Standing Under the Scriptures
September 13 , 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

James 2.1-18: This is a discussion of the insufficiency of faith without works, which might be taken as contrary to Paul’s insistence on justification by faith alone but really is not.

Mark 8.27-38: Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah, only to be rebuked shortly after for his misunderstanding of messiahship. This passage is so central as to merit our main if not entire attention.

Last Sunday we found our reading from Isaiah, concerning the return of the Exiles from Babylon, to be among the most stirring in the Old Testament. But it was in our second reading, from Mark, although it concerned the deliverance of a single person, that we found universal significance.

Our Isaiah passage was 35.3-10. In general the first 39 chapters of Isaiah are considered to be pre-exilic; it is from chapter 40 on (”Second Isaiah”) that the return from exile is mainly dealt with. But chapter 35 is clearly an exception, however it is to be accounted for. In verse 3, “Strengthen the weak hand and make firm the feeble knees” we saw reflected the state of mind of those in exile, their feeling of powerlessness, disorientation, and perhaps especially God-forsakenness. But then comes the assurance of their deliverance, “Behold your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God he will come and save you.” And to convey the emotions called forth by their deliverance, even prospective, the prophet employs images of the greatest power, deliverance from physical and thus also spiritual handicaps:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
And the tongue of the dumb sing for joy.

He goes on to speak of water appearing suddenly and abundantly in a parched land.

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert.
The burning sand shall become a pond,
and the thirsty ground springs of water.

The force of deliverance from physical handicaps is perhaps especially apparent to those who have had them or been closely associated with those who have. At any rate, in that my father was totally deaf from childhood, it is overwhelmingly powerful for me. And for the inhabitants of a dry region like the Middle East, water coming to a parched land would be most strking.

The later verses make the reference to return from exile unmistakable: “And a highway shall be there… “ It will be reserved for the redeemed. Further, its course will be plain to follow and it will be secure from wild beasts. The way from Babylon back to Jerusalem was long and daunting, scarcely traversable without a highway. In the trackless wilderness one could easily lose one’s way, and the wildlife of that time posed serious dangers.

Finally, the surpassing joy of the exiles at their deliverance is made explicit.

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
and come to Zion with singing.
Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

In the joy of the returning exiles we found a resonance with our own experiences of deliverance. I volunteered one of mine. In the latter stages of World War II I was in infantry training in a vast army camp in northern Florida: bleak, sandy, and hot. And my aptitudes at the time were such as to preclude my doing well in combat. Then, as our training was about to finish, a list came through of those who had been selected for Japanese language study. It was short but I was on it. I felt my head lifted up (the literal meaning of 2 Kings 25.27). Others no doubt have felt similarly. But then a question arises: Is connecting deliverance from Babylon, so far away and so long ago, with our own experience really valid?

We saw our reading from Mark (7.31-37) as answering it. This concerns a deaf man with speech impediment whose friends bring him to Jesus, trusting implicitly that he can cure him. And Jesus does cure him; his ears are opened and his tongue is released. The correspondence here with our Isaiah passage in fact goes beyond the obvious (“the ears of the deaf unstopped… the tongue of the dumb sing for joy”). The word which Jesus pronounces, after the preliminaries (putting his fingers in his ears, spitting, and touching his tongue) to effect the man’s cure is given not in Greek but in the original: “Ephphatha.” And this is an Aramaic cognate of the very Hebrew word which Isaiah uses for unstopping the ears of the deaf. Thus the two passages are, and are intended to be taken as, in the closest possible relation. What this means is that the deliverance of the Babylonian exiles is not an event just of their time and place. Instead, by his curing of the deaf and speech-impaired man, Jesus brings it into his time and thus also into ours. And thereby he universalizes it, so that instead of involving just one individual, it is wrought for all. Also to be noted, the deliverer of the Babylonian exiles is the Lord. Thus Jesus is here identified with the God of Israel.

In conclusion we considered the eschatological dimension of deliverance. After their return from exile, life did not always go smoothly for the people of Israel. (Nor, even after my selection for language training, did I live happily ever after.) Is the hope to which our experiences of deliverance point—a hope of deliverance by Christ from powerlessness and also from sin---thus similarly liable to disappointment? No, we concluded. To be sure it cannot be realized, at least not fully, in this world. But it can and will be, our faith teaches us, in the end time, the eschaton, when Christ returns in his glory. And in that our experiences give us an anticipation of this realization, we still have occasion for thanks and praise.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted