Friday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 9, 2024

Mark 7, 31-37

Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

St. Mark continues his description of the Lord’s visit to the lands of the Gentiles outside Israel.  After staying an indefinite time in Tyre, on the coast of what is now the nation of Lebanon, Mark says he “went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis.”  Sidon, another port city, lay twenty-two miles to the north of Tyre.  Jesus, then, would have made a long loop eastward through Syria to the east and south of the Sea of Galilee.  Mark in this way shows that the Lord spent an extended period of time in these lands, an important consideration for the Gentile Christians who first read his Gospel.  

“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.”  Mark does not tell us the name of the town where this occurred, nor how the Gentiles there knew of the Lord’s power.  It is possible that some of these Gentiles were among those who flooded into Capernaum and other places in Galilee where Jesus was healing, and they carried back their own accounts of his marvelous works, and now they recognized him among them.  The people who brought to him the deaf man either the speech impediment “begged him to lay his hand on him” to heal him.  They beg him just as the Syro-Phoenician woman had begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter.  

“He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned,”  While sounding vulgar to us today, Jesus acted in a way that the Gentiles expected from a healer.  In addition, his behavior showed them that he was intensely engaged in the healing.  They would not be able to say afterwards that the man recovered from his infirmities naturally: Jesus shows them that he is entering into the man in order to repair him.  He did not need to do this with the Jews who understood better the spiritual nature of healing miracles.

Ephphatha.  Mark preserves the Aramaic word that Jesus used on this occasion.  Again, the Gentiles needed to hear him say this, expecting cures to be accomplished by a combination of actions and words.  Through the ages the Holy Church has used this word and also the touching of the lips and ears in her baptismal rite, opening the ears of the one to be baptized to hear the word of God and the mouth in order to proclaim his glory.  

“And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.”  Mark uses the Greek word for “immediately” or “at once” forty-one times in his Gospel in order to highlight the Lord’s power.  While the Gentiles would have expected a period of recovery and recuperation, even among the Jews healings were known to take place over time, as we see when the Prophet Elisha healed Naaman, the leprous Syrian general, telling him to bathe in the Jordan seven times (cf. 2 Kings 5, 14).

“He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.”  Jesus does not order him not to speak of what had happened because he is a Gentile; indeed, he encouraged the man formerly possessed by Legion to spread the news of the Lord’s saving him.  Jesus is eager to heal anyone who comes to him (for such is his love for us) but not everyone is fit to give an accurate account and represent Jesus clearly.  The order also can be understood as a test for the man: he shows his new awareness of the Lord’s authority by obeying him.  And it can be understood to show us that he will cure us even though he knows we are ungrateful and soon forgetful of what he has done for us.

“They were exceedingly astonished and they said, ‘He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’ ”. The word translated as “well” here means “well”, “nobly”, and “right”.  These Gentiles expected that the Lord would heal the dead and dumb man or they would not have brought the man to him.  But the immediate effect of the Lord’s power on him leaves them “exceedingly astonished”, and this is reflected in their exclamation that the Lord had done “all things well”: that is, above what an ordinary man could do.  They see the power of God working before them in the Person of Jesus and do not know how to express themselves any better about this fact than in this way.

Our prudent words and virtuous actions open the eyes, ears, and mouths of the unbelievers around us so that they see some hint of the divine that sparks them to eventual faith.