Learning to Hear and Listen Before Learning to Speak (Mark 7:31-37)

Jesus Heals a Deaf Man

Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 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. (7:31-32)

In the Decapolis, there was a man deaf and with a speech impediment. Notice that weakness or lack of hearing most of the time creates a difficulty to speak clearly. In your world, people want to learn to speak well, while they don’t learn to listen well. This does not make sense, particularly for those who want to serve me. If people don’t learn to listen to God, they will not speak well of us. Listening to us is much more than reading or studying the Bible, it is about being filled with the Holy Spirit and being taught by the Spirit and by me. You can come to a certain level of mastery of the Biblical text, which is very important, but you cannot come to master us. The whole purpose of the life of the kingdom is to learn the opposite: to learn to be our servant, to follow us in all you say and all you do. My message is not a set of rules to apply, but a sensitivity to my Spirit that will allow you to incarnate my teaching and my love in always new ways. Without listening to me, without letting the Holy Spirit lead you during your days, this is simply impossible. Learning to listen to me while reading texts of the Bible like the Gospels is a very good practice. This can help you relate what the Father or I said in the past with what I am saying to you today. Love is not a matter of rules, but a matter of spiritual sensitivity to the Father and to me, to my voice and direction. As I like to stress and repeat, my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.

This problem of not listening to me is a problem that most of my disciples have to face and overcome. That was the case even with the twelve, who often heard and yet they did not understand, who often saw and yet their eyes did not see.

Remember, if you are deaf to what I tell you during your days, you will have a speech impediment when you try to speak about me.

And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. (7:33-35)

Healing is not a matter of power and mastery but of listening to the Father. Each time a sick person came to me, I listened to know what the Father wanted me to do, I watched what the Father showed me to do. This time, He led me to put my fingers in the ears of this man, and to put spit on his tongue. You see how the opening of the ears and the release of the tongue are related. If you don’t hear me, spend time with me and ask me to open your ears. If you don’t know how to speak about me, first learn to listen to my voice and to say the words I will put in your mouth. If you don’t see my grace at work in your days, ask me to show you so that you will really see.

And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” (7:36-37)

I healed a deaf person, yet people were deaf to my request to tell no one. I knew what was important, and I knew that spreading news of this miracle was not what would help my message to grow deep in the hearts of persons at this moment. There is a time for experiencing the grace of the Father, and there is a time to share it with others. In this case, the sharing was done too early, not allowing my words and my actions to take deep roots in the hearts of people. People often think they understand, and will dismiss my voice. In this case, they thought that the miracle was the most important thing. This was not so. The most important was for me to teach them that they had to learn to listen to me before learning to speak, and they did not understand at that time.

They were looking for the Messiah, for him to fix all their problems. They did not understand that the Messiah would come to teach them what really needed to be fixed, and not what they thought was needed. It is like a sick patient coming to the doctor, it is not because the patient knows his symptoms that he knows what remedy is needed. It is only after my resurrection that my disciples began to understand what was really the root disease in their lives, that it was the lack of listening to me and to the Father, the lack of a loving and faithful obedience to us. All the manifestations of evil in their lives and in their nation were stemming from there.

 

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