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Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Pastor Thomas Reeder

Genesis 2:18-24

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 26, 2021

“Oh That We Had Meat to Eat!” (Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29)

“Oh that we had meat to eat!” Oh that we had meat we could afford to buy! Have you looked at the price of meat lately? I have. I was at the grocery store the other day, and the prices for all kinds of meat are very high right now: steak, ground beef, pork, even chicken. It confirmed what I read in a news article recently. Prices for meat have skyrocketed this year. Across the nation, beef prices have surged a whopping 12% over the last year. Pork prices have jumped almost 10%. Chicken, 7%. Looking at those price increases might almost drive one to becoming a vegan. Well, almost. I wouldn’t go that far.

“Oh that we had meat to eat!” But we would not be the first ones to cry that. The ancient Israelites said the same thing back during their wilderness wanderings. And they said it as a complaint against God and against his servant Moses. We heard it in the Old Testament reading for today from Numbers 11. “Now the rabble that was among [the children of Israel] had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, ‘Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.’”

“Oh That We Had Meat to Eat!” Was it just the ancient Israelites who complain like this? Or maybe we do too. Our text today serves as both a warning and an encouragement for us. It’s a warning against ingratitude and unbelief. But it’s also an encouragement for us to find our forgiveness in Christ and to give thanks to God for how he does provide for us.

My friends, you and I are like those Israelites. We too complain against God. We too cry out, in one way or another, “Oh that we had meat to eat!” Or maybe it’s not meat. “Oh that we had more money in our bank account!” “Oh that I had a new car!” Or a boat. Or a new kitchen counter. Whatever. We’re never satisfied with what we have. In that respect, we’re a lot like the children of Israel.

Now their situation was like this: The Lord had led his people Israel out of bondage in Egypt, through his servant Moses. God was bringing them up to the land he had promised to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel had seen the Lord’s faithfulness to his promises of old. The Lord had heard their cry for deliverance. He remembered his promises. And he brought them out of bondage with a mighty hand. He brought them to Sinai and made a covenant with them there. He stayed with them, even though they had shown themselves to be an adulterous people. The Lord provided for them along the way in the wilderness, on the way to the Promised Land. He provided manna from heaven, quail in the desert, and water from a rock. He had done these things for them for years now, and he would continue to do so. The Lord was more gracious to them than they deserved. And he had promised them that the land he would bring them into would be a land flowing with milk and honey and all sorts of goodness and abundance.

And yet they complained. They grumbled and groused and kvetched. They complained that the Lord’s provision was not as good as the food they remembered from back in Egypt. “We’re sick of this manna,” they murmured. “At least back in Egypt we had tastier food!” The irony, of course, was that back in Egypt they were slaves! And here the Lord had given them freedom and was bringing them up to a good land where they would have plenty of food. Yet they wanted to go back to Egypt. That was more familiar to them, even though it meant slavery. So they griped and groused and grumbled.

As I say, this is a picture of us. We too grumble and grouse and gripe. We complain and murmur. If we didn’t have something to complain about, we’d probably complain about that! “Why doesn’t God give us more to complain about? We’re feeling a little short-changed here, God!” What an unruly, ungrateful flock we can be!

But not content just to complain against God, Israel also took it out on their pastor, Pastor Moses. He made a convenient target. Now I don’t want to turn this into a pastor’s pity party here, because every pastor knows there are things he could have done better. But the point is, when we grumble against God, we often take out our frustrations on the people around us. It’s been like that from the beginning. Adam blamed Eve and thus was blaming God, who had given the woman to him. Eve, in turn, blamed the serpent. You and I always want to blame somebody else for our own failings and shortcomings.

