"Jesus Sighs for You"
Mark 7:31-37
9/24/06
What's happening to the members of our
congregation?? There are a number among us now who are suffering
- physically as well as emotionally. Some are sick; some are
injured; some have had to go into the hospital; some have died.
Others are stressed out, depressed, and worried either about something
happening at home, at work, at school, or in the world, especially with
all the threats and attacks being carried out by Muslim extremists
today. It's enough just to make you want to sigh.
Sighs can mean a lot of things. Sometimes we sigh
with relief, as when something bad is removed from us. Sometimes
we sigh with joy, as when something wonderful happens to us. But
then there are those sighs of frustration and exasperation. We
sigh in this way over our sins and during those times when we can't
even put into words how despondent, disheartened, and dejected we feel;
all we can do is sigh.
Sighs in and of themselves are not evil. They can be
accompanied either by faith or unbelief. It's when they are
accompanied by the latter that they are sin. The sighs of
unbelief are those which come from a heart that blames God for the
evils that are happening and does not trust that He will work out
everything for your good. These kinds of sighs come from a person
who has given up on God, who thinks that God has given up on him and no
longer loves him, cares for him, forgives him, or hears his
prayers. We sigh this way when God doesn't do what we want Him
to, when He tests our faith, when He disciplines us, and when He
doesn't make things better. We are all guilty of such sighs and
must repent of them, because they are sighs of unbelief and distrust.
God doesn't want sighs that turn away from Him in
disbelief, but sighs that turn to Him in faith. These kinds of
sighs do not accuse or blame God; rather, they trust Him, turn to Him
for help, and cast all their cares upon Him because He cares for
them. These kinds of sighs cling to the promises of His Word that
He loves, cares for, and forgives you, even in and especially during
your times of temptations, trials, and troubles. When we sigh in
this way we long for and wait in expectation for God's grace and
deliverance to be given to us in His time and according to His
will. And God helps you when you sigh to Him in this way with His
own sighs on your behalf.
Here in today's Gospel reading we see God doing just that
as Jesus heals a deaf and mute man. Some people had brought this
man to Jesus hoping that He would heal him. Perhaps they had
sighed over their friend's condition. But instead of being angry
at God over the situation, they brought him to Jesus in faith, knowing
that He could and would do something about it. They thought they
could tell Jesus how to help their friend by suggesting that He lay His
hands on him. But Jesus did things His own way. His ways
may seem a little strange to us. In fact, here His ways seem
completely repulsive. Sticking His fingers in the man's ears is
one thing, but spitting saliva on his tongue? And when we
question why Jesus does it this way, the only answer we get is that
Jesus does things the way Jesus does them. Here He chooses
ordinary, earthly, not very spiritual looking things to heal this man
of his deafness. And to them He adds a couple more things - He
looks up to heaven and sighs deeply, then He speaks His Word.
Well, being good Lutherans that we are, we can understand
Jesus using earthly means to work through, just as He uses ordinary
water in Baptism and ordinary bread and wine in His Holy Supper.
We can also understand His connecting His Word to these elements in
order to deliver His gifts to us. His Word is powerful.
With His Word He spoke creation into existence. With His Word of
Gospel He creates faith in us and makes us new creations. And
with His words of forgiveness He removes our sins far from us and
declares us righteous. But what about this sighing that Jesus
does? Mark just mentions it; he doesn't explain it. As good
Lutherans we want to know, "What does this mean?"
There are a number of reasons why Jesus could be
sighing. Perhaps it was because He was deeply concerned about
this man's physical condition. We are told that when people
brought the sick to Him that His heart when out to them and He had
compassion on them and healed them. It should help us to know
that when we are sighing through our suffering - whether physical or
emotional - Jesus is sighing with us and for us. He loves and
cares for you dearly and can Himself sympathize with your agony, as He
Himself suffered the agony of crucifixion, death, and the feeling of
being abandoned by God. He knows what you're going through and
will help you bear your cross until He takes it away either in time or
in eternity at the resurrection of the dead.
