Corona Chronicles - Crown of Thorns

Welcome back to the corona chronicles. You've seen a lot of Dean and Tom recently, but Peter and myself are back now after a short break away. Good to be bad. We're at the end of chapter 7. I'm gonna be reading from verse 31.

And here Jesus is in gentile territory, but we see that he treats people and speaks people in the same way as he treats and speaks to the Jewish people. So from verse 31, Then Jesus left the vicinity of tyre and went through sidon down to the sea of Galile and into the region of the decapolis. There's some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him. After he took him aside away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spat and touched the man's tongue.

He looked up to heaven, and with a deep sigh, said to him, which means be opened. At this, the man's ears were opened. His tongue was loosed and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone, but the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement.

He has done everything well, they said. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. You did well with that word in a faphether. It's quite a word, isn't it? And particularly, as we're talking about people who, you know, could unmute.

Couldn't speak. I mean, to get your tongue around is brilliant. Here's Jesus. I mean, In many ways, in the bible, this this is a picture, an enactment, I mean, it really happened. Is a real miracle.

But it's like an enactment of what the bible says, we're like and what we need. So the the truth is that we are deaf to God. You know, we see all kinds of things. We listen to all kinds of things. And yet people don't listen to God.

And we need a miracle to open our ears up to hear the plain speaking of God. And then actually, you know, we can't really praise God because we haven't heard what his word is. And you know, we're mute when it comes to the praises and speaking of God. And actually, again, we need a miracle that we need the touch of Jesus. To hear the word of God, and then to speak his praises, and that's what we need, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. So this is a sort of a knack, and they have a beautiful spiritual miracle that happens when people become Christians. Yeah. I think in Jesus' kindness, he I mean, it's it's a it's a picture, but he makes it really obvious what's happening because he we've seen him heal people throughout this this book of Mark, where he's just said, go home, your faith has made you well, or go home, your daughter, it will be well.

He doesn't have to go and touch them and perform some kind of surgery. But here, he He really demonstrates your ears are blocked. Now they're unblocked and you're he spits and touches the tongue, which is quite a odd thing to do. But I imagine he's doing it to just just to just to make it super clear what he is doing. Yes.

And and and absolutely, I think. And actually, it's very different, isn't it, too often those I mean, they're always American art where they're not always, but so it's not fair already. But those sort of healers, that that have a great big healing meeting, little spotlights on them, there's all kinds of music that's, you know, and then the television cameras are what them do all of that stuff. And it's a big sort of look what's going on here. This is very personal, isn't it?

It's very intimate. The man is brought by his friends, but Jesus takes him away from the crowd. Yeah. And then there is this beautiful, as you say, this touch, this symbolic touching of Jesus. This is personal.

He's not just waving a hand over him. Is he or just saying, be healed. There is there is a real intimacy and personalness here, which I think is It is really it is what God is about, isn't it? He wants us personally to hear -- Yep. -- at him.

And he wants us personally be able to speak to him in prayer. You know, and those 2 things that go together, we hear God, and we we pray, we speak to him, and we praise his name. So it's a very personal thing here, isn't it? Yeah. And that's what I suppose there.

I mean, they're overwhelmed with the masonry. And Psalm 51 says, open my lips and I shall declare your praise. So we need God to we need God to touch our lips and and heal them in order to be able to praise him. And there's a sense that when we recognize this healing of us, that's when the praise comes. And these these people are amazed.

They're overwhelmed with amazement because they've seen God heal. But it's quite strange because Jesus tells them what to tell them. Yeah. I mean, we we we grabbed it over this, I mean, before we did this to this coronavirus. It is a very strange thing, because it feels like Jesus commands him, or them.

It's not him, is it? It is there. So I guess that's his friends. Not to sort of publish this. Yep.

But it's a strange thing because this bloke's tongue couldn't waggle. He then says be open. And now the bloke's got a waggling tongue and he's supposed not to use it to praise Jesus or to tell, you know. And I think again, because I think what's going on in this part of Mark is that that Jesus just doesn't want vast crowds coming out just for the healing. Yes.

What this game is showing us, that that Jesus personally opens ears and opens tongues. And he's not just doing a big crowd miracle, plaza, you know, thing. But he's saying, I'm about this personal intervention in your life here. And at the moment, keep quiet about that. Yes.

But it they can't obvious no, though. Because how sort of do you when your tongue now could waggle. Yes. Are you meant to sort of go back and say to your wife, you know, it's like a mute person. You know, obviously, yeah, that it's this is an amazing miracle.

Yeah. Yes. But Jesus is is constantly saying, those who have ears, you know, ears to hear, hear. Yeah. And listen and understand.

He he's constantly wanted When he when he is with the crowd, he's he's teaching them. He's preaching to them. Yeah. He's not, you know, he's not Who's sick in this crowd today? Come up and get healed.

I try to get the applause of the crowd. He's constantly trying to open their ears spiritually. And so he takes this man aside to do that. Because he doesn't want people just see him as a miracle maker, but he's here to preach, which is what he says at the beginning of the block. Yeah.

I'm here to to preach. I've done about you, but I I know when I've became a Christian. I know you were all brought up in the Christian faith, but I know when I became a Christian, you did start hearing And I did start listening. It really was quite a sort of unblocking of the ears. Because my life had been sort of about the things that a young man's life were about, that's where my head was.

And suddenly, when someone told me about Jesus, there was this this sort of miracle of hearing the word of God. And this book, The Bible, which was such an dull, ancient nonsense. It was just like, I don't even, you know, to open it up, it's just weird. Yeah. But suddenly, you start seeing things and it makes sense.

So And that is a miracle, isn't it? And then you want to proclaim God's praise, and then you want to pray to him and ask him for help and so forth. And there's a sense also that you've you've discern other sounds go, well, actually, those things that I was listening to aren't very good for me. Yeah. And you couldn't hear that before.

No. But now your ears are unblocked and you hear the word of the lord. Suddenly, you can differentiate. Oh, that's the that's Jesus' voice. And actually, these things I was listening to are not, you know, not good for me.

So I guess we've 1 of also people this thing. You know, have have you had that personal intimate touch of Jesus? Is that really? Is it? So, you know, have you have you known Jesus?

Put his finger in your ear to open them up so you begin to hear who he is, and how he loves us and who God is, and that he's our father. And and have you had that experience of the tongue where you now can pray? There's a lot of people interested in prayer, isn't there? And, you know, are you able to speak and know that God hears you through Jesus? And I think that's what this is all about.

See you next time.