He's done it all and done it well!

Mark 7:31-37

31 Then he left the region of Tyre, went through Sidon back to Galilee Lake and over to the district of the Ten Towns. 32 Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him. 33 He took the man off by himself, put his fingers in the man's ears and some spit on the man's tongue. 34 Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, "Ephphatha!-- Open up!" 35 And it happened. The man's hearing was clear and his speech plain-- just like that. 36 Jesus urged them to keep it quiet, but they talked it up all the more, 37 beside themselves with excitement. "He's done it all and done it well. He gives hearing to the deaf, speech to the speechless."

Food for thought!

This story is of a man with double jeopardy! He was deaf and had an impediment in his speech. No doubt the two things went together; it was the man's inability to hear which made his speech so imperfect. This said, although this man was handicapped,he was a lucky man too;be had around him caring people. These people brought him to Jesus and asked him to lay a healing hand on him. I wonder if you have real people who care about you. Do you yourself remember to care about some one? Remember: it is good to be good. I would say that if we want to be like Jesus we should reach out to the handicapped! Jesus loved them and ministered to them and we should do the same.

Let us look at what Jesus did and does to those that come to him.

(i) He took the man aside from the crowd, all by himself. Here is the most tender considerateness of Jesus. Deaf people are always a little embarrassed. In some ways it is more embarrassing to be deaf than it is to be blind. Many times it is only the deaf person who knows that he cannot hear; and when we talk to one, we talk as if we are talking to a normal person, only to find out later that the deaf was not hearing a thing. Jesus “took him aside”. The crowd expected Jesus to just touch him right there and heal him. But, Jesus is a gentleman! He does not embarrass the man more than he already is. This man is deaf! He probably has no idea what is going on. He set people talking but understands not a thing. Jesus refuses to make a spectacle of this man. Jesus takes him aside and does a great work in his life. By taking him aside, Jesus is saying, “you are more than a problem, you are an individual and you are important to me! I care about you!” To Jesus we are not a problematic people but a people with problems to solve.

We can learn from and after Jesus. When we want to correct someone, we do well to take them aside, away from the public, and speak to them there. It's not fair to humiliate others in public. Terms did not, and we should not. Jesus doesn’t treat people like they are mere numbers. Just look at the ministry of Jesus. He healed many people, but His methods varied from case to case. He touched a leper. He put spit and dirt in a blind man’s eye. He made one blind fellow go to a pool and wash his eyes. Others He healed from a distance. Every case was different and every case merited special attention from the Master!

You can't put Jesus in a box. He doesn’t always work the same way! This said, there is one constant thing about Jesus that you can depend on: Jesus cares for you on a personal level. He will work in your life in a manner unique to you! You are special to Him and He will honor that special relationship in His dealings with you! Consider this. since the man is deaf, that is he cannot hear Jesus , he cannot tell the man verbally what He is about to do, so Jesus uses a rough form of sign language to communicate His intentions. First, He sticks His fingers in the man’s ears to let him know that He is going to do something about his deafness. He spits on His finger and touches the man’s tongue to let him know that He is about to lubricate his speech. That’s gross, but that is what Jesus did!

Let us thank Jesus for his touches. He touched the sick and made them well! He touched the rot of leprosy and made it clean! He touched the black pallor of the young man who had died and who was being carried to the grave for burial and made him live! Jesus wasn’t afraid to touch the defiled. He wasn’t afraid of being defiled. He knew that sickness and death had to yield to His holiness and power. Jesus just walked up to this poor man and touched him! Yes, let's thank Jesus. When we could not get to Him, He left Heaven and came into this world to die for our sins. We could not touch Him, but He came to our world, lived among us, died on the cross to save us, and He touched us! Glory to God! He didn’t shy away from our defilement, but He took our sins upon Himself so that we might be saved.

After touching him, Jesus looked toward Heaven. This act served two purposes. First, it told the deaf man where the healing was coming from. Jesus was looking to His Father and He was telling this man, via sign language, that his healing was coming from above. This was not the first time Jesus looked to heaven. He often looked to Heaven for the help He needed. When you're stuck in problems and issues remember to look up to the Father in heaven. We sometimes forget the source of our being and doing. It is God!

Above all we have said so far, there's something worthy of our notice. When the healing was completed the people declared that Jesus had done all things well. That is none other than the verdict of God upon his own creation in the very beginning: "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good (suitable, pleasant)" (Gen.1:31). When Jesus came, bringing healing to men's bodies and salvation to their souls, he had begun the work of creation all over again. In the beginning of the world, everything had been good; God saw everything he created as good. It was man's sin that spoiled and spoils God's creation. And it is Jesus' mission to recreate us; in today's gospel reading, Jesus was bringing back the beauty of God to the man who had lost it. Jesus can do the same to you and me! That's, if we let him.

As I stand here and look to the future, it gives me confidence to know that He will continue to do all things well. We may not understand all the twists and turns of the road of life. We may wonder why some of terrible events in life take place. We may wonder why people have to get sick and others have to die. We do wonder about many of those things. Right now, some of you have question marks as tall as mountains in your mind over certain events in your life. I can’t tell you why life has gone like it has for you. I will venture to say that when you leave this world and you stand in His presence in Heaven, you will look back over the days of your life and you will say, He's done it all and done it well.