We grumble and complain, we fight and quarrel. Like Israel, we wanna go back to Egypt. We’re tempted to return to the ways of the world. We think the grass is greener there. Oh, we have seen the Lord’s faithfulness. We have heard his promises. We have received his provision. Yet we want to go back to Egypt. We would rather return to slavery of sin. At least that seemed familiar. Our old nature wants to go back to the ways of the world. The worldlings we know are our friends and neighbors. We want to fit in and blend in. We want to be like them. The surrounding culture calls out to us, like a seductive siren beckoning us to the rocky shoals. So we say, “Who needs church? Who needs this wilderness waybread that we get here? We’re tired of this, this–what is it, ‘manna’? ‘Oh that we had meat to eat!’ Let us go back to the fleshpots of Egypt!”

Think about how we envy the people of this world: “Why, they have their weekends entirely free! They don’t feel like they have to go to church! Hey, I could sleep in on Sunday mornings!” “You know, the people of this world have a lot more disposable income to spend on things they want, like new cars and boats and kitchen counters. They don’t get guilted into putting their hard-earned money into the offering plate!” “Think of it! Nobody would ask me to serve in some church office! Wouldn’t life be great!” “No more dusty old hymns and the boring old liturgy. Who needs all that sin-and-grace stuff? No, if I’ve gonna have a little dab of religion, I’d rather have stuff that appeals to my self-interest. A church that offers entertainment, lots of programs, and maybe a fitness center. Word and Sacraments? No, bread and circuses!” “Oh that we had meat to eat!”

The warning for us here is that we not fall back into unbelief. If we tire of God’s ways and long for the ways of the world, the danger is, we may just get what we wish for. And that would be a disaster. It is better for us to enter into life subsisting on the manna that God gives than to feast on the fatness of the world and be cast into hell. The journey that God leads us on may not always be easy or luxurious, but it is the only path that leads to life.

And so here also is the encouragement for us. Our gracious God does not cast us aside, even though we have grumbled and complained against him. For there is one who makes intercession for us. Just as Moses interceded for Israel, so our Lord Jesus Christ intercedes for us. Jesus pleads on our behalf that we would be saved eternally, and we are! We are saved from God’s righteous anger against ungrateful grumblers. By grace we are saved for everlasting life in the Promised Land of heaven. Christ our ascended Savior even now is interceding for us. His holy blood pleads for us before God’s throne of grace.

Moses felt the burden of the sins of his rebellious people. In a much greater way, Jesus bore the burden of the sins of the whole world and carried that unbearable burden to the cross. There he bled and died for us. Now the weight of sin is lifted from our shoulders, and we are free. Hell holds no terror for us. Satan has no power over us. The Holy Spirit renews our minds and hearts. He renews our words and our attitudes. God’s promises enliven our steps and lift our drooping spirits, as we wend our way through the wilderness of this world. The sure hope of heaven lifts our vision beyond the horizon of the humdrum. The lifeblood of love flows through our veins, and we now are able to love others with the love we ourselves have received from God.

Brothers and sisters, Christ Jesus is your freedom and contentment. Jesus is your provision along the way. He is your promise of the sweet and blessed country to come. He cleanses you from complaining and gives you grace in place of grumbling. Jesus is the living bread that comes down from heaven. Eat of his flesh by faith, and you shall live forever.

Instead of grumbling, now our mouths will be filled with an attitude of gratitude. Meat prices may be up, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to starve. We still have more than enough to eat. “The eyes of all wait upon Thee, O Lord; and Thou givest them their meat in due season.” Yes, you and I believe that God “gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.”

And on top of all those First-Article gifts, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We have forgiveness, life, and the sure hope of everlasting salvation. So, what do we have to complain about? Not much. Not nearly enough to outweigh the eternal blessings that are ours, as we make our way through the wilderness to the Promised Land.

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 19, 2021

“Wisdom from Above: Humble Yourself, Serve Others” (James 3:13 – 4:10; Mark 9:30-37)

In the Epistle for today, St. James asks, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” Well, I suppose all of us would like to be considered wise and understanding. To have people compliment us on how smart we are and what good decisions we make. And in the Gospel reading for today, Jesus says, “If anyone would be first.” Well, I suppose all of us would like to be first. We like it when we’re in the top spot. To be wise, to be first, to be great–we like it when we achieve those things and are recognized for it.