So, one reason why Jesus sighs might be because He feels
our physical and emotional pain and suffering along with us. But
another reason might be because He sees a different kind of affliction,
one that we can't see and often don't feel in our bodies, and that is
the affliction of sin that has gripped all of us. Here Jesus
sighs because He sees not only the physical and emotional problems
brought on by sin and unbelief, but also the spiritual problems they
cause and the death that they bring with them. Perhaps Jesus saw
that even though He would heal this man of his physical deafness, the
man might continue in his spiritual deafness of unbelief. Perhaps
he and the people who witnessed this miracle and praised Jesus for it
here would be part of the crowd at His trial who would cry out for
Pilate to release Barabbas and have Jesus crucified. Unbelief
causes Jesus to sigh. It was the unbelief of the Jews that caused
Him to weep when He came to raise Lazarus from the dead. It was
the same unbelief that caused Him to weep over Jerusalem, who had
rejected Him as their Messiah. As He says in the O.T., "As I
live, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that
the wicked turn from his way and live." Jesus sighs when we turn
away from Him in unbelief. He knows that if we remain in such
unbelief that we will be separated from Him and His love forever.
And so, it is such sighs for you that moved Jesus to give His life for
you on the cross, so that He might heal you of this disease of sin and
bring you back to Himself through repentance and faith.
Jesus' sighs are not merely the sympathizing sighs that
any of our friends and family members can offer us. Jesus' sighs
do something for you. Not only did they move Him to sacrifice
Himself for you on the cross, but now with them He pleads for you
before the Father. Perhaps Jesus sighs here because just as His
Spirit intercedes for you with groanings too deep for words, so Jesus
prays for you with His sighs. Perhaps this too is why Jesus
looked towards heaven as He brought His requests for this man to His
heavenly Father. And the Father hears His Son, because His Son
was perfectly obedient to His will and humbled Himself to the point of
giving Himself into death on the cross for your sins. Now His
sighs plead you righteous before the Father as He sits at His right
hand interceding for you with His blood shed for you at Calvary, the
very blood He sprinkled upon you at your Baptism and the blood He gives
you to drink of along with His body to eat of in His Holy Supper.
Through Jesus' blood and merit you have been reconciled to God and are
at peace with Him. Now, not only are our Lord's request for your
physical healing heard but also His request for your spiritual
healing. The Father answers His Son's prayers and sighs by
forgiving you your sins, by cleansing you from all unrighteousness, and
by granting you the grace, strength, and help you need to bear up under
trials and temptations.
This He does by the work of His Spirit through His
Word. The man's gift of hearing from Jesus wasn't just for
listening to music, T.V., movies, sports, or plays, nor was it to be
given over to listening to lies, gossip, slander, and false doctrine,
but it was especially for the hearing of God's Word. And the gift
of speech from Jesus wasn't just for babbling about the weather or
nothing in particular, nor was it to be given over to speaking lies,
gossip, slander, and false doctrine, but it was especially for speaking
and praying God's Word. Through the ears the Word of God speaks
to our hearts, we believe it, and we confess and pray it with our
mouths. The more you hear the Word, believe it, and speak it to
one another, the more you'll be comforted in the midst of your sighing,
as you bring your sighs to the Lord in prayer, knowing that He hears
you, will answer and will help you.
Perhaps, then, Jesus sighs for all these reasons: He
sighs because He suffers with you in your afflictions and wants to
deliver you from them, as Isaiah says, "Surely our sickness He Himself
bore, and our sorrows He carried"; He sighs because He knows the
sickness of sin from which you suffer and which He Himself suffered for
you when He took that disease upon Himself on the cross, in order to
deliver you from that, as Isaiah also says, "He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities"; and He sighs
because He prays for you before the Father, that you might not fall
into disbelief, but remain steadfast in the Word and faithful to the
end until the day when He comes to take you home, because again as
Isaiah says, "The chastening for our peace was upon Him, and by His
stripes we are healed."
Jesus sighs for you, so that you might lay your sighs on
Him, knowing that He loves, cares for, and forgives you. Though
you might go through many fiery trials, you can know that just as the
Lord was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedneggo in the fiery furnace so
that they were not harmed, so He is also with you and you will suffer
no harm, but will be safely brought to His heavenly kingdom. In
the meantime, He has opened your ears to hear His Word, your hearts to
receive that Word, and your mouths to speak and pray that Word, calling
upon Him who is your very present help in times of trouble. As
the author of the book of Hebrews writes, "We do not have a high priest
who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted
in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw
near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy
and may find grace to help in time of need." Amen.