Message preached Sunday, September 20, 2015 from Mark 7:31-57
Theme: Our Lord’s ways of working may seem strange to us at the time; but if we will trust Him, we will end up praising Him in the end.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
This morning, we come to a story about Jesus that is told only by the Gospel writer Mark. And I suspect that, if you are like me, you have always found it a little bit perplexing. It tells the story of a healing that Jesus performed on a needy man. The man’s need was not unlike others that Jesus met. But in this particular case, our Lord’s methods were very different from those in any of the other stories of the healings we’re told about in Scripture.
And I’d like to suggest to you that it’s intentional that we find His methods in this story unusual. In fact, I believe that the strangeness of it all is a key part of the lesson that the Spirit of God wants to teach us from it.
This story is found in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Mark. The Lord had left Galilee, and was making His way up into the northwestern regions of Tyre and Sidon—near modern day Lebanon. He was traveling and ministering in Gentile country. And Mark tells us;
Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee. Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him. And He 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. Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak” (Mark 7:31-37).
It was a wonderful and loving act of healing. But what an unusual way Jesus had of going about it all! Fingers in the ears! Spitting! Touching the tongue! No sooner do we think that we have Jesus’ methods all figured out than He surprises us!
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Now; I don’t know about you, but I find that fact to be a little frustrating at times. When I come to Jesus in prayer, and ask for a need to be met or a problem to be solved, I have confidence that He hears me. I have sure and certain promises in Scripture that He does. And I even have a daydream, in my praying, of how it will be that He will answer my request. I pretty much expect every time that things will go the way I anticipate they should go; and that He will answer my prayers in a predictable way—along the lines that I have asked.
But it doesn’t always go that way. In fact, there are times when it doesn’t go at all the way I thought it would. And I find myself wondering, in the midst of such times, if the Lord had even really heard my prayers or was actually at work at all.
You can probably relate to the kind of experiences I have had. I might have a task that I need to perform; and I start off by asking for Him to bless my efforts and make things go well. And then, things begin to go all wrong—or so, at least, it seems to me. The task becomes harder; the challenges are unexpected, and the results aren’t what I anticipated. And I wonder; “Did He not hear me when I asked? Wasn’t He at work?” It turns out, in the end, that He did hear me, and that He was at work, and that He does bless the end result to His glory—but not necessarily in the way I expected. He answers my prayers better than I knew to how to pray them; but at the time, it doesn’t seem that way.
Or I might have asked for a particular need to be met. I remember that Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you . . .” (Matthew 7:7). And so, I ask; and I seek; and I knock. And He is faithful. I always receive, and find, and have doors opened. But I sometimes forget that Jesus didn’t say that I will get exactly what I ask for, or that I will find exactly what I sought, or that the door will open up to exactly what I expected. Sometimes, His answers are much different than my asking or seeking or knocking—always better in the long run; but very often not in the way that I expected.
There’s a great spiritual lesson that I’m learning in all this about our sovereign Master. Jesus’ methods in working in our lives do not have to follow the predictable lines we sometimes set for Him—and His ways of working in one case may be very different than they would be in another. I affirm in this that Jesus Himself is always the same—and always good. He Himself never changes. But if I see Him do a work in one person’s life and bring about a good result, and then ask Him to bring about the same result in my life, and expect Him to do things in the same way each time, I’m going to be in for a surprise. He can’t be made to fit into a box that we make for Him. He is always greater than our limited view of Him. As He says in Isaiah 55:8-9;
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
And so; what I’m learning to do is to trust—to just take it confidently for fact—that when I ask for something from Him, He truly does hear me. I’m learning that if things go differently than I expected, it’s not because He wasn’t listening or isn’t at work. Rather, it’s because He is answering better than I asked, and is at work to bring about His own glory in a way that is far greater than I would have expected. And what needs to happen in me at such times is to trust Him; and to know that His answers to my prayers may take forms that I don’t fully understand while they’re being given; and to expect that when the dust is all cleared, and I see what He accomplished, I will be praising Him for how He brought about His own glory in a way that is far more wonderful than I could have anticipated; and that I will be saying—just like the people of Decaoplis said—“He does all things well!”