The only problem is, that’s not the way it goes in God’s kingdom. If you want to be great in God’s kingdom, learn to be the servant of all. That’s counter-intuitive to the ways of this world, where people are pumped up with loads and loads of self-esteem. But in the kingdom of God, lowliness goes along with holiness. Humility and meekness are the virtues that are praised and prized. We’ll see that now from both James and Jesus, under the theme, “Wisdom from Above: Humble Yourself, Serve Others.”

Listen first to what James says: “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

Notice here that wisdom is not just a matter of being smart or knowing a lot of stuff. Rather, true wisdom will show itself in how we live, in our character and our conduct. This is the wisdom that comes down from above, heavenly wisdom, God’s kind of wisdom. This is how God would have his Christians to think and act.

How about you? How do you think in your inner thoughts, those thoughts that are hidden from others, but are not hidden from God? Is there some selfishness in there? Maybe a lot of selfishness, in one form or another. What about jealousy, when we envy the praise or the good things that others are getting? When this self-seeking attitude works its way into our relationships with other people–in our church, in our friendships, in our family, in our marriage–what is the result? Disorder. Conflict. Things get out of whack. Harmony is disrupted. Bitterness. Unforgiveness. Resentment.

James says: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” Do you recognize this bad fruit in your life? Have you seen it disturb the harmony in a marriage, a family, a friendship, in a congregation? This is not the wisdom from above. This is, rather, in the words of James, “earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” The devil loves nothing better than to stir up conflict and dissent and disharmony among brothers and sisters. It takes our eyes off the Lord. It takes our eyes off of serving our neighbor. You and I get turned in on ourselves, at the expense of everything else. This is not good.

So, what do we do when we recognize this tendency in ourselves? In a word, repent. James tells us: “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord.”

“Humble yourselves,” but there’s more. “Humble yourselves before the Lord,” James says, “and he will exalt you.” Yes, the Lord will exalt you; he will lift you up. This is the grace of God, his unmerited favor and forgiveness. As James writes: “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’”

God’s grace is such that he forgives our failures to love and to serve. He forgives our selfishness. God is in the business of forgiving and cleansing sinners like you and me. “He gives more grace.” Indeed, God gives his only Son! Grace and truth and wisdom come through God’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The wisdom that comes down from above comes in the one “who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven.” Christ Jesus, the Son of God incarnate–he is God’s wisdom in the flesh. He came to rescue us from ourselves. And he did that by laying down his life on our behalf. Jesus was lifted up, but he was lifted up on a cross. He suffered death as the sacrifice for all the sinners of the world–including you and me.

Jesus told his disciples: “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” Do you understand what this means? Jesus’ death and resurrection does the job! What Christ came to do is complete! Mission fulfilled! Sins covered, completely forgiven. Life triumphs, the Christ-life that lives forever, that triumphs over death and even now reigns in life. Therefore, you are a new person, dear Christian. You’ve been joined to Jesus in baptism. There is a new you available. A “you” that will live for others and not only for self. A “you” that will serve the God who has redeemed you. And now, in Christ, you are willing and able to do so. This is the renewing of your mind, the transforming of your thinking.

This new nature is manifested in our relationships. “The meekness of wisdom,” James calls it. Only, don’t mistake meekness for weakness. This is not a flaw. This is a strength of character, to be meek. In the Beatitudes, Jesus commended meekness, when he said, “Blessed are the meek.” The word “meekness” means “gentleness” or “humility.” Meekness is to be like Jesus. It is to be so strong and secure that you are willing to take the lower part, in humility, to bend down and serve others. This is strength of character. It is to be secure in who you are in Christ, so that you don’t have to be always grasping and looking out for Number One. It is to take the lower part in service to others. Your strength and security and confidence are found in Christ, and nothing can shake that. So now you are freed up to serve. This is a good thing. It is pleasing to God.

