I have been to the hospital many more times these last few weeks than is typical. I have been to the Emergency Room, to the Medical Surgical floor, to the Cardiac floor, and to lots of places in-between. I have also visited a couple of rehabilitation centers in the last few weeks, too. It has been a busy week of medical needs, walking beside our congregation. It has been a hard week or so for the physical health of our people!

I was thinking more about the spiritual health of our congregation this week than our physical well-being as the days have gone by. In fact, about three weeks ago I skimmed through a book that I had read previously about spiritually healthy churches. All of the above, combined with the emphasis of Mark 7 and 8, brings my thoughts to this: spiritual deafness and blindness is the actual condition of our world. This deafness and blindness is actually a “symptom” of the reality, that without the enlivening work of the Holy Spirit, we are far worse off than the heart patients, or the cancer patients, or anyone else in any of the medical facilities I have visited recently. Spiritual deafness and blindness represent the fact that outside of a living faith in the costly grace of Jesus Christ, we are actually dead. Our world is filled with “dead men walking.”

Well then, if spiritual deafness and blindness are the condition of the world – and it is – then how do we break through that to communicate the gospel? Mark 7 describes Jesus looking up to heaven, groaning, and commanding in Aramaic that the deaf man’s ears be opened and tongue be freed. Maybe Jesus went through those “motions” in order for us to see that these miracles are not just something simple.

What would you do if you were summoned to the emergency room in the middle of the night because there was a young man with severe stomach pains who was Dari Persian (Iranian)? Not only that, but he was deaf as well, and had only been here in the United States a few days? He is in pain and looks frightened because he is unable to hear or understand what the doctors gathered around him are asking and saying. It would be painful not to be able to talk with him, wouldn’t it? Even if someone arrived who spoke Dari Persian, the situation would not be improved because of his deafness. I suspect that you and the physicians would have to resort to some kind of primitive sign language to act out what is wrong, and what the doctors were planning to do.

Isn’t “acting out” the gospel to a world that is deaf and blind – really actually dead – exactly what the church is called to do? We need to act out the message of the good news for those who cannot see or understand in a language that is universally understood. We do that “acting out” by means of deeds of lovingkindness. We, as those who once were blind, and once were deaf, and once were unable to speak, must love as Jesus loved. Maybe we even need to touch those who we might consider “ritually unclean,” just as freely and graciously as Jesus did.

But there is something else in these verses of Mark 7 and 8 that we need to recognize. It is the truth that spiritual blindness and deafness, and even being mute applies to the people of God as well. We, who have turned to Jesus in faith, still do not always open our ears to God. We may only hear muffled vibrations (like the bass of that car with the huge stereo at the stop light), we might speak in inarticulate grunts, we may even only see men that “look like trees walking.” If you read Mark 7 and 8 carefully you will notice that Jesus cured the disciples deafness and inability to see and speak by pulling them aside from the crowds and teaching them. You need that kind of time, too. Time alone with Jesus, to let Him put his fingers in your ears, to spit and touch your tongue, and to lay his hands on your eyes. We all need one-on-one time with our Savior so that we can see what God is doing in our lives, hear his word afresh, and speak to others more clearly.

Years ago the Apostle Paul penned these words about his ministry: …the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:25ff)

Here Paul is describing, in majestic words, his own understanding of his ministry as an Apostle and how he carried out the task of proclaiming the Word. He spoke of his calling, his message, and the purpose of his preaching. In the verses just before this beautiful passage Paul explained to the Christians at Colossae that he understood himself as a servant of the Word, and his purpose in life was to preach the Word and proclaim Jesus Christ.

Of late, I have had several opportunities to sit under the preaching of others. What I have heard on those occasions seems, in my opinion, to fall far short of the kind of fidelity, passion and preaching Paul spoke of here. I admit, too, that my own preaching does not always meet the mark of Paul’s example. In fact, I think the observation that “Rarely do we hear these days that a church is distinguished primarily by its preaching” is all too true. I know when I gather with other pastors and church people, I hear all kinds of reports about their congregations in terms of “ministry,” but rarely, if ever, do I hear first of a strong pulpit that is faithful to the Scriptures. I hear about things like mercy ministry, outreach events, small groups, missions opportunities and many other things that are even more secondary than those. Occasionally we will get a telephone call at the office, or an email from someone who has some interest in the church, and they ask about worship style or even what kind of seating we might have in the auditorium. In fact, I have even been asked: “What is your view on the six days of creation?” or some other theological question; but I am going to venture out and say I have NEVER been asked about the character, power, or content of our preaching.

