Reflecting on Mark's Gospel - Mark 7:31-37

Healing, as we are seeing, is important and prominent in Jesus’ ministry. Here he heals a deaf man, who also has a speech impediment. Healing takes place on different levels, and we have already seen the importance of faith and wholeness, in every sense, when Jesus offers healing. Some want to emphasise spiritual healing, even to the extent that, with a scene like this, we can, as Warren Carter (Mark) puts it “read the scene allegorically or spiritually as a story of religious conversion.” However, as Carter also says, this approach has the problem of “rendering the man’s very real personal and societal suffering and physical healing invisible.”

We can assume that Jesus offered this man spiritual healing but, in this instance, that accompanied, rather than replaced, physical healing. Of course, that is not what always happens. I wonder how we cope when there are limits to the healing that we, or our family and friends, receive.

In this instance a man is brought to Jesus with the hope that Jesus will address his needs. I wonder how, today, we can mirror what is happening here. If we still believe, and I do, that Jesus encounters people at the point of their need, what are the things we can do to bring those of whom we might think in this context to Jesus?

It is also interesting that, unlike some other instances, this man’s healing is not instant, a useful reminder that God works in different ways for and with different people. We are individuals, and God treats us as such. I wonder if there is something to learn here about how we treat others, sometimes putting them into groups that they themselves would not recognise.

This man’s healing effectively has six stages. They are all things that Jesus does on other occasions, but they are not things that Jesus always does. Firstly, he takes him aside privately. They move away from the crowd. Secondly, Jesus touches his ears. Healing often comes by the laying on of hands. Thirdly, he spits. Saliva was often regarded as having healing properties. Fourthly, Jesus touches the man’s tongue, the other part of his body that needed healing. Fifthly, Jesus looks heavenward, surely an indication of prayer. Then, sixthly, he issues a command of healing. It is one of those instances where we are given the Aramaic word, ‘Ephphatha’, and we are told that it means ‘be opened’.

This section ends with a statement of the impact made by this healing and, presumably, this is back with the crowd and it may well have been that the crowd were not totally away from what happened, despite the element of seeking privacy that is indicated. Certainly, they end up ‘astounded’.

The recorded comment of the crowd is about Jesus making the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. It is a clear echo of Isaiah 35:5-6 where, as Carter puts it – “these events point to God’s saving presence and restorative power among Gentiles now in anticipation of the yet-to-be full establishment of God’s reign/empire.” I wonder what God is doing in our context that astounds us.