Jesus describes this meek, humble servanthood when he talks to his disciples in the Gospel reading for today. They were quarreling about who was the greatest among them. Same old, same old for these guys. So Jesus turns things upside-down on them, which is really rightside-up. He says: “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Huh? Why are you talking in riddles, Jesus? The servant is really the greatest? The one who lets himself be last is really first? But you know, I’m beginning to get this! For who does this sort of thing more than Jesus himself? He came, not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. There is no greater servant than Jesus himself.

And Jesus would have his disciples do likewise. So he takes a little child and sets it in their midst. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” So, brothers and sisters, do you want to be great? Then serve a little child. Serve somebody that nobody pays attention to. Visit a lonely neighbor. These people may not get you anywhere. They may seem rather insignificant–powerless people, on the fringe. But if they’ve got no one to look after them, maybe God wants to take care of them. God kind of has a thing about caring for the poor and lonely. He cares about the last and the least and the lost. And maybe God will do that caring through you. Think about how that might happen. Keep your eyes open this week for opportunities. God will tap you on the shoulder and remind you who you are in Christ. Because you are able to love people now. You are strong enough to be meek. This puts a different perspective on things. But this is true wisdom. This is wise living.

Earlier in James’s epistle, it says: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” So, what do you say? Let’s take God up on his promise. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s ask God for the wisdom from above, the wisdom that shows itself in humbling ourselves and serving others.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 12, 2021

“To What Shall We Compare the Tongue?” (James 3:1-12)

Do you know you carry around with you, all the time, a very dangerous weapon? It’s not very big, but it can do a lot of damage. And it’s a weapon that can be very hard to control. In fact, you and I quite often do not use it as carefully as we should. What is this dangerous, hard-to-control, little weapon you have on your person? Of course, I’m talking about your tongue. And so is St. James. He’s talking about it, also, in our Epistle reading for today. So let’s look at that now, under the theme: “To What Shall We Compare the Tongue?”

James starts out by talking about how pastors use their tongues. He says: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” In other words, those who teach in the church have a special–and heavy–responsibility. They must know the right doctrine and teach it correctly. A pastor should be careful about what he says, for how he speaks will influence people–hopefully in the right direction in their faith and life, and not in the wrong.

Then James goes on from there to expand his scope from pastors to all Christians and to the things that we say. He writes: “For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.” We all stumble. That includes you and me. We all mess up, especially in the things that we say. The tongue is the hardest thing in our body for us to control.

To what shall we compare the tongue? Well, James makes several comparisons. He first compares it to the bit and bridle used to control a horse: “If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.” Think of the size of a bit that is put into a horse’s mouth. It’s not very big. It doesn’t look like it could do very much. But with it, a rider is able to guide a huge and powerful horse that weighs over a thousand pounds. The rider can make that horse go in whatever direction he chooses.

Your tongue is like that bit and bridle. How you choose to use your tongue can steer the whole direction of your life. You can go down the straight road or you can veer off into a wrong turn, all depending on how you use your tongue. Are there things that you have said that you later regret? Words that have ruined relationships? That have cost you a job or a promotion or a career advancement? Words that have cost you a marriage? We need to think before we speak and use our tongues wisely.

James goes on with another comparison: “Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.” A giant ship is controlled by a relatively small rudder. By controlling the rudder, the captain can avoid dangerous shoals and the rocks and the reefs. If he doesn’t–if he’s not alert, if he turns the rudder just a slight bit in the wrong direction–he could hit an iceberg and go down like the Titanic.

So it is with the tongue. We need to be aware of how we’re using our tongues at all times. “Loose lips sink ships,” the saying goes. And that applies not only to battleships but to other ships as well. Loose lips sink friendships. Loose lips sink relationships. Loose lips can even sink church fellowships. A loose tongue can sink all of those “ships.”

