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Mark 7:31 - 37
Christ's Mission – Acquainting Us With God

Our Lord knows how to move us to seek Him. And He has a reason for doing so. What He wants to do is to reacquaint us with an estranged God. After all, you see, because of our rebellion in Adam we totally lost communion with God, and we aren't trying very hard to find it again either!  As Jesus put it, "No man comes unto Me except the Father which sent Me draw him."

That just points up our greatest need, and it also points up one of our Lord's most wonderful mercies to sinners: He reopens our eyes to know and love the God Who is revealed in His Son. We can see that in Mark 7:31-37. As you read this passage, ask yourself whether your Lord through His Spirit has begun to reacquaint you with God.

Matthew doesn't record this particular healing in his Gospel, but he does explain that a great multitude had gathered around Jesus, and that He was healing, restoring sight to the blind, etc. Mark singles out the specific incident, though, probably because of our Lord's unique actions in the case, actions that impressed Mark because they revealed the heart and Character of his Lord in a way he hadn't previously considered. It should do the same for us.

The people of the region had either seen or heard about many of Jesus' miracles, and they expected Him to perform this one as He had many others - by laying His hands on the man. Thus we read, "They brought to Him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they urged Him to lay His hands upon him." Many in that day, just as some in our own day, thought that power somehow flowed through the hands of the miracle worker. But such expectations limit God.

That He was not limited in that way is plain from the incident of the Syrophoenecian woman. On that occasion Jesus had simply told her to be on her way, for the demon had already left her daughter. Neither distance nor "laying on of hands" mattered. A problem for the people of that time as well as for ourselves is that we don't adequately realize the greatness of God.

The point is that Jesus didn't "do" this miracle at all! His Father in heaven did it in response to His Son.  He made that fact vividly clear when He looked up into heaven and sighed. In that sigh He communicated with His beloved Father, and we ought to conclude that it was from the very Throne of God that this miracle (or any of our Lord's other miracles) was performed. Jesus "did" only what He saw the Father willing to do (John 5:19). Our Lord walked through each day with the Father just as we should, in instant and constant communication with Him. He always knew what the Father wanted to do.

He tells His disciples about it in John 14:10. There He explained, "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works." The union between the Father and the Son is so close! The disciples had the privilege of observing the works of GOD as they watched Jesus work.

Jesus looked to the Father, saw what was intended, and pronounced the words of deliverance in His Father's Name. Then God, Who is absolutely sovereign over all people and and over all events on earth, accomplished the healing instantly and without the "laying on of hands" expected by the people. Power didn't have to "flow through" Jesus to the man, but it came directly from the Father when His Son spoke the word.

Like the people here, as we observe the actions of our Lord, we might be tempted to think that healing came through the fingers of Jesus as He thrust them into the man's ears, and through the spittle, and through Jesus' touching of the man's tongue, but to say so is to  missunderstand. Those actions were performed to communicate with the man! The man was deaf, and couldn't speak distinctly, but he could see very well, so Jesus simply spoke to him by means of vivid signs, signs that would help him understand what was about to happen so that he'd be fully aware of the Source of his healing and so that the signs would actually draw him into communication with the Father.

So Jesus thrust His fingers into the man's ears to make him aware that his ears were about to be opened. He touched his tongue so that he would be aware that he would soon be able to speak. Finally, He used the spit to make the man aware that his speech impediment was about to be eliminated. Jesus wanted this man to understand ahead of time what was going to happen to him. And He wanted him to look to the Father in heaven just as He Himself did with His "sigh." Jesus wanted him to be fully aware that His healing came from a gracious God!

Why did He so carefully communicate with the man? Why didn't He wait until the healing had taken place, when communication would be much easier? We need to see the answer in the very focus of Jesus' mission on earth, His mission to restore His people's communion with God - a communion that had been utterly lost in the Fall.


For that purpose, then, He wanted to give this man a vivid demonstration of the fact that His healing was from God - He wanted to reacquaint him with the God Who healed him. Such acquaintance is the very essence of true faith, and Jesus wanted him to have faith. In fact, Jesus wanted this man to join Him in His own faith in the Father! The man's healing would then just be the exclamation point to all he had learned! Ever after, he would look to the Father.

I believe Jesus expressed these purposes in His high-priestly prayer to the Father in John 17:21-23. There He prays, ". . . that they all may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." Just as Jesus was so close to the Father that He was always in instant communication with Him, so He wanted this man - and ourselves - to be close to Him and to the Father.

It's the kind of faith that's still needed. It still isn't enough to receive even the most wonderful blessings: we also need to be more and more aware of the ONE from Whom they come - we need to be brought into communion with HIM. The mission hasn't changed, then: our Lord's main purpose is reacquainting us with our God, bringing us into closest communion with Father and Son.

And Jesus was so gracious to communicate with this man even before the miracle! It was so gracious of our Lord to "let him in on the action" by making it possible for him to join in Jesus' faith prior to the healing! He too could "look up into heaven and sigh." He too could look, with Jesus, to the Father to open his ears, loose his tongue, and remove the impediment.

It can be the same with us. We too need to learn to communicate with the Father. We need to learn, in other words, to pray. Our Lord would have us to pray, not because He needs to be made aware of our needs, but because He actually desires to make us co-workers with Himself in the satisfaction of our needs! Not that he even needs coworkers, but He desires in love to draw us to Himself, to make us more aware of Him, to bring us into restored communion with our God, Father and Son! One of the gracious purposes of prayer is to draw us into fellowship with God and to make us His coworkers!

Isn't that what our Lord was trying to teach us in John 16:26, 27, where He says, "In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God!" Jesus was constantly communicating with His Father, and He wants us to do it too. That's why this man had to be taken away from the crowd before the healing took place. The miracle was not for the purpose of creating a sensation, but it was for the purpose of bringing one man closer to God.

That should be the purpose of our evangelism, too. Whether we're dealing with mass audiences or with only one soul at a time, we need to be careful to bring each precious soul into new and blessed communion with our Lord. Let's reacquaint them with God as He so gloriously appears in His Son. Let's try to make men, women, and children aware that they can come to God through His Son, and that He's willing to receive them!