I believe that that’s the great lesson of this rather unusual story. Our Lord’s ways of working may seem strange to us. But we can take it by faith that His seemingly-strange ways are purposeful and wonderful; and that, if we will just trust Him and wait, we will end up praising Him for what He has done.
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Look with me a little closer at this story and see how it teaches this to us. Let’s begin by noticing . . .
1. THE NEED THAT WAS PRESENTED TO HIM.
And to appreciate how the need was presented to Him, you need to know a little bit of geography, and perhaps exercise a little bit of memory.
Jesus and His disciples had journeyed away from the regions of Galilee and headed in a northwesterly direction. He had gone up, Mark tells us, to the regions of Tyre and Sidon—into Gentile land. It was in that area, as we saw last week, that He healed the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman who had come to Him. And in verse 31, Mark tells us “Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.” Depending on the translation you are using, it may say that He went through Sidon; and it may say that He went to the Sea of Galilee and into the midst of the Decapolis. But either way, the point is that He was in the region of the Decapolis.
Now; the name “the Decapolis” is a Greek name for “the Ten Cities”. Up in Washington State, we have what we call the “Tri-Cities” area—with three significant cities clustered together. The Decapolis had ten such cities. And the word about Jesus was beginning to spread throughout the whole ‘Ten-Cities’ area. No doubt people had heard about what He had done for the Syro-Phoenician woman, and how He had cast an unclean spirit out of this Gentile woman’s daughter; and that’s part of why they came to Him.
But if you think back a bit in the history of the Gospel of Mark, you’ll remember that they had begun to hear about Him long before then. Do you remember back in Chapter 5; and how He had cast the legion of demon’s out of the man who lived among the tombs in the country of the Gadarenes? Do you remember how—with just a word—Jesus sent the demons out of the man and sent them into a herd of pigs; and how the herd ran down the hill and into the lake? Well; when that was all over, Jesus told the man to go home to his friends and tell them what He had done for him; and Mark writes,
And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled (Mark 5:20).
I believe that the Gentile folks from the Decapolis had recalled the story of His grace that they had heard from the formerly demon-possessed man, were excited to have Jesus in their midst. They had heard about His miracles; and they wanted to see more. And so Mark tells us,
Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him (v. 32).
What were their motives for bringing this man? I have no doubt that there was some measure of concern for him. They wanted him to be healed by Jesus. But I believe there was also a ‘sensational’ motive—to some degree at least—of wanting to actually “see” him be healed by Jesus. I believe that that’s a part of why, later in the story, the Lord tried to get them to stop going around and telling everyone about it. It wouldn’t take long before the mobs of curiosity-seekers would be so great that He wouldn’t be able to get around anymore—and would be pressed by the crowds just as He was in Galilee.
Maybe their motives were good; and maybe, in some respects, they were not the best. But there’s one thing I can’t help noticing. They knew what Jesus could do and came running in faith to Him to see Him do it. And in that respect, these folks from the Decapolis demonstrated much more faith than we typically see people demonstrate today! We—living in America—have a rich history of the works of Jesus. We have lots of copies of the Scriptures; and we know so much more about Him today than they did back then. We should know by now what He can do. But how many of us come running to Him in prayer with our need, with the kind of eager faith that they had, to see Him do it? So often, we turn to just about everything else but Jesus first; and then only come to Him after we have exhausted every other resource and are reduced to desperation.
May God help us to come to Jesus with our needs more often; and to be more like the people of the Decapolis were!
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Well; they came and brought the man to Him. They begged Him to put His hand on him. And why would they ask that? It’s because they already knew what Jesus could do. They had heard the story of how—with just a word—He cast a multitude of evil spirits out of a man. They had heard how—from a distance—He could cast an unclean spirit out of a little girl. They heard about His many other healings and miracles—all done with but a touch of His hand or by merely touching His garment. And so, they brought this man; and expected Him to do the same as He had done before.
