Secret Missions [part two] ...

Peter recites to John Mark in his gospel chapter seven two stories of where Jesus was attempting to reveal the Father’s love in secret, attempting to avoid publicity in His mission.  In our previous study, we examined the first incident which was designed to test the faith of a mother, and reveal the character of the companions of Christ.  In examining the second story here, Peter is significantly more detailed about the mechanics of the healing, than in the other miracles Christ performed.  Peter goes into the details.  The question is why?  Ultimately the publicity of the mission of the Messiah cannot be controlled or subdued.  Whether by excited recipients who simply cannot keep silent about what Christ has done for them (oh, that we had such people in our day), or by demons who work in concert to drive the people to make Him king whether He wants it or not; the missions of Christ are widely known, and widely publicized.  So Peter does not seem to need to correlate secrecy with how this sick man was healed, yet he spends time talking about both.  Perhaps it is the details themselves that warrant deeper attention.

The story begins in no special way picking up in verse 31 saying … “And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.”  Jesus is traveling again.  He moves another significant distance.  Was this perhaps to avoid publicity by moving away from a region that seemed inundated with stories of Him, or was this perhaps to find the one who would be brought to Him in so desperate a need.  It is hard to say.  The story continues in verse 32 saying … “And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.”  Here is where a few details appear.  First, the person afflicted has more than one health problem.  He is deaf, and subsequently has a speech impediment.  Now, most people that cannot hear, also have a strange, or impacted way of speaking.  But the attention Peter pays to this condition, and the subsequent healing Christ does specifically for this man’s ability to talk, tells us this was not just a simple cause and effect from the deafness.  It was something more.

Next, the request of the people to heal this man, included the clause “put His hand upon him”.  The people in this story either have not heard of Christ healing simply by dragging His garments over someone, like the woman who started this trend some time ago across the Sea of Galilee.  Or they are unfamiliar with Christ simply speaking the words of assurance like He did to the last mother, who found her daughter healed even though the daughter never was actually in the presence of Christ.  These people bent on helping this man, wanted a personal touch by Christ.  Perhaps this was the most common way people were aware of Jesus’ healing powers, and they were simply requesting He do it for their friend.  No matter, Jesus did not refuse them.

The story continues in verse 33 saying … “And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; [verse 34] And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. [verse 35] And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”  More interesting correlations arise in these verses.  You will note first, Jesus takes the impacted man away from the multitude.  Jesus wants a more private, perhaps a more personal interaction with this man.  Jesus is not looking for publicity; He is searching for more privacy.  If He had wanted the crowds to see it, He could have made a spectacle of this man’s healing, but He did not.  Next, the touch requested is granted in probably a more personal way, than Jews who had been told they must obsess about ceremonial cleanings would like.  Jesus did not reach out and shake hands with this sick man, He put His fingers right into the guy’s ears.  Further, He spit on His own fingers, and then He touched the man’s very tongue, where most of the taste buds, and sensitivity is in your mouth I might add.

If we correlate what is happening here with the Gospel of John regarding the lame man, we might reach a conclusion, that Christ is literally creating flesh, and organs, where they are missing either partially or in whole.  This particular healing is not about lowering a fever, or putting strength into existing organs and tissue, I believe it is about creating some, where they did not exist before.  Remembering that we are created from dirt, and are composed of mostly water, Christ our Creator, may be doing what He did back in Eden, albeit on a much more limited scale.  In this instance, our Creator is restoring something that has been messed up or is partially missing.  Not only does Jesus take these very personal touching actions with the impacted sick man, He then follows all of this with a prayer to His Father.  He looks up to heaven before speaking Himself.  This is to acknowledge that His Father is the source of all love, and all restorative power.  Then before speaking Peter says that Jesus sighed.  Perhaps Jesus too is frustrated that sin, and Satan have so corrupted our world, and our bodies, that this man suffers from more from what has been done.  Perhaps Jesus too, would have us ALL restored, both physically and spiritually, but no one in the crowd is asking for spiritual restoration, which arguably is more important. 

