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INJ
St Mark 7:31-37
Sealed for the Resurrection
Divine Service
12th Sunday after Trinity Sunday | September 3rd, 2006
Dear Daniel, family and friends of the newly baptized, Dear friends of Jesus,
Isaiah the prophet promised this about Jesus long ago, "in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness." [Isaiah 29:18] So it comes to pass that the Lord Jesus is pleased and able to heal all kinds of sicknesses. In our Gospel text appointed from ancient times for this Sunday recounts the history of Jesus healing the deaf mute, and this is a healing unlike any other.
"And [Jesus] took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched His tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly." [7:33-35] It seems that Jesus spits on
His finger and puts it in the man's ear, and speaks word, "Ephphatha," that's Aramaic for "open up," and at the Lord's touch and His Word the deaf and mute man is the man who used to be deaf and mute. Indeed the Lord Jesus does all things well!
But this all seems a bit strange, doesn't it, the spit on the finger, and that as strange at this seems, here's something that seems even stranger. This text was taken up by the church in the ancient baptismal liturgies. Before entering the church, the pastor would take the candidate for baptism, baby or adult, touch his finger to his tongue and then his tongue to the candidate's ear and quote Jesus' words. Here's how it say it in Luther's Order of Baptism from 1523, "Then the priest shall take spittle with his finger, touch the right ear therewith and say: Ephphatha, that is, Be thou opened." [Luther, American Edition, 53.99]
What, then, does this text, the healing of the deaf mute, have to do with baptism?
First, it reminds us of the mystery that God uses means, physical elements, to do His work.
He used the blood of the slaughtered lamb, spread over the doorposts, to save the children of Israel from the angel of death. [Exodus 12] He used Moses' rod, lifted over the water, to divide the Red Sea and make a path of dry ground for His church. [Exodus 14:16] He used the bronze serpent, lifted up on a pole by Moses, to heal the people. [Numbers 21:4-9] He used a coal, taken from the incense, to purge Isaiah's sin. [Isaiah 6:1-9] He used the water of the humble Jordan River to wash away Naaman's leprosy. [2 Kings 5:1-14]
This is true in the New Testament as well. Jesus will use spit or mud or a well or the hem of His garment or His touch to do the work of healing. In the book of the Acts of the Apostles, Peter's shadow [Acts 5:15] and Paul's handkerchiefs and aprons healed people [Acts 19:11,12]. This is how that Lord chooses to deliver His gifts, through means, and it is no
different today.
Daniel, today the Lord has used the humble means of waters to heal you of your sin and rescue you and save you. By the means of water connected to His Word and promise you have been forgiven and called God's own child. You are the child of the heavenly Father, the brother of Jesus. As your earthly father, I have handed on to you sin and death. You have inherited from me what I inherited from my father, and he from his all the way back to Adam, namely death. But today your heavenly Father, though the means of this water and His word, adopts you as His child, and gives you His inheritance: life, eternal life and salvation in the forgiveness of all of your sins.
And Daniel, this is true of all of your new brothers and sisters in Christ, of all the Lord's dear people, the Lord has work in them, in us, through simple means, to give out His gifts of salvation. We all together rejoice in the same gifts of our Lord Jesus, life and salvation and forgiveness which He has given to all of us wrapped in water and His word.
And there is another way that this Gospel text of the healing of the deaf mute teaches us about baptism. Jesus, in this miracle and by all His miracles, would point us through the cross to the resurrection. The healings that Jesus did in His life were only the beginnings, the very slightest beginning of the great miracles and gifts He will give on the last day in the resurrection.
The deaf mute man who Jesus restored became deaf and mute again when his body died, and this is true of all of Jesus' miracles, they lasted only for a short time. Even Lazarus and the others whom Jesus raised from the dead, these would all die again; none are alive today.
Jesus' first coming was to sink Himself into our flesh and blood and sickness and sin and death, so that by His death He might overcome the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and rescue us from the fear of death [Hebrews 2:14]. Jesus came for the cross, to suffer the wrath of God that you and I deserve, to stand in our place and know our hell so that we could be set free and made new by the forgiveness of all our sins. In His death Jesus reconciles us to the Father and to make peace between us and God.
So St Paul will preach to the Church in Corinth, and to us, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things are made new." [2 Corinthians 5:17] What does Paul mean when he says, "new creation"? "New" does not mean "young." The way we think of old and new is youth and elderly. Daniel is new; my dad is old, but this is not what Paul means here. Old has to do with creation sunk in sin and death.
When God created the earth in six days it was young, new, and good. There was no sin and no death. But when Adam ate the fruit forbidden by God's Word all of creation was filled with the darkness of sin and death, all things became old. This then, is how we are made new, by Jesus' death destroying and sin forgiving death. It is in the resurrection, when Jesus returns, that He will finally and completely make manifest the destruction of sin and death. Then the deaf and mute man who was healed, and who died, will live forever.
Then Lazarus, who was dead, and then alive, and then dead again, will be alive, completely and perfectly alive, no longer to die. Then, in the resurrection, you and I will be freed of every sickness and illness and weakness as this mortal body of death is stripped away and we are clothed with immortality. Then will be the new heaven and the new earth, as Jesus says at the close of the Scriptures, "Behold, I make all things new." [Revelation 21:5]
But what does this have to do with baptism?
Often times in a furniture store you notice a sign on the back of a chair that says, "Purchased, customer will pick up later." This is how it is in our baptism. The Lord Jesus has redeemed us, purchased and won us with His holy, precious blood, and He has, in our baptism, marked us as His own, and He is coming back to claim us as His own.
In our baptism we are given the Holy Spirit, and sealed for the resurrection. By the sign of the cross on our forehead and our chest we are marked as one redeemed by Christ. It is a sign that says, "Purchased by the Lord Jesus, He will come back to pick up later." Paul comforts us with these words, "In Him [that is, Christ Jesus] you also trusted, after you heard the word of salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory." [Ephesians 1:13-14]
Daniel, you are the Lord Jesus', you are His purchased possession, you belong to Him, and today He has filled you with His Holy Spirit as a sign and seal that you are His, and that He is coming for you. On that day all of your sickness and death will be stripped away, for the Lord Jesus, who does all things well, has done this for you today, the day of
your re-birth.
May the Lord Jesus send us all His Holy Spirit, that we to would be comforted in the midst of our sin and death, that in our baptism He has forgiven all of our sins and sealed us for the great day of the resurrection. Amen.
Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church | Aurora, CO
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