RBWords

     The incident in today's gospel scripture, in which Jesus heals a deaf mute man, has an interesting tension.  On one hand, the evangelist shows Jesus to be the one who has come to deliver Israel when the people proclaim the words in the last verse of the passage, quoted above.  They echo Isaiah 35:5-6: Then the eyes of the blind shall see, and the ears of the deaf be opened; then the lame shall leap like a stag, and the mute tongue sing for joy."    But Jesus, "ordered them not to tell anyone.  But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it."  Perhaps the tension arises from the evangelist's desire to make Jesus fully known only through his passion and death.  He is not a mere wonder-worker.

     One can hardly blame the crowds, however.  We are still asking for miraculous events in order to demonstrate the sanctity of a proposed saint!  As wonderful as those events are, however,  they are not the subject of our faith.  We live a day-by-day faith that takes us through the ordinary challenges of life.  If the miraculous became common-place, it would no longer be miraculous.  The focus must be on Jesus and his purpose for coming.  In the Gospel According to Mark, that is revealed at the crucifixion and resurrection.  Everything else, ordinary or miraculous flows from that.  AMEN