Sunday Sermon, Sunday June 28, 2026 - Gospel of Mark 7:31-37 - The Deaf Hear The Mute Speak

 Having healed the daughter of the Syrophoenician casting out the demon that was in her, Jesus and his disciples more east to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to another area that is larger and more Gentile area.

Mark 7:31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.

Decapolis which means ten cities, Deca 10, let us all remember our metric system teaching in middle school, and then of course the word polis is city, do the 10 cities is a Greek City State area, that is set up much like the Greece of old with Athens and Sparta, this region is set up much the same way, and it is very Gentile, very Greek most of the people who live in this region are not from the Middle East, they trace their roots back to Macedonia the great Greek area that would produce Alexander the Great, who like the Assyrians who at one time occupied this same area, Alexander would import mass numbers of Greeks into a region and change the culture wholesale. Alexander would do this throughout the world, in the lands that he conquered Alexander so instilled Greek culture and the language that a group of Jews would translate the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, called the Septuagint or called the 70 for the 70 supposed Rabbi’s who under took the translation, this is why in some of the older translation notes you may see a reference to LXX which is the Roman numeral for 70. The Septuagint was the Bible of the early church in the Gentile areas. In allowing Alexander to spread Greek language and culture throughout the known world, God made it possible that there was one language that was universal hence why our early manuscripts of the Bible are in Greek. The Apostles did not have to worry about putting the New Testament in serval different languages, God had made arrangements for there to be one language during the lifetime of Jesus the Apostles and the early church Fathers. It would be another 5 to 6 hundred years before Latin would start to be an influence but in the east, Greek would maintain that hold for another century.

Mark 7:32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.

Here again another Gentile has been brought to Jesus in need of healing. The fame of Jesus had spread well outside of Galilee, there was not a region that touched Judah and Samaria that Jesus was not known.

The man has two issues, he is deaf he can hear nothing and he is mute. Now many people who are deaf cannot speak, but in this context, mute means that he is physically incapable of speaking or making sounds. There are deaf people who can make sounds, but that was not this man, he function on only sight.

Mark 7:33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.

So why take this man aside, why not just do this in front of everyone? While the text does not say specifically, we can assume that lots of people were standing around for the show. Again, let’s remember what the majority of the crowd is there for? To see the show. The crowd is and will treat this man as some kind of freak, the crowd is not helpful, so Jesus takes the man to a private place.

Second is why did Jesus place his fingers in the man’s ears, and placing a little spit on his hands, then touch his tongue. This all seems a bit much considering that Jesus had healed the little girl from a distance, had feed the 5,000 with no theatrics so why this? Well this get very much to what the expectations of what the Jews would accept as sign that Jesus was the Messiah, they want to see and try to understand how the sausage was made. Did Jesus need to do all of this, no of course not, he could have just spoken the words and it be done, but we can only speculate that Jesus knew the hearts of the men in the room and they wanted to see how the sausage was made, so Jesus complied he went through the motions of pointing out what was being done, finger in the ears, restoring the hearing, a little spit on the hand and placed in the mouth, giving the ability to speak.

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

Ephphatha - An Aramaic word which means what the text says be open. But I want us to notice what happened right before that. He sighed, there is an element of frustration for Jesus, that whiles giving a man the ability to hear and speak is not what Jesus is frustrated about, his frustration lies with having to do this over and over to show these people that He is indeed the Messiah. It is like how many times must I show you people. While we know that Jesus is the God man, He is God incarnate Jesus is still 100% human, and it is in his humanity that this frustration is expressed. Our Roman reader is going to see that this Jesus is very much like him, he too gets frustrated with people and circumstances, and yet what the Roman reader sees that Jesus, while frustrated with all the human subjectivism, still carries through and brings healing to this man. Frustration does not keep the work from being done.

