What was Jesus' mission on earth?
Some say he was a rebel who came to preach some sort of political message to the people of his time. Some say that he was just kind of a nice guy who came to tell us to be a little nicer to each other.
Well the gospel story we just heard tells us a little bit about who Jesus is and what he came to do.
The crowd brings Jesus a man who can't hear or speak. He can't communicate with the people around.
Notice what Jesus does here: he takes the man away from the crowd, off by themselves, and - only then - he heals the man.
Jesus does it in a very physical, almost strange way - he touches his hears and tongue, he spits, and finally looks up to heaven, groans, and says "ephphatha!" That's Aramaic - the common language of Jesus's people - and it means "be opened!"
But, stranger than all of that, when the man is healed, Jesus tells him to keep it a secret. Of course, the man doesn't do this - he tells everyone. But why would Jesus do this? Why would he want to keep this healing a secret? Isn't that part of his mission?
It seems that Jesus has more in mind than just physical healing.
In the first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, we heard a prophecy that, when the Lord comes to save his people, the eyes and ears of the blind will be opened; and the mute will sing. Isaiah is talking about a new creation where everything wrong, everything that causes suffering will be made new.
That is Jesus' purpose in trying to keep this miracle a secret. He didn't come among us just to perform miracles - those are just visible signs of a deeper reality - but sometimes they distracted people from the real reason Jesus did what he did: Jesus came to make us new creations - to transform us at our deepest level - to heal our separation from God.
There's another time when we hear that Aramaic word, ephphatha - it's during the rite of baptism. The priest touches the ears and mouth of the child praying that they may hear God's word and proclaim his praise.
That is what all of us are made to do, but all of us can find ourselves blinded by our sin; made deaf by the noise of the world that blocks out the voice of God; and unable to praise God because we've stopped speaking with love.
It's in those moments that we have to go to Jesus and asked to be healed - ask that he will open us up to receive his word and proclaim his praise.
When we are healed in that way, then there's no need to keep it a secret. God's love will transform us so that we can truly hear and truly see.
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