Deaf Hearts

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Title: Deaf Hearts

Text: Mark 7:31-37

Purpose: To consider how we might be blinded by our past, our culture, our family, our church, our education to our own pride

Date: 4/14/07-Benson

OS: 475 Balm in Gilead

CS: 567 Have Thine Own Way, Lord

Human birth takes about 9 months from conception and that is a good way to introduce the topic this morning because it was about that long before Jesus came back to the Decapolis. He had left after being urged to do so because the people were afraid what else Jesus might do to their economy after sending the evil spirits into the 2000 swine that plummeted over the cliff and were destroyed. But he left the seed of truth embedded in the hearts of these two wild uncontrollable demoniacs who were now free and pleaded with Jesus to take them with Him. But He wisely left them uninstructed as they were to tell what God had done for them. 9 months later Jesus came back to a crowd of 4,000 who were drawn from every part of that region. These uninstructed ones did so much more than Jesus was permitted because of the prejudice of those who were so afraid.

Among the crowd was a man who undoubtedly was embarrassed by his own speech and hearing impediment. We are not told who it was who brought him to see Jesus. It is almost as if he were unwilling because these friends are spoken of as bringing him to Jesus. I wondered if it were not the two demoniacs who urged him to come and see Jesus.

Jesus did something very strange. He took this man apart from the crowd as if He needed some privacy. Why did He do this? It may have been to convince this deaf and partly dumb man that he was worthy of Jesus’ focus on him by himself to let him know that he was valued highly and that his inability to speak had nothing to do with Jesus high value that he placed on him. If you think about it you will see that this man could not have heard Jesus’ words so He communicated with him in a way that he could understand. He put his fingers in his ears. He could feel that. Jesus spat on the ground. He could see that. Then he put his fingers on the man’s tongue indicated that something was going to happen to his hearing and his speaking. But before Jesus uttered the words, “Be opened,” He sighed. Not only can you hear sighs if you have the ability to hear but you can see sighs. There is the lifting of the shoulders and the drawing in of ones breath and exhaling it heavily. Mark is the only one who uses this word and he does it twice in close proximity suggesting that there must be some relationship. Jesus wasn’t sighing because this was a particularly difficult miracle to perform but because of what it represented and that is the deaf hearts that would not respond to all the evidence of God’s mercy and love.

Not only did the disciples sometimes have a difficult time understanding Jesus but sometimes He is just as hard to for us to understand as well. It would seem that if a miracle is performed that you would want it broadcast to convince the deaf hearts. After all is not that what Jesus did with the demoniacs? He told them to broadcast what He had done for them. But here Jesus repeatedly told them not to tell. That may have been another reason why He took the man off by himself so it would not be observed as closely as it would have been had he remained with the crowd. In addition to that Jesus may have wanted to spend more time teaching than healing and if he broadcast what was done for him Jesus would not have had the opportunity to communicate all that he would have liked to.

The record doesn’t indicate everything that happened that day but I would be surprised that even with the failure of the deaf and dumb man who had been healed to head Jesus warning not to tell anyone that He still took the time to teach what He had already been teaching through His public ministry. I am sure that the two demoniacs who knew so little about Jesus’ teaching were anxious to hear for themselves what Jesus taught and probably begged Him to do so. I would be surprised if Jesus didn’t teach them the same things he spoke in His Sermon on the Mount where He spoke the beatitudes. He may have even taught some of the same things he had taught in the synagogue at Capernaum after feeding the 5,000 where he pointed to himself as the bread of life. We don’t know the content but it is hard to imagine that Jesus didn’t communicate to them the very heart of the gospel.

The record says that Jesus and His disciples were there with this crowd that had by the end of the three days had swollen to 4,000. There are so many similarities between the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000 that some have thought that they were the same event. But that cannot be the case. Jesus was on the north side of the Sea of Galilee when he fed the 5,000. The feeding of the 4,000 was in the southeast of the Sea of Galilee. The people in Bethsaida were largely Jewish. The population in the southeast were pagan and heathen.

This partially explains why the disciples were so slow to embrace the opportunity to respond to Jesus’ invitation to do something for this large group of hungry people who had brought enough bread for the first two days but by the third day they were without food. Evidently some had come quite a ways to hear him and they would be famished by the time they got home. It says that Jesus had compassion on them but evidently the disciples didn’t share those feelings. He had to pry their fingers open from their grasp of the bread they hoarded for themselves. One reason they were so slow to catch on is that their prejudice was deeply ingrained in the very fiber of their hearts. Those of us who have grown up in the fifties might have some appreciation for this as we reflect back on how white people actually treated their black neighbors in the market place. Those feelings don’t disappear very easily now nor did they back then.

