Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

Mark 7:31-37 Despite all the variety of the miracles of Christ there is a common feature of almost all of them, namely the omnipotence of the Lord that He encounters and fights in them through sin-wrought misery. Precisely for this reason are miracles "signs" not only of God's splendor, but also of His office of Savior, signs that He, like the physical and temporal consequences of sin, including the spiritual and eternal guilt of punishment of sin, takes from us. And He has done that through His vicarious suffering and death and does it when He administers and dedicates His merit to us through His Word that we preach according to His command. This Word is the divine "Ephphatha" that still does great wonders as then, miracles through which Christ reveals Himself as Son of God and Savior of the world. How Christ Loosens Our Ear and Tongue Through His Word. 1. Our ear to the right and salutary hearing of His Word. a. It is a great pity to be physically deaf. But far greater is the pity to hear God's Word admittedly with physical ears, but not beneficially, it is not able to recognize and believe. In this miserable state are all men by nature.1 Experience shows it. The careless, who do not respect the threats of the Law, are also indifferent toward the Gospel; the self-righteous and haughty who insist on their works are especially hostile to the Gospel; the secure servants of sin, to which it must serve for rest-cushion, contemptuously abuse it. In short, the natural man cannot and will not beneficially hear God's Word. But even Christians in their old man constantly have trouble, that he does not suck the venom of the soul from the honey-sweet flowers of the Gospel. b. That is why Christ must cry out His "Ephphatha" to the spiritually deaf world, and He does just that through the Word of the Gospel. . In order to take other deaf-mutes and bring him to Christ. Through our service God will lead others to healing. . Christ takes him from the people particularly. Thus He goes with the individual in a quiet self-judgment under the illuminating of the Law, not to his doom, but to his salvation. . He does all sorts of events there to attract his attention. We too must learn to notice every Word. . But what finally opens that ear is not mud and spit, but the Word that brings with it and causes healing. The deaf-mute does nothing in addition to that. The command, "Be opened!" does the job. No action on our part, no "proper conduct" opens our spiritual ears. This the Word does alone. Saying and doing is first by God. His Word keeps the creature, makes the blind see, the ill healthy, the dead living; His Word also brings and works spiritual blessings, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. . This Word, that is full of life and power, opens that ear; he now hears. The first Word that his ear hears is precisely the Word through which He opened his ear. The Word that we proclaim to the world, the Word of faith, gives faith, while it calls him. That is why faith is also not a
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1 Corinthians 2:14; 1:18.

requirement that we must fulfill, but God's gift that God wrought by hand, by which we take God's grace. Thus we hear right and salutary through Christ's miracle making in the Word. 2. Our tongue to the praise and thanksgiving of His holy Name. a. By nature "we do not speak right". Indeed, to talk about what comes from the flesh and what pleases the flesh, our tongue is ready.2 But to talk about what is lovely and good, our tongue is tied. And when a man also does this externally, when he speaks with the tongues of angels about God's love, God shall have no pleasure in it, as long as he is a natural man; all his speaking is hypocrisy. Yet the Christian must also lament about his laziness to put his tongue in the service of God. b. the "Ephphatha" which opened the ears of the deaf-mute, also loosened the bond of his tongue. Whose spiritual ear is opened to hear the healing Gospel also has a loosened tongue for the service of God.3 The renewing of the heart that happens through faith has the result that one guards against all sinful speech and, on the other hand, praises God's holy Name and extols His blessings. This will awaken others to the knowledge and praise of God.4 c. The deaf-mute spoke quite soon, as if his speech had never lacked. Christ accomplishes the same miracle through His Word to us. Unless and until we remain with the Word and follow it, our speaking is a proper, error-free speaking.5

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James 3:5ff. Romans 3:13-14, 23. 2 Corinthians 4:3; Acts 4:20. 4 Luke 6:45. 5 John 16:13, 15:26-27; 1 John 2:27; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:52 (KELG 173:6, "O Lord of Hosts, Thy Holy Word": Now, Lord! Thy holy Word maintain, Give us to know its power, In every place its foe restrain, Spread free its vital shower: And we will pour forevermore True thanks upon Thine altar, Oh mighty Lord! may we Thy word Keep firm, nor from it falter.)