There are days when I, as your pastor, find that I am frustrated because I am envious of those who have something tangible to show at the end of their day, or week. My labor is not like that! I am not always given, in this life, the sight to see what I would like to see at the end of my labor. Sometimes it can seem as if I just stand up and throw out words, and wonder what the fruit of that will be. I am so encouraged when someone says a week or so later: “I have been wrestling with the Scripture you preached on last week, and think God is calling me to apply it in this way.” I think Paul understood that preaching is primary, and that rather than hearing in vain, his listeners should bear good fruit from the preaching of the Scriptures. Good fruit takes time to become evident.

It is my fervent prayer, that at the end of the day, the one thing that New Hope will become “known for” is our view of the primacy of preaching that is faithful to Scripture and bears fruit in the lives of Jesus’ sons and daughters. Our ministries, all of them, must flow out of our worship, and the power of the Word of Christ faithfully proclaimed!

Jesus made them angry! One thing about it, no one encountered Jesus without some kind of response, and frequently it was a response of anger or unbelief. The scribes and Pharisees were angry when Jesus forgave the paralytic his sin and healed him. Jesus had pronounced forgiveness and that was something only God could do… and they thought He had blasphemed, and knew that He had certainly overstepped the bounds of Jewish tradition and the Law. The scribes and Pharisees were genuinely angry about this incident.

Mark’s gospel then describes Jesus bringing the Sea of Galilee under His control, again, something only God could do. This time it was the Disciples who responded to Jesus. They were fearful of Jesus, because they recognized immediately that what He had done was only something God could do. Only God has the power to control the wind and the waves.

On the other side of the Sea of Galilee, just after the “sea calming” event, we see how other people responded to their encounters with Jesus as he cast Legion out of the Demoniac. The herdsmen and the townspeople were so fearful of the power of God that Jesus displayed, that they begged Him to depart from them. The Demoniac asked to go with Jesus as the Disciples and Jesus were leaving the vicinity where he had been healed. Instead, Jesus charged the once demon possessed man to became a “regional missionary,” giving testimony to the grace of God in delivering him from Satan’s vice-grip. Jesus left, and some were angry, and some doubtless began to believe that Jesus was God.

So much like a “Golden Glove Boxer,” Mark continues to throw the punches – he continues to show us that Jesus is really the Son of God by the miracles and power He wields before the watching world. Mark shows us that Jesus is so powerful that this woman who reached out and only touched the hem of Jesus’ garment was healed. She was a a social outcast from her Jewish friends and family because she was “ceremonially unclean” due to her physical ailment. Mark recounts for us that she was willing to endure public humiliation, and for her faith she was rewarded with physical and spiritual wholeness.

The story of the woman healed of her constant bleed is in the middle of another account that illicits a response to Jesus’ claim to be God. It is the story of Jesus, in front of five eyewitnesses, doing something that only God could do. He raised from the dead Jairus’ daughter, a twelve year old, for whom the crowds had already begun to weep and wail the Israelite death wail. It was so outrageous that Jesus would go with Jairus, saying the girl was only sleeping and not dead, that those nearby laughed at Him.

In a short section of Mark’s gospel we have a picture of Jesus, day by day and miracle by miracle, giving indisputable evidence that He is indeed the Son of God. There was no way anyone else could have done the things He did. Their own eyes had seen these things happen. They had met the people that these things happened to. There was a strong testimony from those who had encountered Jesus that He had truly done what only God could do for them, and that Jesus was no “ordinary man.” They responded either in anger, ridicule and disbelief, or in faith that He has the power to forgive sin and grant them eternal life.

The gospel writer, Mark has given us a “stacked-deck” argument that we can not deny. Jesus is truly the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of God – or– all of the events above are just fairy tales that someone made up and are lies to be ignored and exposed. What the Holy Spirit wants you and me to do is believe. Jesus is unquestionably who He claimed to be with His words, who He proved to be by His miracles, and who the eyewitnesses testify that He is by their words and subsequent lives.

What will you do with the reality that Jesus is the Son of God, who gave His life to reconcile our sin before the Father and who has paid our debt and knows us by name? Your burden and mine is to rest on Him alone for our salvation!