He then speaks in front of the man, a sort of command, the word “Ephphatha” which is immediately interpreted as “be opened”.  The command is not directly to the man to speak and hear properly.  It is instead to the impacted organs to be capable of perfect hearing, and perfect speech.  The organs are no longer to be an impediment to the man’s ability to hear and speak.  And the man immediately tested his new abilities and spoke plainly.  Sometimes we miss the subtlety of God providing us gifts, and then watching what we do with them.  The organs were restored, they were re-created by Christ, but the man was not commanded to pray, or give thanks, or say “I love you” to his family.  In point of fact, he could have used foul language, and swore at his enemies, now knowing they would understand him perfectly.  Our senses are a gift to us from our creator.  How we choose to employ them is not commanded by Christ, but is witnessed by Christ.  How we use our senses reveals our hearts, to have our hearts restored and re-created by Christ is the bigger accomplishment, and the one we are each in most need of.

Then Peter resumes the recollection, for the need for secrecy, as the story continues in verse 36 saying … “And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it;” Christ tells the friends of the man, and man himself, not to publicize what He has done for them.  The first directive, the first commandment given to this grateful man, is to keep silent about who healed him, and how He did it.  The recreation of missing tissue, above all other types of healing, reveals Jesus as our Creator.  This revelation was too controversial in Israel.  People who might otherwise listen to the life-giving words of Jesus, would tune Him out, if the Creator title were associated with His name and ministry.  The people needed not to know everything plainly yet, because they were not ready to know it yet.  Even the disciples of Christ were not completely ready yet.  Knowing Jesus was our creator was just too much.  But the one thing Jesus asked of them, was the one thing they completely disobeyed Him about.

Christ had a larger goal of ministry in mind, that these men, in their gratitude, were messing up.  Jesus does not curse them for this.  Jesus does not take back His healing.  He knew beforehand that this man would not keep his mouth shut, yet He heals him anyway.  Would you have done it.?  This is part of the mystery of our salvation.  We are created by God, uniquely, even though He ultimately knows whether we will decide for Him, or against Him.  We are given free will to choose, even when the choice is a bad one.  Jesus did not restrict His love from this man, even though the man would mess up the plans of Jesus.  Jesus does not restrict giving us gifts, from our senses, to the money in our wallets, even though we often choose to mess up what we do with them.  The love of our Lord is consistent, even though ours is not. 

It is a mistake to think that the gifts our Lord gives to us are an indication of us being saved.  He gives to those who are saved, and those who are unsaved.  He loves both camps of people.  He does not love one more than the other, loving both perpetrator and victim equally.  His heart breaks because of the pain the perpetrator causes himself and his victim, and His heart breaks for what pain the sin of the perpetrator has caused to the victim, for what the victim must now go through.  We will never know the depth of pain we cause our God, who has perfect love for us, by what we choose to do, and how we choose not to love others when we could.   But perhaps, we could lift the sigh of our Lord, if we were to seek spiritual restoration, and re-creation, by asking for this kind of healing for ourselves.  Perhaps we could make His heart leap for joy, as we submit to Him, our actions, our desires, and the core of who we are to be remade by Him as He sees fit.  No matter what healing God does for our bodies, it is the healing of our souls that He most wants us to publicize.

People will inevitably seek Jesus for healing, for primarily selfish reasons where it comes to our bodies.  We want full functionality, and long life, where our physical bodies are concerned.  But to crave perfection, to crave a life with a complete lack of sin, these are the cravings that change the world, and reflect salvation rooted in Christ.  Publicizing what Jesus can do for the spiritually sick, is what it is all about.  The selfish do not run to Christ to fix that, they only run to Him for other reasons.  But if we would dare to offer the core of who we are, and what we want, to Jesus, we would find a restoration that is far more important than the state of our bodies, and one that lasts far longer.  The people could not understand this deeper mission of Christ, they saw only its physical manifestations as the story concludes in verse 37 saying … “And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”

People, then and now, are “beyond measure astonished” to find out that our Lord is also our Creator.  Those who would replace Genesis with a more scientific origin, are in addition, removing the creating power from Jesus.  They strip Jesus of His ability to re-create, as they strip Him of His original creation.  Where science appears to conflict with the Bible, it is science that remains incomplete in our understanding.  Because compared with the miraculous transformation of the human heart, there is no scientific, or evolutionary counterpart that can sufficiently explain the phenomenon.  To be saved by Jesus Christ, is an experience that cannot be denigrated by equations and probabilities.  To have the core of who we are, altered to be in harmony with Him, and with His laws of love, is a singular experience, and the one He was trying to reveal to the people in His age, and in ours.