But then comes the surprise. Jesus didn’t do as He had done before. In fact, He did things very differently. This is where Mark tells us about . . .
2. THE UNUSUAL METHODS THAT HE USED.
Look at verses 33-34 and at the remarkable ways He went about answering their request and healing the man. First, we notice that He “took him aside from the multitude”. That’s not something that He had done very often. Usually, His miracles were performed where everyone could see. But this time, He pulled the man aside and cared for him privately—away from the curious crowd.
There are more details told to us about this man’s healing in Mark’s account that are usually told to us in other healing stories. And the fact that we know these details would probably have been because there were some eyewitnesses. Since—as tradition has it—Mark received the details of his Gospel from the apostle Peter, it must be that at least Peter was present. But it was otherwise done privately—away from the view of the crowd. Why? Someone has suggested that it was to show particular love to this man—a man who might have, ordinarily, been ignored by everyone else. Or it might have been to keep him from the trauma of having everyone looking at him as a mere side-show attraction. But in any case, it was done in such a way as to deliberately separate him from the crowd that had brought him. How unusual!
And then, we see that Jesus laid hands on the man in a way that we never hear of Him doing with anyone else. In fact, He makes rather intimate contact with his person. He sticks His fingers into the man’s ears; and then spat—perhaps taking some of the spittle upon His fingertip; and then touched the man’s tongue. Obviously, there was something symbolically communicated in those acts. The fingers in the ears had something to do with how Jesus was going to minister to the man’s deafness; and the touching of the tongue—and perhaps the spittle—had something to do with how Jesus was going to deal with His speech impediment. But we’re not told that He did such things with anyone else. And if you don’t think they’re are unusual things to do, try doing them to a stranger on a bus sometime!
You know; those might be the kind of things that would cause someone to push Jesus’ hands away. “Hey; what are you doing, Lord?!! I just wanted You to speak a word of healing over me—or maybe to lay your hands on me! But I don’t get this other stuff! It doesn’t make sense! You’re not doing things the way I asked—the way I expected!” But if the man had thrust Jesus’ hands and fingers away, he might not have been made well. Jesus’ methods toward the man were what they needed to be. And His methods with us are what they need to be in our situation; and we need to let Him do as He knows best—even if we don’t understand why He is doing things that way.
And then, we’re told that our Lord looked up to heaven. Okay; we can get that. He’s making it plain that He was praying to the Father—that He is looking heavenward. But then, He heaved a deep sigh! What’s with that? Is He expressing that He’s tired of being asked? Is He saying that this is somehow burdensome? Is He grieving over the fact that the man had to suffer deafness and a speech impediment in the first place? Is it like the time when He “groaned in His spirit” when He saw the mourners who were grieving at the death of His friend Lazarus in John 11? There are lots of different ideas for why Jesus did it; but no one can say for sure. It stands out as unusual.
And then, after heaving this deep sigh, He said to the man, “Ephphatha”. Jesus spoke in the Aramaic language; and “Ephphatha” is an Aramaic word. Mark made a specific point of it, and had to translate it into Greek for his Greek readers and explain that it meant, “Be opened”. But this man was from the Decapolis—a Greek-speaking region. Why would Jesus issue a command to the man in a language that was different from his own? And what’s more, why would Jesus even issue such a command to the man? Often, Jesus said things like, “Go your way. Your faith has made you well.” But isn’t this a rather unusual command to give to the poor man? Wouldn’t he have ‘been opened’ if he could?
There is much that we’re told of what Jesus did that was very unusual. He didn’t do things in this man’s case as He had done in the case of others. But look at what happened to the man. We’re told, “Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly” (v. 35). Jesus did what the people had asked of Him. He healed the man. But He didn’t do so in the way that He had done in other cases. He didn’t do so in a way that they might have been expecting.