Second, is Be Open, what is being opened? Well of course the man’s ears and the ability to speak, that is clear, but there is something else being opened to this man, His heart and the exposes to the Gospel, because now that he has been healed, he is open to the Spirit of God coming through the Word, a whole new world is being open to him that he never had before, yes it is wonderful that he can hear but what is more wonderful is what he will hear, the message of the saving power of Christ. His open ears lead to an open heart to hear the Gospel.

Mark 7:35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

Now think about what just happened. Again, we read the text of scripture, and we see he can hear and speak, wow that is great, but it more than this. The man has never heard words and has no understanding of not only how to speak, but what to even say. This man is a baby when it comes to speech and yet, he did what? Spoke plainly. Not only did Jesus give him the ability to hear and speak, but he also gave the man the knowledge to say words to understand what he was saying, and to hear those same words with understanding. A guy who had never heard a single word spoken. He could not have learned to read or write with any understanding, because he could not hear the instructions and this was not a Helen Keller thing, there was no such thing as sign language, it did not exist, this man was a man with the speaking ability of a new born, and yet, Jesus gives him his hearing and he is not only talking, but he is speaking plainly, not babbling like a new born, not in a mocking way, he speaks normally. Jesus not only heals the body in the hears and tongue but enlightens the mind, so that this man has the intelligence necessary to communicate with others.

We had a special needs kid at Churchland when I was there and this kid could read anything, pronounce words to perfection, read orally flawlessly. And did not understand a single word he said. He had no comprehension of what the words meant. That would have been this man, when he heard those first words, it would have been just random sounds, he would have no understanding, and yet he understood everything they said and he could speak plainly to the others around him, Jesus had not only opened this man’s ears, opened up his tongue, opened up his heart, but Jesus had opened up his mind, so that he could understand, and communicate with others.

Mark 7:36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

Jesus tries to contain the information, but he knows that it will not be. Once this man hits the street, people know who he is, and when they find out that he can hear and speak plainly, having never heard anything before, they are going to have a thousand questions, and it is all going to lead back to this Rabbi from Galilee. The news is going to spread even more. And well it was kind of Jesus fault, He had open this man’s ears to hear the gospel, his heart to accept the gospel, his mind to understand the gospel, so with all that gospel flooding into this man, why should we not expect that the gospel would flow from this man’s tongue.

We can suffer from a type of spiritual deaf and muteness. This comes from not a limitation in our physically abilities, but that our love for others has grown cold, that we have put on the cloak of religion in our practice of our Christian faith, rather than having it function properly in our lives, that it is about relationships, a relationship with our God and a relationship with His creation, and that we love our neighbor. We need to be healed of our spiritual deafness and muteness.  

Mark 7:37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Who is astonished beyond measure? The Gentiles. They are not only remarking on his ability to heal, but in his methods. He is not being flashy, Jesus is not seeking to be the center of attention, he was discreet and even asked people to keep it on the low down. But in doing what He did, Jesus not only opened the ears and the tongue of one Gentile man, but He spoke to an entire population, in that while He came to preach to Israel that they may turn back to God, that those blessings would very soon be extended to them, by healing the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter and giving the man his hearing and ability to speak, the news of this Jews Rabbi would quickly begin to spread, laying the seeds for a time coming very soon, when the news of His resurrection would be boldly proclaim

We need to be like this woman of faith, an outsider a sinner desperate for spiritual healing, and hearing the voice of the Spirit of God that speaks through His Word into our hearts, that with just a crumb of faith I can be reconciled to God.

Darin Bracy is the pastor at Yorktown Baptist Church in Yorktown Virginia. He is a graduate of Veritas Baptist College with a BA in Ministry and a minor in History. He has a wife Stacy, two daughters, Ashlynne and her husband Justin, their daughter Harper Darin's other daughter Aftyn, and her two dogs, Eddie and Lulubelle.

You can reach Darin at his email address, Darinbracy@gmail.com and you can see his video content on YouTube – Basic Baptist Guy