Ephphatha!

….that is, Be opened.

Mark 7:34 gives us the account of the healing of a deaf/mute man with one Word, one! What an amazing account of healing. Jesus looked up to heaven, indicating where all good comes from and he sighed, perhaps the sigh was one of deep compassion and pity, and He spoke just one word. With that one word the man’s ears were opened and he spoke plain. We have many accounts in the Scripture of the physical healings that Jesus did while He walked this earth as the God man. Many of them, maybe even all of them, have a spiritual meaning to believers. This one is no different.

Spiritual ears to hear come from God alone, Jesus said in Matthew 13:9 “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” The disciples wanted to know why He spoke to the multitudes in parables and He told them that He spoke in parables because they do not see and hearing they do not understand, their hearts had grown dull and their ears were hard of hearing and so He spoke in parables lest they should hear with their ears and understand and turn so that He should heal them.

But as the healing of the deaf/mute man, the same is true of believers. We are deaf to hear the spiritual truths of the Scripture, deaf to the message of the cross and the message of the Gospel and we are mute to speak of the unspeakable glories of the Lord. That is until we are separated out and given ears to hear the Truth and given the ability to speak plain, to speak the Truth of the Gospel. It is when our ears are opened that we delight in the preaching of the cross for we know it is the power of God and it is no longer an offense to us.

When our ears our opened we can marvel and be astonished too, saying “He hath done all things well; He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak” and because we are no longer mute we can praise Him with our lips.

“Because thy lovingkindness is better that life, my lips shall praise thee” (Psalm 63:3)