Often in the Gospels we hear people coming to Jesus in need of healing, crying out to him in boldness and trust, and often we hear those words of Jesus, “go, your faith has healed you.”
But today's gospel is different. Today is about a man who is deaf and mute. This man cannot speak for himself, and he cannot hear Jesus’ voice, but his friends bring him to Jesus and beg for healing on his behalf.
In response Jesus first touches the man and then says one word, “Ephphatha” - Be opened! - and the man is healed.
Perhaps we feel like that man in the Gospel, unable to hear God’s voice, unable to even ask for healing. Then it is to us that God speaks the words of the first reading, “Be strong, fear not! Here is your God... He comes to save you.”
Jesus comes to save. He has the power to heal us. And this power extends even to those who cannot hear Him, who do not know how to ask for healing.
Because it is difficult to ask for healing, sometimes it is uncomfortable, sometimes it means we have to change. Think about how uncomfortable it must have been to see Jesus use his own spit to heal this man. Asking for healing, truly seeking it, and then doing whatever it takes to receive it can make us uncomfortable.
But just like He did for the deaf man, Jesus is able to touch us and open our ears and heal us. This Gospel presents hope for us and our own deafness, but it also calls us to minister to others who are unable to hear God, and who cannot or will not come to Him for healing. Sometimes we can see or hear what our friends or family cannot.
Like the deaf man’s friends in the Gospel, we can bring them before Jesus and beg Him to heal them, trusting in God with that faith James spoke about in the second reading.
James said, “Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?”
When we come to Jesus for healing, either for ourselves or for someone else, we must do it with expectant faith, with the type of faith that acts like it has no other options than to completely rely on God.
That’s how the poor in the world treat everything, with such trust in God, because they don’t have other options, I think of those in third world countries, they can’t rely on their money for healing, they have to give it all to God, to put their healing in His hands. And this is the type of faith we are all called to have.
So let us hope in the Lord for our own healing, encourage those who are frightened of heart, and pray for those whose hearts are hardened to approach God for healing, trusting that our God comes to save and He does all things well.