Sermons: Lent III

February 24, 2008

The point of our journey up to Jerusalem during the holy season of Lent is not only to see and behold the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us, but also to hear from the same Word, to hear the words that come to us from Jesus Christ- the Word of God. For not only do we travel up to Jerusalem to behold or see the unfolding nature of God in the love that suffers and dies for the sins of the world. But we go up also to hear the Word of God, to open our ears to the communication of God to us through the events of Jesus’ passion and crucifixion. There will be what is seen and that is important for it will be recorded in the words of the Apostles and followers of Christ. But what is heard is perhaps even more fundamental, for here the ears of sinful men are opened to the voice of God, his expressed meaning and purpose in the words that come to us from Jesus Christ, The Word of God made flesh.

So our theme for this Sunday is hearing. And we are presented with a beautiful miracle through which to come to understand spiritual hearing. What is fascinating about today’s Gospel is that the man whom Jesus heals is one who cannot speak because he cannot hear. This is true, according to modern medicine, of most of those diagnosed as “dumb”. The dumb cannot speak in a rational way. It is not that they cannot make noises- like laughing, screaming, yelling, groaning. But their real problem is that they cannot put sounds into words because they have never heard words in their linguistic setting. And so as children they could never imitate what they heard from their elders and then connect words rationally as they matured. So they are unable to have a lingual connection with the outside world because they have never heard languages spoken.

Now this is very interesting from the standpoint of the Christian Gospel and the teaching of God’s Incarnate Word. The man is today’s Gospel, we infer, is literally deaf. This explains why he cannot speak. By some accident of nature this man was born without the ability to hear. But there are others who are deaf in the Gospel lesson today who cannot speak in a rational manner because they will not hear the Word of God. These men are willfully deaf. The healed man had been deaf from birth and desired to hear. The others had been born with ears to hear but had closed them off to the communication of truth and wisdom that was given to them in the person of Jesus Christ.

In this morning’s Gospel we see that Jesus performs a miracle on a man deaf from birth. The miracle moves the onlookers to judge that Jesus must have a demon or a devil. Perhaps because they themselves could never have healed anyone, they judged that it was an impossibility and that Jesus must have been using some kind of magic. As such they were really saying that miracles cannot happen, that God cannot operate in the world that he created, and that he would never come to the world, least of all in the human nature of Jesus Christ. But maybe what they were really missing was the fact that God has always desired to speak to and through the hearts of his faithful people, but that the people would not hear of it, or hear it at all. For their ears were closed, through sin, to God’s still small voice, full of promise and hope for them all. What they could not and would not allow was that God would make good on his promises to visit the earth, and to save all men from sin.

So they made themselves spiritually deaf. And as a result had stopped hearing God long since, and so even when God in Christ performed a miracle before their eyes, their pride stopped them for knowing that the Word of God, his meaning and expression was standing right in front of them.

And these same men, were of course, those whom Christ goes on to criticize further. For presumably they were moral men, they had long since ridden themselves of their own peculiar demons and temptations and thought themselves religious and upright. They thought themselves inheritors of the kingdom of God and the house of the Lord. But Jesus says, “every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.” They claim to be part of the kingdom, of God’s chosen royal race and part of his household, but they are divided from him. They are witnessing the Word of God in action before them, the expression of his kingdom’s meaning. His Word is one with his Father. The purpose of God the Father and his Word-his Son, together is united; they desire that all men should be one with them and be saved. Satan’s house is divided against itself. Satan thinks that it is unified, but it torn asunder by the vanity, pride and narcissism of selfish souls at war with one another. Like Thomas Hobbes state of nature, “It is a house where, as Hobbes said, the “condition of war with every one against every one…where everyone claims a right to everything, even his own neighbor’s body.” Satan’s house cannot stand in the end. In the meantime, however, between now and the end times, Satan will ensure that he inhabits each man and keeps him at war with his neighbor. But in the end, demons and false gods are the ideas, people or things that prevent us from unity with God. These demons and devils divide us from God. They endlessly separate us from God, and their house cannot stand. And so it is with these critics of Christ.

But it is by the finger of God that sin and our adhesion to it is cast out and away. Only the light of truth can bring this about. “All these things that are reproved are made manifest by the light,” says St. Paul, “for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” By the Word of God and his truth man is liberated from sin. But more is needed. It is easy enough for the Word of God to cast out demons and devils, and to assure our dissatisfaction with them. But there remains a lingering cynicism. “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and finding none, he saith, I will return to my house whence I came out; and when he cometh he findeth it swept and garnished; then goeth he and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked then himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” The soul has been cleaned of its vices and demons, its old bad habits and its willing of lies. But then the soul is often left empty. Nothing occupies its rooms and corridors. Its house is in danger of being unoccupied by true life, care and love. Its space is vulnerable and its condition is dead. The man has been freed of certain sins, only to be assaulted and taken over by seven others much worse than the first. His cynicism leads to despair and his despair prevents God’s light and love from inhabiting his life and making his house stand strong.

Such is the case with the critics of Christ. Their souls have been cleaned from certain moral sins most likely, but the casting off of their demons has not been replaced with the infusion of God’s power and mercy. A stronger man than the most strong has come into the world. Christ is the stronger man who comes into the homes of those who trust in their own strength and takes from them everything they trusted in; for they trusted in themselves and their false gods. He takes away everything from man. He asks that we be one with him and his Father. We are to gather with him for the kingdom. We are to gather in the virtue and holiness of God. If we do not we are left with nothing, just like the witnesses of today’s miracle, whose cynicism has led to despair and the ultimate judgment of God’s Word himself.

In today’s Gospel the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ, performs a miracle in order to establish his unity with God. He opens the ears of a deaf man so that he might hear the truth of God, the meaning of life and the purpose of human nature. As he performs his miracle, what is lost on the truly deaf, is that he is the Miracle of God. He is God with us and for us. His life itself and all that it communicates to us of God the Father is all that we need to come into his kingdom and his house. We do not need signs and wonders for Jesus is our Miracle. He is God’s Word with us that opens our ears and unlooses our tongues that we may sing the song of the Lord in the land of the living. Those who need signs and wonders have spiritual homes full of demons that prevent them from hearing the Word of God and keeping. Let us let Christ open our ears to what and who he is; the Word of God, the Glory of his splendour, the beautiful image of his Father, the Miracle of Miracles. Amen.