James continues with another comparison: “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.” Think of it: Just a small match or an untended campfire, a few smoldering embers–if you combine that with a tinderbox of dry wood, the next thing you know, you’ve got a big blaze, out of control. Think of those wildfires out west that always seem to come up around this time of year. The land is dry, the temperatures are hot, and it just takes a careless camper to set off a forest fire.

Smokey the Bear used to say, “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Well, maybe you can’t, not by yourself, that is. Maybe you need some help. See, it’s not “only you,” but it’s the new you, the new person you are in Christ, who can better stop those fires from starting.

You need help. James says in our text, the tongue is “set on fire by hell.” The devil tempts us to use our tongue in evil ways, to deny our Lord and to damn our brother. Besides the devil, the world around us–what we hear from the media and the surrounding culture–the world would lead us to use our tongues in wrong, ungodly ways. Then there’s our own sinful flesh. Our tongue wants to speak according to our selfish desires. “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of,” and that’s true whether for good or for ill.

Brothers and sisters, we need God’s help to control our tongues. To what shall we compare the tongue? Well, compare it to the tongue of Christ, and you’ll see a great contrast. In the Old Testament Reading for today, the prophet Isaiah speaks of the Servant of the Lord, which is a prophecy about Jesus. And this Servant says: “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught.” How Jesus used his tongue was always wise, never inappropriate. When Jesus was being tempted by the devil, he overcame the tempter with the word of the Lord: “Thus it is written,” he said. When Jesus needed to denounce the scribes and the Pharisees, he called a spade a spade and said, “Woe to you, you hypocrites!” or “You brood of vipers!” Christ could justly speak a prophetic condemnation when that was what was called for.

But Jesus also used his tongue to comfort troubled sinners and to bring them a word of peace and forgiveness and refreshment. Again, from the Isaiah prophecy: “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.” This is just what Jesus did with his tongue. Remember how he said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus is speaking this comforting word to you today. Dear friends, listen to his voice. Are you weary from the weight of your sins? Come to Jesus your Savior. Are you loaded down with the burden of your conscience, knowing how often you have not used your tongue in the right way? Knowing how you have hurt the people around you with your words? How you’ve messed up your own life by the stupid things you have said? How you have failed to give God the glory he is owed?

Beloved, come to Christ today and lay your burden down. Jesus took the weight of your sins and the burden of your guilt, and he carried it to the cross for you. He died in your place, the holy Son of God did, taking all the judgment on himself, so that it would not fall on you. Jesus speaks a word of forgiveness for us sinners: “Father, forgive them,” he says. He speaks the word of forgiveness to you, into your ears: “Take, eat; take, drink; this is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” And with this forgiveness, you have life, live everlasting and a new life even now.

A new life, and a new tongue. Now the Holy Spirit will lead you to use your tongue in new and creative ways. Not to tear others down, but to build them up. To bless others with the things that you say. To praise God for his many mercies. To pray for our world and for those in need. The Spirit gives us tongues to speak words of blessing, words that will be helpful, not hurtful. You have been given a new tongue, my fellow baptized.

And we have a new awareness of our old sinful nature, with which we still need to contend. We pray the Lord’s help to control our tongues, for even as Christians “we all stumble in many ways.” Our prayer will be like that of the psalmist who said: “Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord, and guard the door of my lips.” Or as we sang in the hymn: “Keep me from saying words that later need recalling; guard me lest idle speech may from my lips be falling.” We can pray a prayer like this: “Lord, help me to control my tongue, to keep it from uttering wrong and hurtful things. And forgive me for the times I have done that. Help me to use my tongue to speak forth good and helpful things. For that is your will for me, and you have given me a new nature and a new tongue to do just that.”

Brothers and sisters, God will answer such a prayer. He does indeed forgive you. And in a moment, you will receive on your tongue the very body and blood of Christ with which he won your forgiveness. Be assured of that.

