Opened and Freed

“He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
‘Ephphatha!’— that is, ‘Be opened!’”

Mark 7:33-34

The prophet Isaiah prophesied that the mute will speak and the deaf will hear, and in the gospel of Mark we are told that Jesus opened the ears of a deaf man and freed him from his speech impediment. Here we can see that Jesus indeed is the Lord of which Isaiah prophesied. If we look closely at the gospel passage, we can see a lot of specific details revolving the healing miracle. Jesus took the man aside, touched him, looked up, groaned, and spoke. Let’s take a look at each one of these.

Jesus was alone with the man; we must have a personal relationship with the Lord, for only then are we able to truly be a part of the body of Christ. It is our unique individual relationship with the Lord that we paradoxically share. Although it is individual, it is also universal and communal. The Lord touched him: have we allowed the Lord to personally touch us in our hearts? Our Lord strives and yearns to touch us and to be with us, but do we let Him? Now, I’m not saying that Jesus is going to open up the clouds, come down, and shake our hands, but He will touch us in prayer, in the sacraments, and in our encounters with one another. Do we make time in our daily lives for these moments?

When Jesus looked up, He was reaching out to His Father and Our Father, for Jesus does nothing on His own. All that He does is what the Father wills. So, Jesus is always praying for us and interceding for us to the Father. He’s cheering us on! When we hear the word groaning, we may think of the Holy Spirit, and so like looking up, this groaning reminds us that Jesus is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and that all that He does is the work of the Trinity. Finally, Jesus spoke to the man, saying “Be opened!” At that the man’s ears were opened and he was able to speak plainly. Jesus wants to heal us, but we must let Him. There’s a scene in C. S. Lewis’s “The Great Divorce,” where a ghost with a lizard on his shoulder is asked if he’d like the lizard to be removed, for the lizard was always whispering things in his ear, preventing him from getting into heaven. The ghost said yes and so the Angel proceeded to kill the lizard. However, when this happened the ghost felt a burning sensation and wanted the Angel to stop. Getting rid of the lizards in our lives is not always pleasant, but the Lord wants nothing more than for us to “be opened” and so be in communion with Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit. However, He will not do anything that we do not want.

The man in the Gospel passage encountered Our Lord and was open to His saving actions in his life. As a result, his ears were opened and his speech impediment was removed. It was not pretty. The man had spit on him and his ears and tongue were touched. It was not comfortable. But he allowed this purifying act to take place because he had faith that great good and healing will come from it. And guess what? It did. Jesus wants to do the same for us. Will we let Him?