The healing of the deaf mute

Today’s Gospel reading is about our Lord Jesus Christ’s healing of the deaf man. It is a very simple miracle, but with a huge meaning for all Christians. You can read it in your Bibles in Mark 7:31-37.

“Again [Jesus] left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. 32 And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; 34 then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!)

And [immediately] the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. 36 He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. 37 They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and [the] mute speak.”

Let us back track a bit to our Gospel teaching last Monday, which was the rejection in Nazareth that you can read in Luke 4:16-30. Allow me to reprint the part when our Lord was reading Isaiah. “Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

These two Gospel stories tells us that our Lord Jesus was sent by God the Father to heal the sick, give sight to the blind and proclaim liberty to the captives. So many people went to Jesus bringing them their sick including the blind man who is the main star in today’s Gospel. And as we read what happened, our Lord took him away from the crowd, put a finger on his ears, spat and touched his tongue as if examining him like a doctor does, then he looked up to heaven and said, to the man, “Be opened” and the deaf mute’s speech returned and he spoke plainly.

But I would like to believe that our Lord Jesus just didn’t cure the deaf man of his physical impediment or simply opened his ears and gave back his speech. The deaf man could now hear the preaching of our Lord and he can now spread the Gospel with his mouth. Surely God the Father did not send his only Begotten Son only to be a physician to cure the sick, the lame or the sightless? We all know from the very words of our Lord Jesus Christ in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, he sent his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

There we get into the bottom line of why our Lord Jesus Christ was sent to the world… to ensure man’s eternal salvation because without our Lord Jesus Christ, we would all be doomed to eternal darkness. However, you must have noticed that our Lord Jesus used the word “might”? Does this mean that even if you already believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you might still not enter into heaven and be saved? Apparently so!

 Therefore what we all need aside from getting our Original Sin washed away through out baptism is a real conversion. Unfortunately, because most of Filipinos are born and baptized as Catholics, when we grow up, we mistakenly believe that we no longer need conversion because we are often albeit erroneously taught that conversion is only for pagans or Muslims whom we convince and therefore convert into Christianity.

Conversion is a daily struggle of good Catholics, after all scripture teaches us that a just man sins seven times day. This brings us back to the words prophesied by Isaiah and fulfilled by our Lord Jesus, “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

Who then are the captives whose liberty is now proclaimed? I confess that it is all of us who are captives of our many sins; many of them we repeat so often, it has become embarrassing even to us. Who therefore are the blind people? They are the ones who cannot see the poor who needs their help, while those who are considered oppressed are virtually the slaves of Satan who cannot get away from his evil clutches. So open your eyes and ears and experience you’re a conversion, after all, it is your own life you need to save!

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