As such, although it would probably normally take someone with restored hearing a while to speak normally, and might require some speech therapy, it was not so in this case. The words of Jesus were so clear and true that they led to correct speech for one who truly listened to them.
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.
For many of us, we've been mingling with the crowd for so long that we no longer hear the truth clearly and distinctly. As such our own speech is diminished. We no longer convey the good, the true, and the beautiful, but instead speak negative judgments about the world, about others, and about ourselves. We don't speak in line with the promises of the word of God, but we make negative pronouncements like ungodly prophecies and then act surprised when situations turn out poorly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone.
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it.
Jesus knew that the man was going to proclaim the great things the Lord had done for him. But he still made this statement to give an example of not doing good for the sake of fame. And yet there is more to it than that. Even the crowds who learned what had happened were not thereby made replacements for Jesus or his disciples. A direct encounter with Jesus was still required. Hopefully the astonishment of the crowds would gradually serve to lead more and more people to have such an encounter. But if the crowds would again stumble, misunderstand, and get in the way, it didn't finally matter. Jesus always had a higher plan that could work around all obstacles and barriers. And he does for us too, we who desperately need to learn to listen to him more than to the world.
“Did God really tell you not to eat
from any of the trees in the garden?”
We really need to know what God actually said. As we can see in the first reading, the enemy's strategy is to make us lose confidence in what we've heard, along with our trust in the goodness of the one who said it. If we don't make listening to the word of God our firm purpose we will easily become forgetful and possibly even resentful of God and what he has said. Then it will seem that, rather than helping us, he is holding out on us. And that won't lead us anywhere we want to be.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened,
and they realized that they were naked;
so they sewed fig leaves together
and made loincloths for themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment