Thursday, September 6, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 7:32-37

And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside to be by themselves, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man's ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they proclaimed it. Their admiration was unbounded, and they said, 'Everything he does is good, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'

Reflection

We can hear these words on two levels. One is incomplete and shallow; the other reflects understanding and wisdom.

The crowd saw Jesus touch the deaf man and sigh. They were amazed that he was soon able to hear and speak. Their understanding was shallow. It never penetrated the surface of what happened right in front of them.

They spread the story, raising eyebrows and curiosity to be sure. But were their souls stirred to crave union with the one who sighs in wounded love for the world?

Do they want what is in him? Do they hunger to know his great soul in the depth of their own? Do they seek this transformation so that they, too, with sighs of love and sorrow, might touch and make the world more whole for their presence?

To want this is to possess Jesus, to have his soul flowing through your own, for his soul hungers for the world and broken hearts to be made whole.

Wholeness is not primarily physical but spiritual and emotional. There are those with fully-able bodies who will never be whole, and there are those who are losing their battles with cancer and disease, who are more whole than they have ever been.

It’s about connection. Those who are whole feel and know connection with the Great Life who does not die. Their bodies tingle in awareness that the Life and Love of God is in them, filling them with that otherwise elusive feeling that they are well, that all is well. They know all they are and all that is rests in Love and always will.

They know: Love works … constantly, in all, through all, with all. It always has the final word, and that word is life and peace, unity with the Loving Wonder for whom our hearts long.

Wholeness is the life that flows in us when we know and feel the truth: You dwell in the atmosphere of God who is love, the One who sighs out, “Be opened.

“Be opened, so you may know and be filled with the Spirit of Life and Love that I am. Be opened, and you will live.”

Pr. David L. Miller