September 8, 2024

Today's Reading: Mark 7:24-30, 31-37

Daily Lectionary: 2 Kings 5:9-27; Philippians 1:1-20

“And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’” (Mark 7:34)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. 

Jesus puts His fingers in the deaf ears of the man and touches the man’s garbled tongue with His holy saliva, and He looks up to heaven and sighs. It is a word that can also mean “groaning.” Just as Jesus weeps at the grave of His friend Lazarus, here He groans at ears and a tongue that do not do what He made them to do.

It was not always this way, of course. In the beginning, there was no sighing, no groaning. But it was not long before groans and sighs show up. The noun shows up in the Greek translation of the Old Testament already in Genesis 3! In the curse that follows sin, God says to Eve that He would multiply her pain and groaning (Genesis 3:16, Septuagint). Groaning goes with sin, with the burden of our sin and the sins of others that weigh us down. Sighing is the nature of the whole creation. In Romans 8, St. Paul says that the whole creation groans together, and not only the creation but we groan also (8:22-23). If you’ve ever gotten to the end of a day, or a week, or a semester, or a year and found yourself sighing; if you’ve ever found yourself grieving, struggling, guilty, or ashamed, and you groan or sigh because you can’t see a way out or a light at the end of the tunnel, you know the nature of this creation. It is hard to hear the Word of God, and it’s hard to speak God’s promises, even to yourself. Things are not the way they’re supposed to be. 

But Jesus knows, too. Just as God heard the groaning of Israel in slavery (Exodus 2:24; 6:5) and their sighing under their oppressors (Judges 2:18), God has heard your sighs and groans. Not only are all things made through Him, but He entered this world in a body made for Him. And though He is without sin, He, too, groans because He is in the midst of it. It is all around Him, and it is not the way He wants it to be. He groans and weeps and suffers and dies. He rises from the dead, and as a sign of that resurrection, He puts His fingers in the deaf man’s ears and loosens his tongue with a touch. So He opens your ears to hear again His promises and your tongue to sing His praise. This, too, is a sign of the coming resurrection, when, as God promises through Isaiah, “the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 51:11).

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

O Lord, let Your merciful ears be open to the prayers of Your humble servants and grant that what they ask may be in accord with Your gracious will; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

-Rev. Timothy Winterstein is pastor at Faith Lutheran Church, East Wenatchee, Washington.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

The new Guiding Word series takes you through all the books of the Bible in six volumes. Starting with the Books of Moses—Genesis through Deuteronomy—you will explore every passage of every chapter of each book with the help of maps, diagrams, links between the testaments, and clarification points.