“To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.” Psalm 28:1 Have you ever felt that God is deaf to you? That even if you pray, the Lord does not seem to listen?
Has it ever felt that God is so silent that you could just die? When we face illness we feel how frail and weak we are and we desire for the Lord to hear us, so we pray be not deaf to me. When disappointments in life pile up and we feel overwhelmed by the challenges before us, we see so clearly that without the Lord’s help we will quickly fail. O Lord hear the voice of my pleas for mercy.
And not only do we fear that Jesus is not listening to us, but we also struggle to ourselves hear God’s Word. Why else would Isaiah chapter 35 provide a message to those who have an anxious heart, that they should Be Strong and Fear not? An anxious heart hears and sees only what an go wrong and what is dangerous and unsafe. With an anxious heart we may not hear God’s Word, on account of our sin our ears may be deaf to hear the Word.
The message for us in God’s Word today is that especially when we are weak and helpless and when we cry to the Lord for mercy- especially then is the Lord near us. Psalm 146:8 “The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.”
In our gospel lesson we have before us a vivid picture of the care Jesus has for those who are deaf. Put yourself there in the gospel narrative. Imagine what the world looked like and felt like for the deaf man in the region of the Decapolis near the sea of Galilee, nearly 2000 years ago who Jesus healed.
The villagers brought the deaf man to Jesus. The man saw the people begging before Jesus on his behalf, asking for Jesus to lay hands on him. The man did not communicate anything himself and before he knew it Jesus took him to a private place away from the crowds. If you are without hearing it is unsettling to be in a large crowd where without your hearing you rely on your sight for social cues as to what is going on, and you cannot see everyone all at once.
Jesus took him aside from the overstimulation of the crowd and laid his touch on him in the quiet solitude. Jesus placed his fingers in his ears and touched his tongue as well, the very locations where the man’s body was not functioning. As the deaf man saw Jesus right in front of him working on his ears and loosening his tongue he could see and feel Jesus sigh and look up to heaven.
“Ephthatha” The power of God’s Word had immediate result, he could now hear Jesus’ message to him, ears no longer shall you be closed, be open.
There is something extraordinary about hearing restored to the deaf. Where once there was only silence, now a chorus of noise. We attempt to experience the slightest reward of hearing things for the first time in a while. During Lent we stop singing Alleluias. After 6 weeks , when we sing This is the Feast, when the organ sings that familiar melody, we are reminded of the chorus of heaven, the Revelation Song in which the hymn is based. Imagine the joy of hearing this song for the first time that you have heard anything at all!
After the man received his hearing and had the gift of speech he heard the Son of God tell him to keep this healing miracle a secret. This act of mercy Jesus performed was a sign that the Messiah is here: We heard from Isaiah chapter 35 Then shall the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, then shall the lame man leap like a dear, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
The man appeared to have sung for joy after Jesus healed him as we hear in the final verse of our gospel lesson: “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
Jesus says to us in His Word, “Never shall I leave you, never shall I forsake you.” And yet too often we carry on as if we are all alone in the world, as if Jesus does not hear our pleas for mercy. We feel as though the burdens we carry belong to ourselves alone. It is like we are wearing headphones and someone in the room says something and you don’t realize someone is talking until they enter your field of vision and wave their arms. We are listening to something else so often and our ears are closed to God’s Word.
In the hardness of our hearts we often do not hear God’s Word, just as Jesus taught about the purpose of parables
12 so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”
Have you ever noticed when your ears are stopped up? Have you ever noticed the hardness of your heart? Maybe there is anger you are holding inside you toward someone and you don’t have a lot of space in the moment to hear God’s Word. Or maybe there is pride, where you are so busy telling yourself why you are right, that there is not much room for you to hear the correction of God’s Word.
And just as important our ears can be stopped from hearing the good news of the gospel. When you only hear in your mind how much you have failed everyone, when you see yourself as a disappointment, when you feel you have let God down in so many ways, you may struggle to hear and believe that you are perfectly loved by God.
You see, just as Jesus sighed and looked up into heaven before he opened the ears of the deaf man, Jesus sighed in love for you. He sighed and groaned in agony and looked up to heaven and said it is finished, as he paid the price of our sins on the cross.
Although our sinful nature seeks to reject God, His love is unrelenting. The Father raised Jesus from the grave, so that our rejection of Jesus would not be the final word. Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit on the disciples so that their forsaking him would not be the final word. And our Triune God claimed you as His own in the waters of Holy Baptism, so that your sin would not be the final word.
Just as the curtain of the temple was torn at the crucifixion, the barrier that stops us from hearing God has also been destroyed. Jesus has taken the ultimate wrecking ball to the walls we put up. The hardness of our hearts is broken down layer by layer as we come before Jesus in Word and Sacrament, as we take in His Body and Blood and truly hear in faith that this is his body broken for us, this is his blood shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins.
It has been hard going through the transition from one music director to substitute organists and waiting on who may fill the position, whether someone we have met or someone new that the Lord brings to us. It was also an unexpected road bump to receive information in recent months about the repair of our steeple. The barriers of keeping our congregation as healthy and vibrant seem overwhelming day in and day out. But we must remember God’s Word is open to us. There is absolutely no barrier that keeps us from hearing his Word. If you do best reading on your own time make sure to clean out what stands in your way.
To prosper as a church must be centered on hearing his Word, because we cannot control how many people attend on a Sunday or how well balanced our budget is. If its just about keeping the church afloat, if that is our only focus we are missing what God has to say to us in our lives here and now. By the Holy Spirit’s power, we can hear God’s Word as if we are hearing it for the first time, with the same joy of the man who heard for the first time.
So as we come to Jesus this day, We pray, “Lord let your merciful ears be open to the prayers of your humble servants. Lord be our strength, Lord be our Rock when we call to you.” Amen.