ephphatha

Today in our selection from the One Year Bible, we read about Jesus healing a man who was deaf and mute. The reading is from Mark 7:24-8:10.

Jesus says a cool Aramaic word to perform this miracle. I mean, He used Aramaic words all the time. But this word was especially cool. It means "Be opened." It's the word in the pic above.

And that healing was literal. He actually physically opened the ears and loosened the tongue of this man in the story. But there is, as with all of the gospel stories, a deeper meaning that we can find. Because God speaks to us through the Bible. He gives us the plain meaning of the story. But He also speaks into our lives in a powerful way, because reading the Bible is a form of prayer, and prayer isn't just us talking TO God, it's also God talking back.

So in this case, God speaks to us and tells us that He wants to speak "Ephphatha" into our lives, too. He wants to open our ears to hear His commands. But that's not all He wants us to hear. He also wants us to hear the cries of those around us who need help. Not to turn a deaf ear to them, but to allow their cries into our hearts so that we can respond with the love that we find there.

He also wants us to hear the songs of creation being sung by everything in our world. The oceans and mountains and meadows and birds are all uniting in a great symphony of praise, every day. And most days, we walk right by and pay them no attention, don't we? Caught up in the swirl of fear, regret, anxiety, and self absorption that it's so easy to fall into. But He speaks ephphatha to us, and opens our ears to hear the praise that goes on all around us, so that we might join into the song.

God, thank You for speaking ephphatha and opening us. Please help us stay open.