A Reflection for Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
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.”
What an interesting contrast today’s selections give us. Our first reading recounts the Fall of Man: Adam and Eve partake of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, enticed by the beguiling voice of the serpent, in violation of God’s one command. Even though their first inclination was to abide by God’s proscription, made clear by Eve’s initial response to the serpent, they both end up eating from the tree anyway, believing it to be “good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.” It opens their eyes, revealing the world to them in a depth they had not yet known: Seeing themselves clearly for the first time, they realize their nakedness and hastily sew loincloths out of fig leaves.
In the Gospel, we see another moment when senses are unblocked—this time in accordance with God’s will. Jesus heals a Tyrean man’s aural and oral impediments with the words “Be opened!” If Adam and Eve’s eyes are opened by the fruit of the tree of Eden, enabling them to see the world in more fullness and complexity even at the cost of their previously innocent relationship with God, the formerly deaf and mute man from Tyre similarly leaves Jesus with a greatly improved ability both to perceive the world and to express himself. In the first case, the serpent takes advantage of Adam and Eve’s natural desire for wisdom to convince them to contravene God; in the second, Jesus brings to bear the power of his divinity to heal a deaf man who also, like Adam and Eve, yearns to better understand his world.
I see this Gospel passage as a microcosm of the purpose of Jesus’ Incarnation: redeeming humanity from the Fall. The parallels between Adam and Eve on the one hand, and the Tyrean man on the other, cannot have escaped Jesus. But while Adam and Eve’s action introduced humanity to sin, Jesus’ miracles and ministry call us further into God’s grace. Jesus redeems the innate human desire for greater knowledge and wisdom, the same desire we saw in Adam and Eve, but through his divinity and inherent holiness, he sanctifies it and orients it towards that which is true, good and beautiful: God.
The proof that it worked? After this miracle, although Jesus asks that the townspeople keep it secret, they are so astonished that they cannot help but proclaim his glory: “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” While humanity clearly didn’t get much better at obeying direct divine commands since the time of Adam and Eve, the people’s enthusiasm for Jesus speaks volumes. This time they are not entranced by the serpent, but amazed by God. In recapitulating the expansion of Adam and Eve’s senses by granting a similar enlightenment to the Tyrean, Jesus rescues us from the negative ramifications of that moment and calls us to use our senses and our knowledge to follow him.