To what shall we compare the tongue? A bit? A rudder? A fire? Now in Christ we can make a new comparison. When it’s a tongue that has been drenched in the waters of Holy Baptism–and yours has–your tongue will be like a spring of fresh water, bringing blessing and refreshment into the dry places of life, for you and those around you. For in your tongue, God has given you a wonderful instrument with which you can praise your Lord and bless your neighbor. It is small. It is powerful. And you carry it around with you at all times. I’m talking about your tongue.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 5, 2021

“Jesus Speaks His ‘Ephphatha’ to Us” (Mark 7:31-37)

In the Holy Gospel for today from Mark 7, people bring to Jesus a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Jesus says to him, “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened.” And, sure enough, the man’s ears are opened, his tongue is loosed, and he speaks plainly.

Now what you’ll often get in sermons based on this text is something like this: “Friends, our ears are deaf to God’s Word, and our tongues fail to speak plainly the good news to our neighbors. We need Jesus to speak his ‘Ephphatha’ to us and open our ears and loose our tongues.” In other words, the preacher just spiritualizes the text and basically ignores the physical healing.

We ought not to do that. The physical healing itself is important. Oh, we can get to a spiritual application also, but we shouldn’t skip over the actual healing of the man’s hearing and speaking. And we won’t. Today we’ll see how Jesus heals us both physically and spiritually, under the theme: “Jesus Speaks His ‘Ephphatha’ to Us.”

So the first thing we should say about this miracle, this healing, is that it really happened. Jesus really did open the deaf man’s ears and loose his tongue. This was a real physical healing. Sometimes we’re so eager to “spiritualize” this miracle and make applications about “opened ears” and “loosened tongues” that we forget the primary point, which is that Jesus really did a physical healing, enabling the man to hear and to speak clearly.

Listen, God our Creator cares about our bodies as well as our souls. The fact that our bodies are messed up and don’t work right is a symptom of our deeper spiritual problem, which is that we have sinned against God and come under the curse of futility and death. Our bodies are breaking down and dying as a result. But God cares about us in our misery. He has mercy upon us. This is why Christ, the Son of God, came down from heaven: to heal our souls and our bodies, to redeem us from sin and all its terrible consequences.

And so Jesus healing this deaf and dumb man’s infirmities is a sign. It’s a sign, a signal, pointing to who this man Jesus is and what he has come to do. It tells anyone who knows their Bibles that Jesus is fulfilling the great messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. For the Lord God had promised to send the Messiah, who would usher in a great age of blessing and restoration. We heard one of those messianic prophecies this morning in the reading from Isaiah 35. We heard that these signs would accompany the arrival of the Messiah: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”

“The ears of the deaf unstopped”; “the tongue of the mute sing for joy.” This is precisely what Jesus is doing in our text. The message is clear: This man Jesus is the Messiah. He has come to do the work of healing our bodies and restoring creation and bringing in the end-time age of blessing.

And so it is. Jesus fulfills the Isaianic signs, as they are called, and thus demonstrates that that he is indeed the Messiah. God’s kingdom of blessing has come in his person. These miracles of restoration and healing are an advance down-payment, a sneak preview, a guarantee, of the restoration in full that Christ will do when he comes again at the last day. For now, we have these examples recorded in Scripture to tell us what is in store for us and to give us hope and encouragement to carry on until that day.

God has mercy on us in our misery. Jesus is the proof. Sometimes we may think that God has forgotten about us, that he doesn’t care about our hurts and our sorrows. But then we look at what Jesus is doing in the gospels–restoring creation, forgiving sins, healing broken bodies–and we’re reminded that God really does care. If we wonder, “Well, why doesn’t Jesus heal us now? Why just those people back then?” Well, even back then, not everyone who was sick got healed, and those that did get healed would end up dying from something else later on. But these examples of Jesus healing the sick that we have tell us what’s awaiting us, and on an even grander scale.