Jesus had attempted to break through to them when He engaged a Samaritan woman in conversation at Jacob’s well in Sychar. They were so surprised that they even asked Him why he was speaking with her once they got back from getting the food Jesus sent them to purchase. It must have been with reluctance that they consented to go to the Decapolis originally when Jesus healed those two demoniacs. They must have been relieved themselves not to have had to stay among the Gentiles and were even relieved that these two men were not permitted to get in their boat and leave with them. Undoubtedly they accepted Jesus’ healing of the Roman Centurion’s servant since he had undertaken the task of building the Jewish synagogue in Capernaum. There must have been some sense in which he proved himself worthy of Jesus’ attention.

They must have had a hard time understanding Jesus. Sometime He engaged the non Jew in conversation and other times He appeared not to have any interest in the non Jew like the woman who lived in the area of Tyre and Sidon which was strictly a heathen territory. When Jesus sent them on their initial mission he said that they should not go to the Samaritans or to the Gentiles but only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Is it any wonder they were so slow in wanting to respond to this woman when Jesus said that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? That their prejudice was still in tact is evidenced when they urged Jesus to send her away since they were so annoyed at her. But Jesus’ compassion could not be hid from this woman in spite of the disciples’ prejudice.

Now they were back in the Decapolis after coming there immediately from witnessing Jesus’ compassion as it had been expressed to this woman whose daughter had been severely demon possessed just as those two demoniacs had been possessed nine months earlier.

While they were blown away by the interest that they saw when they returned they were not prepared to open their heart or their pocket books or their lunch pails to these non Jews. Jesus had to as it were pry their greedy little fingers from their own food. Jesus confessed his own compassion for the crowd. Apparently they had brought enough food for two days and part of the third but by now they had run out. The crowd may not have been aware of their own hunger. If you think about it, it is clear that they were overwhelmed by what they had seen and heard. In Matthew’s account it says that the crowd was amazed at all that they had seen. Although that is not the same Greek word used in Matthew 7:28 after the Sermon on the Mount it is a similar word and conveys a similar if not the same idea that these crowds were overwhelmed by what they had heard and seen. Since this crowd wasn’t composed of Jews Jesus was not in danger of being taken by them and made the king of Israel. But it does say that they glorified the God of Israel which shows how unprejudiced they were.

It was interesting to find out that there was a significant amount of difference between the two miracles. In the feeding of the 5,000 there were 12 basketfuls of bread left over. In the feeding of the 4,000 there were 7. But the word used for basket in the feeding of the 5,000 was different than the word for basket in the feeding of the 4,000. In the 5,000 the word was a lunch pale size basket. In the 4,000 the word was hamper size basket. So there was an enormous difference in what was left over. By the time there is need for food a little later all the disciples had was one loaf of bread. Evidently they had distributed the leftovers among the crowd.

After Jesus dismissed the crowd it says that Jesus and His disciples got in a boat and headed over to Magdala where Jesus had one of the shortest conversations that is recorded.

Let me just set the stage by describing the Pharisees. When you realize their background you may realize more than you have in the past why they had so much influence with the Jews in Palestine. They were the successors of the Chasidim or pious ones who actively supported the early Maccabees in their struggle against the Seleucids who were the ruling element at that time. They tried to maintain the national purity by rejecting all attempts to introduce Hellenistic practices among the Jews. In the first century before Christ they actively opposed the worldy rule of the Maccabean rulers and as a result there was a bloody persecution of these zealous religionists and the death of many prominent Pharisees. In spite of the persecution of the Pharisees their influence over the people grew. By the time Herod the Great ascended the throne it became apparent to him that he should not persecute them because he knew that they had a great influence over the people even though there were only about 6,000 Pharisees. This conservative segment of the Jewish religion held their Bible in high esteem. They clung to the whole of scripture while the Sadducees only regarded the first five books of Moses as authoritative. Those who made up the Sadducees were the liberals who were people of means and attempted to court the favor of those who ruled Judea from Rome. These two groups were completely at odds with each other at a very fundamental level.