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Now; the fact that these things don’t make sense to us doesn’t mean that there wasn’t sense to them. It might be that every unusual thing that Jesus did in this man’s case was absolutely necessary. In fact, I think we can take it for a fact that everything He did—and even the way that He did them—was absolutely necessary. But the crowd may not have known what the reasons were. And the man may not have known what the reasons were. None of them had to understand Jesus’ methods in order to gain the blessing of them.
And I suggest that that’s a very important lesson for us to learn. When you and I pray and ask for the Lord to do something in our lives, and then, He answers that prayer; but in ways that we don’t expect or understand or that make sense to us—and we then complain to Him about the way He has answered; or even complain that He must not have heard us or that He must not care—then we are not exercising the kind of faith in Him that we should.
What a difference it would make if we would just be still, trust that He heard us, accept that His methods may seem unusual to us, and simply expect that—when it’s all over—we will see how He glorified Himself, and will praise Him for His goodness! There might even be something that you are going through in life right now in which that’s exactly what you need to do.
Let’s go then to the end of the story of our Lord’s seemingly strange ways of working, and see . . .
3. THE PRAISE HE RECEIVED AS A RESULT.
Not everyone would have been present to see the healing. But everyone would have seen the results. The man was hearing, and he was speaking plainly. They were so excited at what they saw that Jesus had to restrain them. Mark tells us, “Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it” (v. 36).
And just as Jesus’ methods were very unusual and unprecedented in this man’s case, so was the reaction of the people. In fact, I would say that Mark describes the reaction of these Gentiles to Jesus in a way that is greater than anything he wrote concerning the reactions of even the Jewish people. He says; “And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak” (v. 37). If you know anything about the Old Testament Hebrew prophetic Scriptures concerning the Messiah, you would know that they were—right then and there—acknowledging that the promised Messiah was in their midst; and that He was fulfilling Scripture before their very eyes!
Truly, Jesus brought great glory to Himself through this man’s need, and as a result of their prayers to Him—but not in a way that they would have expected. If we would only learn to trust Him in His remarkable methods, we will end up praising Him like they did.
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I wouldn’t want to confuse things by telling another story; but I can’t help but thinking about it.
I mentioned earlier the story of Jesus’ miracle of raising His friend Lazarus from the dead. Do you remember how that went? Word had been sent to Him that Lazarus was sick. All that Jesus would have had to do was speak a word, and Lazarus would have been made well. But Jesus delayed in coming to Him. In fact, He waited until Lazarus was dead—and only then did He go to him.
Do you remember how both of Lazsarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, met Him with the words, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Does anyone here this morning doubt that that’s true? Jesus’ ways of working in this story were strange to everyone—even to His closest and dearest friends; and yet He assured them that He came not to merely heal Lazarus, but to raise Him from the dead. As one of our church members has put it well, Jesus sometimes lets our dreams die; so that He can resurrect our hopes to His glory.
And then, when He finally came to the grave of His friend, His methods—at the time—seemed even stranger. He commanded that the tomb be opened. Do you remember what Martha said? She was always concerned about things being ‘proper’. She said, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days” (John 11:39). If I may put it this way, she was so concerned over the unusual and unorthodox request of our Lord that she would have preferred to kept the tomb closed!
But do you remember what Jesus told her—even in the face of all these unusual acts?—even in though she didn’t understand why He was doing what He was doing? He told her,
“Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” (v. 40).
And see it she did; because He then rose her brother gloriously from the grave—displaying to her and to everyone else that Jesus truly is ‘the resurrection and the life’.
Dear brothers and sisters; let’s learn this very important lesson: Our Lord’s ways of working may seem very, very strange to us at the time. But that’s not because of anything wrong with our Lord or His methods. It’s because of the limitations of our own understanding. And if we will trust Him—not trying to put Him in a box, but letting Him do things His way—we will be praising Him in the end!