How has Jesus restored your voice?

Mark appreciates a good symbol. The narratives he presents often reveal the deeper elements of Jesus’ mission. In this Sunday’s Gospel reading, for example, Mark invites us to consider how Jesus restores the perception and voice of many.

After his conflict with the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus headed north from the traditional lands of Israel. His journeys took him to Phoenicia, Syria and the Decapolis, areas that today make up the countries of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Jews and Gentiles lived side-by-side in these areas, and archaeological evidence reveals a certain level of religious openness in both cultures. The Gentiles in this region had a special respect for Jewish healers, who enjoyed a reputation for power over illness and demonic forces. This religious culture provided fertile ground both for Jesus’ own ministry and later for the early church, which by the last decades of the first century had grown considerably throughout these areas.

Several features of this narrative are odd. Mark gives no information about the afflicted man or the people who bring him to Jesus. In stark contrast to the healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter, which Jesus performed with a simple compliment to the mother’s faith, this healing appears quite complicated, and Mark gives us no insight into the faith of the people involved.

Jesus opened them to a new perception of God’s grace, and they gave voice to their new awareness with vigor.

Jesus performs a series of complicated ritual actions that included spitting, groaning, touching and looking to heaven, as well as the use of a word, ephphatha, whose syntax does not conform to any scholarly understanding of Aramaic or Hebrew. The significance of these actions is unclear. In his own account of this miracle, Matthew glosses over them, noting only that Jesus cured “the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others” (Mt 15:30). One gets a sense that Jesus’ earthiness—his folk medicine and drawling Aramaic—embarrassed Matthew as much as it delighted Mark. (Luke omits the episode entirely).

The actions have a point. Many of Jesus’ miracles happen in conversation with the suffering person: “Your faith has healed you….” “I will do it, be clean...” “Talitha koum.” This was not an option with a man who could neither hear nor speak. Jesus’ rituals here were a form of communication, a way of getting the man’s attention and trust in order to prepare him for the event to come.

But these vivid details might distract our attention from Mark’s focus. In this Sunday’s first reading, Isaiah prophesied that the age to come would arrive with miraculous healings of the deaf and mute. Jesus’ action fulfills this prophecy and symbolizes the arrival of the messianic age. The healing had an instant multiplier effect; the entire crowd found its voice when they heard the healed man speak. Jesus opened them to a new perception of God’s grace, and they gave voice to their new awareness with vigor.

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This mission continues today. Just as Christ may have taken vivid and unique actions to get our attention, so we must learn how to show ourselves trustworthy to even the most obstructed heart. If we do so, we can free the tongues of many and listen in wonder as they find their voices.