The Pharisees were becoming more and more opposed to Jesus. Their previous contact with Jesus was a couple of months previous to this encounter when they came up to Galilee with the scribes since Jesus failed to come to the Passover where they had hoped to deal with him there. It was at this encounter that the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of neglecting the tradition of the elders that required them to wash their hands in a particular way. Look with me at Matthew 15:7-20. The disciples were rather protective of the Pharisees even though they were criticizing the disciples themselves.

That must have set the stage for the next encounter which in the context of our story this morning. In Matthew 16:1-4 Jesus adds the indictment of being a wicked and adulterous generation to that of being hypocrites and being guilty of substituting tradition for God’s commandments. In Mark 8:11-12 Jesus is pictured as sighing once again except this time it is over the deaf hearts of the Pharisees and Sadducees. This encounter is particularly significant because it brings together the liberals and conservatives who try to take Jesus out. The Desire of Ages tells us that He was meant with contemptuous unbelief. Both of these groups allowed pride to be their north star and no amount of supernatural events or scriptural evidence would bear any weight with these individuals. They asked for a sign that His work was genuine but sign after sign had been given and it failed to make an impression on them. Most of his signs had been performed in Galilee and he was run out of Judea when he healed the paralyzed man who lay by the pool of Bethesda. When Jesus sighed over the deaf and dumb individual that was brought to him He was sighing over the unwillingness of His people and especially the leadership to embrace the truth that would heal their spiritual deafness and unclear picture of God they were communicating by all their rules and regulations.

Having refused enter into an argument with them over truth He left them and joined His disciples in their boat for a journey to where He had fed the 5,000. On the way across the sea Jesus warned them of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They were as dull as usual and didn’t grasp what He was saying. They thought He meant that they should not buy any bread from these individuals. Twice He asked them, “Do you still not see or understand?” Then he asked them, “Are your hearts hardened?” He was concerned for them that the yeast of pride that so controlled the Pharisees and the Sadducees was creeping into their hearts. For was not this the basis for their conflict among themselves? The disciples felt that Jesus should have given them a sign. What an opportunity to convince the leaders of their nation that He was indeed the Messiah. But Jesus was not building His kingdom on pride. Quite the opposite! He was building it on repentance. He was building it on our confession of our great need of Christ’s forgiveness and sufficiency to make us whole and heal our brokenness.

Ashleigh Brilliant got it right when she nailed down the crux of the problem: "All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance."

James D. Berkley, "Eleven-gallon Head," Leadership Weekly (10-3-02)

This thought from the Desire of Ages hit me between the eyes: “How often our service to Christ, our communion with one another, is marred by the secret desire to exalt self! How ready the thought of self-gratulation, and the longing for human approval! It is the love of self…that leads to the substitution of human theories and traditions for the divine precepts.” DA 409

In Discipleship Journal, William Farley tells his own struggle with this issue:

In October of 1993, the Lord arrested me with Isaiah 66:2: "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word." I wanted a deeper relationship with God, and I felt impressed that this verse had something to do with it. But I didn't understand the connection between humility and trembling before God's Word. So I prayed, "Lord, please make this verse real to me."

Five days later my wife and I were driving down the Oregon Coast. While I was meditating on 1 Corinthians 13, another verse caught my attention. "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (v. 12, emphasis mine). I realized that God saw spiritual darkness in me to which I was blind, that he loved me despite this spiritual cancer, and that someday he would let me see it as he saw it. I prayed again, "God, please open my eyes to this evil in my heart."

As we followed Highway 101 south, I sensed a connection between Isaiah 66:2 and 1 Corinthians 13:12. So I prayed a third time: "God, show me the connection between those verses."

A few minutes later my wife began talking about a movie she liked. Irritated by the intrusion of such a trivial topic into my meditation, I condescendingly belittled her opinion. Instantly, three life-changing words knifed into my consciousness. They weren't audible, but they came so suddenly and were so completely non-volitional that I lurched behind the steering wheel.

THERE IT IS!

What was that? I wondered. Then I realized that God had spoken to me. So I asked, "What is it? An overwhelming sense of moral ugliness of it—my arrogance and pride—washed over me. For the first time, I saw this sin in God's light.

My next sensation was the profound conviction that God had loved me for 45 years despite this besetting sin he abhorred. For a moment, he let me know myself as he knew me. It was painful to see my pride as God saw it. Yet I was glad for that glimpse. I wept for my sin, and I wept because of God's indescribable love.

William P. Farley, "The Indispensable Virtue," Discipleship Journal (Issue 125), p. 24

Jesus warns us as today as He did His beloved disciples: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Shall we pray that the Lord reveal to us the evil in our own heart?

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