And that’s because Jesus deals with the underlying problem beneath all our problems. There is a deeper spiritual problem that underlies all our physical ailments. And it is that we all are born sinners, and therefore things don’t work right. The particulars vary from person to person, but the basic problem is the same. We all have sinned. We have not listened to God’s Word, our heart has not trusted God, and we have rebelled against his will. It is that sinful nature we all have, which produces all kinds of actual sins. And for that to get fixed, God has to do the job. We can’t fix it on our own.

That’s why Jesus came. He is the one who fixes it. Christ cared for us so much that he went to the cross to get the job done. The Son of God dying for sinners is the only solution that works. “He has done all things well,” the people said when Jesus healed the deaf and dumb man. Yes, and even more so! Jesus has truly done all things well. As in the work of creation, we see what God has done, and we say, “and behold, it was very good.”

“He has done all things well.” And the supreme thing Jesus has done well is to rescue and save a world of dying sinners. He rescues and saves you! Jesus died for you! He rose for you! He forgives all your sins. He will heal you of all your diseases. When he comes again, he will raise up your lifeless body, even as he himself rose from the dead. You have this hope even now. That’s what the healing of the deaf and dumb man is telling you today.

Assured of our physical healing, now we can move to the so-called spiritual application of our story. Jesus speaks his “Ephphatha” to us, so that our ears would be opened spiritually, opened to hear God’s Word aright. “Ephphatha”: Jesus says this word to us, so that our tongues would be loosed to glorify God and sing his praise. Jesus speaks his mighty “Ephphatha” to us, and his gospel word opens our ears to hear and our tongues to sing.

In the ancient church, at the time of St. Ambrose in the fourth century, when a person was baptized, the pastor would take his fingers and touch the person’s ears. The pastor would say that very word “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” The application was clear: God is at work in Holy Baptism. The Holy Spirit opens our ears spiritually, to be able to hear God’s Word in the way we ought. Dear Christian, this is what happened in your baptism. Your ears have been opened. The Spirit calls you to repentance, and you hear what he’s saying. The Spirit assures you of God’s forgiveness for Christ’s sake, and you hear that good news and sing for joy. Your ears have been opened and your tongue loosed.

Opened ears and loosened tongue, spiritually. Martin Luther makes this point in a sermon he preached on this text. Luther says: “Christ shows us that he opens ears and unbinds tongues. He seeks to perform this work daily in his church. . . . To this day the greatest miracle and mightiest work is giving a person ears that gladly hear God’s Word and a tongue that honors God and does not blaspheme.

“Many people are a thousand times worse off than this poor deaf and dumb man. They have ears that are really stopped up. They hear God’s Word and yet really do not hear it, nor do they want to. But those who hear God’s Word gladly and to whom Christ says, as to the deaf man, ‘Ephphatha,’ are helped. . . . God has shown us no other way by which we can come into heaven than through his precious Word, the Holy Gospel. Whoever gladly and diligently hears and receives it and who loves and delights in it will be helped.

“God also stirs our tongues and causes us to speak. . . . [But] our tongues will not be loosed, our ears opened, faith in our hearts begun, without the outward, oral preaching of the Word and external Sacraments. For parish pastors and preachers are the fingers of our Lord God, the servants and spittle through which he looses our tongues and opens our ears. When you hear them, God says to your heart, as to this deaf man, ‘Ephphatha!’ so that your ears are opened, your tongue unsticks, and you become a hearing, speaking person, no longer deaf and mute.”

Brothers and sisters, Jesus says to each one of us today, “Ephphatha,” “Be opened.” And our ears are opened to hear the good news. It is good news both physically and spiritually. Healing of both body and soul is the gift that Christ has for us. He forgives all our sins by his blood shed on the cross. He will raise up our bodies whole and fully restored, everything working the way it should, in the resurrection at the last day. This is our faith. This is our hope. And this is what causes our tongues to sing for joy. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.