BE OPENED Isaiah 35:3-7, Mark 7:31-37
This week, for many of you, has been bitter-sweet. Yes, I have arrived, and am here to serve you as your interim pastor, and your vacancy is over. But my greeting to you cannot be as high spirited as one might expect or desire, because as most of you know by now, my coming to you has been placed in the midst of the fresh presence of death. I come to you in the midst of fear, sorrow, grief, sadness, and loss. As Lawrence said on Tuesday, I came right on time.
We begin.
Isaiah 35; Say, (speak) to those of fearful hearts – be strong, do not fear! That is, my friends, say to those in the midst of loss, say to those who have lost a friend or a loved one, say to those who are struggling with grief or sorrow, be strong, be courageous, rejoice. See, we find ourselves lost in a whirlwind of torment and turbulence in this life. But while all that is going on, while Satan seeks to sift us like wheat, we can rest in a sure confidence. For your God is coming, and all that you fear, all that tosses you around, that harass, accuses, torments, and terrifies you will be met with swift vengeance from your Lord, protector, and King. What do we fear? Satan? Sin? Suffering? Death? Do you not know that God has made your enemies His own? Do you not know that in proclaiming Himself your Lord, He has declared Himself your protector and defender, and avenger? He is coming to save you, and He is going to do that by destroying every single thing that stands against you. He will put death to death, burry sin in the grave, and the devil He will destroy. For though the prince of darkness be grim, we tremble not for Him. For Lo, his doom is sure! One little word shall fell Him. One little word… EPHPHATHA!
The text speaks imperatively to the fearful heart; do not fear. Not as a mere command, but as a creative, performative, living Word. This Word does things. Turn with me to Psalm 146. Do not trust in princes or in horses. Do not trust in anything in this world. Do not trust in the government, in the federal election. Do not trust in healthcare, in masks, vaccines, or safety guidelines, for while they will protect you in this life; death will still be waiting for you on the other side. None of this can silence the accuser or strong arm the enemy that binds you. All of this comes to naught; all of this will likewise perish. All of this is dust. In your time of greatest dire need these things will all leave you stranded, and you will be stuck with no help from anywhere. But those who trust in the Lord alone have comfort. Because they place their trust in the only one, holy, almighty, immortal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is He alone who creates from nothing, He alone who kills and raises up, He alone who speaks things into existence. He is the maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food the hungry. He sets the captive free, He makes the bind to see, He lets the hearing of the deaf once again be. He raises those who have been pressed low, and crushes those who stand on the downtrodden.
This is the God who opens, EPHPHATHA! Now see, there is no longer any reason to fear! Now hear your enemies have been defeated! Now feel; handle, taste, touch, receive, the blessing of comfort, assurance, confidence and hope. Be opened.
Say to them (speak) to those who are weak in heart, be strong. God is speaking comfort & confidence (faith) within us through Word & Sacrament. The text before you this morning is about movement. A movement from here to there. A movement from fearful to unafraid, from blind to seeing, from deaf to hearing, from crippled to walking, from mute to singing, indeed today in this text, even the desert is gushing forth streams of living water. Even death is broken open (EPHPHATHA), and springs forth in new life, BE OPENED. In this text today, greater miracles than the blind seeing or the deaf hearing are “happening”, I say again, greater miracles, right now, through this text being spoken read and preached to you, are HAPPENING. In this text TODAY, death is being repented unto life. In this text TODAY, God is speaking within us the overturning of who and what we are. In this text, right now, God is speaking through His Word a performative death and resurrection. And He is speaking it within you and upon you. This Word utterly undoes us, it kills us, it raises us, it strengthens and emboldens and crushes, refines, renews, and repurposes us, it turns us. It “repents” us. Not just once, at some far away conversion experience that we may or may not have had, but daily, every single time that Word comes to us, through the reading of the Word, the preaching of the Word, the Sacraments (the feeling of the Word), something happens.
As you live in this life with the Word continuously working upon you, and being poured out over you, a spiritual battle is taking place. But you are not merely soldiers in the fight, you are the battlefield being fought over. This is the war for your soul.
Take the Phoenecian woman as an example – she had enemies all around; the demons afflicting her daughter, sickness, disease, and death. Not to mention the fact that she was a societal outcast, completely ostracized by everyone around her. It doesn’t take long for someone reading this text to figure out that racism is not a modern problem, and of course neither is sexism, and in that day in age not even a Jewish woman was to approach a Jewish man like Jesus to ask for anything, much less a gentile woman. And the fact that she rather than her husband is speaking to Jesus tells you one more thing which was a societal no-no for her context – she was likely a single mother. But oh, she was so much more than that wasn’t she. Because she was a sinful, gentile single mother. Everything was against her. Herself included. And she knew it. She knew that she was unable to help herself, to save herself. That she had been overcome by her enemies. So far away from looking to herself or her person, or external things of this world to save her from peril, that when Jesus totally trashes her own person, calling her a dog, saying that it isn’t even fit for her to have her daughter healed because of who and what she is, she relies not on herself or her rights or her dignity, or that of her daughters, not on her works and not even on her own faith as a reason that Christ should save her daughter! But she in fact acknowledges her low estate, and places her hope upon the MERCY and the undeserved GRACE of the God of Dogs! Upon the Word Himself. Believing that the mercy of God is so abundant that there is so much of it that in it’s being given to the children, it falls off their plates, spills off their tables, and fills the whole earth, and feeds ALL people.
So, what do we have to say then about the gospel text before us? About this one little word? Both the gospel portion that was read as well as the text of the Syro-Pheonecian woman, pose to us the stark scenario of a person suffering in the midst of a situation where there is no other option except that of a miracle. For the Syro-Phoenecian woman, nobody would give her the time of day, and it’s just so with Isaiah 35 and Psalm 146 – there is no other help than God. Not only are the demon possessed or the blind, deaf, or crippled those who are forced to look to a miracle; but as our OT readings point out to us with no lack of clarity, there is one and only one comfort that endures on that day when all else fails. As a common saying goes; there are no atheists in foxholes. For those of you who don’t quite know what a foxhole is let me say it this way; when you are on the battlefield, in a defensive position being attacked from every angle, and you find yourself outgunned, outnumbered, outwitted, and outdone, and there is nowhere left to turn for help, you need a creating God. And as one of my dear professors likes to say; there are no atheists in foxholes, and there are no atheists, because we are all in the foxhole, and we have always been. So, what do I have to say about this text; about this deaf man, about this woman who had nowhere to turn to find help for her daughter, about Isa 35 or Ps 146; only this – BE OPENED. To the daughter possessed with demons; be healed. To the blind; now see. To the Deaf; now hear. To the crippled; now walk. To the dead; now live! One little Word – EPHPHATHA. Be opened. One little Word; one strong Word, one strong Word which did cleave the darkness. At God’s speaking, it is done.
The forces of this world, sin, death, the devil, seek to turn us inward, seek to turn us in on ourselves, closed to God, closed to others. But the Word I speak to you, the performative, creating, doing Word, is this; BE OPENED. Now let us trust the Living Word Himself, and the Spirit who performs all that is, to remain true to the Word spoken over all of you today. Let it be so Lord, we ask in the name of your Holy Son, our Lord, the King, Jesus Christ. Amen.
