The healing of a deaf man made the tears well up

Sometimes we need to be asked the questions that really make us think about what we are reading.  It can be so easy to just gloss over it and move on, but treasure isn't often found so easily.  It takes thought, effort and searching.

I am one who needs to find answers to my questions.  I know that not all of them may be answered to my satisfaction but still I search.  I want to understand more about God and why his Son, Jesus, did things the way he did.

Sometimes the Bible Study questions are quick and easy...the answer is right there in the verse, word for word.  Other times you have to mull it over, read it again, think, pray, and if possible read commentaries from people who have already done all of the above.

The passage this morning was from Mark 7:31-37.  Here we read of how Jesus healed a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.  This man's friends had brought him to Jesus and begged Jesus to lay his hands on him.  Jesus took this man aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue (can you imagine this with me?) Jesus then looked up to heaven, sighed and said to him "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."

And the man's ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

I have to admit I was already wondering why on earth Jesus did all that...and then I read the next question.

"Why do you think Jesus chose such a strange method of healing the deaf mute?"

We do think it's strange don't we?  And the more I thought about it the more I realized that I just didn't have an answer...

But what I read next made such perfect sense and made the tears well up in my eyes...

"All of these actions in verses 33 and 34 were miming the man's present need, the process of healing and the source from which such healing alone could come, in a way which even a deaf-mute could understand.

The blocked ears opened, the symbolic removal of a speech impediment from the tongue by spitting.  The upward glance and sigh of prayer..."

 [from Tyndale's commentary on the Bible]

I can't tell you how much that touched my heart this morning.  Just to imagine Jesus lovingly going through this process.  And it wasn't some weird thing.  What a beautiful and precious exchange between Jesus and this man.  It made my heart swell with love for my Savior.  Absolute love.


[The Bible study I am doing is called "Divine Service" by Betty Henderson, Journey Forth]