He has done everything well.

Mark 7:31-30

Context
The geographical context is odd - going from Tyre to Galilee "by way of Sidon" is like going from Mount Pleasant to Lansing "by way of Grayling."

But the literary context fits. Miraculous healings are part of the first century world view - to meet someone who can perform miracles would be exciting and rare, but wouldn't indicate divinity. It might be like meeting a pop star today. The miracle stories of the Gospels need to be read with this in mind - they are not simply indicating Jesus' power, but have other purposes as well. Thus far in Mark, Jesus' disciples have been unable to hear (most recently in 7:17-18), and they have said nothing of import.

Listening to the writer
The strange geography may indicate that the writer doesn't know Palestinian geography very well - or perhaps he wants to emphasize Jesus' continued wandering through Gentile territory. If the latter, what would Mark be saying by setting this story in the Gentile Decapolis?

The uses of touch, spittle, and "magic words" (Mark includes the Aramaic "Ephphtha" in his Greek text so that we will know the actual words used) are all typical of magical healings. Mark is not using the healing to prove Jesus' divinity (since many non-divine people of his day performed faith healings). What would be the point, here in the Gospel, to report on Jesus' healing of a deaf and mute man?

As is typical in Mark, Jesus tells everyone to keep the secret (v. 36), but they do not do so. How does the behavior of this crowd contrast with that of the disciples?

Listening to God
Have you ever known anyone (perhaps yourself?) who was either literally or figuratively deaf and dumb? What would it be like for them to be suddenly able to hear and speak?

Jesus takes the man aside (verse 33). Not all healings are public. Do you give Jesus the private time needed to bring you healing?

Mark emphasizes again and again that Jesus was a healer. In what ways does your church participate in God’s healing ministry? Are there ways God would like your church to become more involved?

What needs healing in your life right now? Spend time in prayer, asking what God would have you do to participate in your healing (perhaps seeking help from a particular person, or spending time in particular physical and/or spiritual disciplines).

Miscellaneous Meanderings
Warning: today's meanderings meander far from the text and from orthodoxy.

I have usually found the healing stories frustrating. Jesus appears to have healed everyone he came in contact with - in the first century. These days, he's not nearly as consistent. In some places, it seems the healing stories have been used to cause more harm than good, to teach that those who are not healed are somehow at fault for their illness. Few things will get my dander up faster than telling me that the faithful men and women I have watched die from horrible diseases "just needed more faith".

Looking for God to perform "miracles" - to intervene in some supernatural way and make something right - is a traditional part of Christianity, and the vast majority of faithful Christians I have known pray regularly for miracles. I confess that I do not. If God could fix everything in an instant, I think that God would have already done so. When I reflect on children starving to death, with their parents crying out to God for their daily bread, and then imagine God miraculously removing a tumor here in America but refusing to miraculously fill a stomach in Africa, I cannot confess that God "has done everything well."

I know that many of my readers can imagine that, and make the confession, and believe that God has his reasons for saying "yes" sometimes and "no" at other times. I have no desire to remove that faith, and certainly God is a mystery and they may well be right. But for me, learning to read the Bible more like a first-century person has helped. For Jesus to be a faith-healer puts him more in the position of an excellent doctor than a magician. Did he heal all those he came in touch with? Yes - at least all the ones we hear about. Did he heal entire crowds in an instant? No. It took hours, and he got tired, and when he stopped for the night there were still people in line.

I argued for years against Harold Kushner's book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," in which he claims that bad things happen because God is not omnipotent. The world is big, and complex, and God is doing the best God can. I've finally converted to Kushner's view. I can make better sense of prayer, and evil, and Jesus, and strange healings (which I think do happen) - I can make better sense of most of Christianity - if I cut God a little slack and accept that the relationship between God and God's creation is not as simple as I would like.

And from this perspective, I can look at creation - including not only the pain of starving children, and the joy of childbirth, and the love of most people for their neighbors - and agree with God that "it is very good" - and that there's still work to do.

Dig Deeper at Textweek.