Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

"The Nice Thing about a Miracle"
The Feast of St. Lorenz, Deacon and Martyr

From the Old Testament of the Day: In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The humble also shall increase their joy in the LORD, And the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. [Isaiah 29.18-19]

From the Epistle: And we have such trust through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. [2 Corinthians 3.4-6]

From the Holy Gospel: Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. [Mark 7.36]

Today is the 12^th Sunday after Trinity, known as "Ephphatha, Be Opened Sunday," on the basis of the Holy Gospel for the day. We like miracles. They make happy faces out of sad faces. They bring relief. They bring about happy results. And for many folk, the nicest thing about a miracle is that it shows that God loves you, that God in His heavens looks down, hears your prayers, and He answers them. In other words, the nice thing about miracles is that they show you that God cares.

But the not-nice thing about miracles is that the absence of a desired miracle doesn’t deny that God cares.

God cares on the basis of His judgments, not yours, and in that is the frustration for people of faith. So, you pray for your miracle "if it by Thy will." But even then, the heart hopes that it will, indeed, be God’s will, with that same sort of hope that is found in an amateur gambler at a casino who is about to roll the dice, in a desperate need of cash to solve some problem or pay for some cure. So it is that gamblers gamble with dice and pray-ers gamble with prayer. That is "The Nice thing about Prayer," when they seem to be answered. But let’s see why it appears that prayers are not answered, so that we can understand things better when they are.

I.

In the Old Testament of the Day, you hear God’s promise of the day of all miracles. It is the Great Day, the Last Day, the First Day of the New Heavens and New Earth. Pick your focus, but all perspectives come together on that day, and the Old is passed away and the New has come. That is the miracle toward which all preliminary miracles point, and by which all miracles of this present life have purpose. "In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The humble also shall increase their joy in the LORD, And the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel."

Now, clearly, the prophet Isaiah puts you toward the day we call "The Last Day," meaning the last day of this present world and existence of which we are all a part. Perhaps, we should call it "The First Day," the day of the greatest "New Deal," a new deal that doesn’t come from a salesman’s spiel, a new deal that doesn’t come from politics, and a new deal that doesn’t come from a deck of cards. It comes to you and for you because of one thing and one thing only: the truth that God cares, that God loves you, and that God acts for you. But, you see, you only will see that care in that Great Day, that Day of the New Creation. Until then, you cannot see that God cares by what happens in this world, be it wonderful or be it terrible. In this meantime, you can only see that God cares by the Gospel; you can only see that God cares by the holy cross, by the crucifix, with Jesus dying because of you, dying for you, dying for your sins, and dying because God the Father wills that God the Son do this very thing because He cares – because He cares for you.

II.

But we never seem to get it in this way, in this perspective. Consider the Holy Gospel of the Day. Jesus performs yet another miracle, but to get the point of this miracle, you have to get it in the proper context. When we join His journey things morning, by the miracle of the Word of God, He is leaving Tyre and Sidon and traveling through the so-called region of the Decapolis – or, the region of the "ten cities," through which He arrives at the Sea of Galilee on the eastern shore, the shore opposite of the region of Galilee.

Now, to understand the fullness of our Lord’s movements and actions, you must consider how it was that He was in the region of Tyre and Sidon, the land we today call Lebanon. He was in that Gentile territory because He has "given up" on the Galileans, so to speak. His shows His recognition of their stubborn unbelief by taking elsewhere His road-show of the forgiveness of sins. And after miracles in Lebanon, He now arrives in the Gentile, pagan region of the Decapolis.

Will these pagans believe, when presented with the Word of God, both in proclamation and in the person of Jesus the Christ? You know the answer! "They brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand upon him." They begged for a miracle.

Now, let’s pause a second and consider the connection between begging and faith. The fact is that there isn’t any connection. The begging to God can come either from a mind of belief or from a mind of unbelief. Remember when Jesus heals the famous Ten Lepers! Nine take off, never to be seen again. One turns back, upon seeing that he is healed, and worships at the feet of Jesus. Ten begged. One, a Gentile at that, comes to faith. Nine run away from Jesus as fast as they can – not out fear of Him, but just out of the more important things of this life, as unbelievers measure important things.

So, there isn’t a necessary connection between begging for miracles and faith. But Jesus knows when He finds faith, and He shows you what He knows in the case of this deaf and dumb man. "And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue – showing the one who can’t hear and can’t speak what it is that He, Jesus, is about to do. Then, taking the familiar posture of prayer for that day, "looking up into heaven, He sighed," and He said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ "Immediately, his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly!"

So, the crowd gets their miracle, but is this miracle wasted on unbelievers? Let’s see: "Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond belief, saying, "He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

So, were these people believers? The truth is, you can’t tell. But they certainly spoke the truth, whether out of faith or just out of amazement. What these Gentile pagan are not doing is rejecting the proclaimed purpose of Christ, as His fellow Hebrews have been doing, miracles and all.

III.

So, this brings us to the Epistle, and to the special commemoration on today’s calendar, that of St. Lorenz, Deacon and Martyr, who was grossly murdered by the command of that foe of Christianity, the Roman Emperor, Valerian, in A.D. 258. St. Lorenz knows this death is coming – He was warned of the Emperor’s edict, and his bishop has already been killed. But he doesn’t run – he serves the people of God, until his hauled off to be, literally, roasted to death. He stayed out of faith, he died in faith, and he has the ultimate miracle for which you still wait. This is faith, his and yours: "And we have such trust through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God."