He Has Done All Things Well
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.
33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!”(which means “Be opened!”). 35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
Mark 7: 31-36
Perhaps the most beautiful statement in this passage is that “He has done all things
well.” That is what the crowd exclaims with sheer astonishment. Here before them is a man
who is just simply, wonderfully, truly good. Not since the foundation of the world has a man
been good in such a way that Jesus is. Here is the God-man, Jesus, who makes all things
good. Who shows us what things should rightly be.
For how could we know otherwise? We were lost, deaf to his commands, the cries of
our brothers and sisters never reaching our ears. Trapped, unlike the man from this passage, in
a silence of our own making. The dead silence of our isolated, self-centered worlds. Deaf to the
groans of human beings which are ground into the dirt for unjust gain, deaf to the words of
God who calls us to something higher, and deaf to a layer of beauty in the creation which we
could never imagine in our wildest dreams. In such a state we can produce only garbled words
grasping at what is good. We could not even hear him if we wanted to.
But Christ, lovingly, tenderly touches our ears. He gives us truth, and teaches us how to
speak it by giving us His own saliva. Like a child who is told a word to repeat back in order that
he may learn to speak, Jesus gives some of himself to us so that we may speak it back, and
learn what it is to be good. The deaf hear and the mute speak though communion. We have
words to say because of the gift of The Word.
Those who have ears to hear this morning, let them hear. Come to Jesus once again,
and beg him to open your ears to that which you have closed off. Do some cries of pain fall on
your deaf ears, do some calls to action never reach your thoughts, do some sins never register
to you? Ask yourself where He is present in your life, and where He is not. Let him penetrate
the silences you have.
He has done all things well. Our hope is that one day, we will too.
About the Author:
Devon Dollahon is an Intern at the Wesley Foundation. He graduated in Electrical Engineering at LA Tech. Devon will be pursuing a Masters in Engineering after he completes his ministry work with the Wesley.