Mark 7:1-37
Many Pharisees of Jesus' day believed that their rituals demonstrated respect for God. Hundreds of laws and rituals prescribed exactly how Jews should live, including the consumption of clean and unclean foods. Jesus showed that faith was more important.
Jesus amazed the people by his teaching and dumbfounded them by his actions.
Quite a passage, isn't it.
Jesus is presented with a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. Perhaps he stammered. Maybe he spoke with a lisp. Perhaps, because of his deafness, he never learned to articulate words properly.
Jesus, refusing to exploit the situation, took the man aside. He looked him in the face. Knowing it would be useless to talk, he explained what he was about to do through gestures. He spat and touched the man's tongue, telling him that whatever restricted his speech was about to be removed. He touched his ears. They, for the first time, were about to hear.
But before the man said a word or heard a sound Jesus did something I never would have anticipated.
He sighed.......
Sigh. the word seemed out of place.
I'd never thought of God as one who sighs. I'd thought of God as one who commands. I'd thought of God as one who weeps. I'd thought of God as one who called forth the dead with a command or created the universe with a word....but a God who sighs?
Perhaps this phrase caught my eye because I do my share of sighing.
I sighed yesterday when I visited a lady whose invalid husband had deteriorated so much he didn't recognize me. He thought I was trying to sell him something.
I sighed when the dirty-faced, scantily dressed, six-year-old girl in the grocery store asked me for some change.
And I sighed today listening to a husband tell how his wife won't forgive him.
No doubt you have done your share of sighing.
If you have teenagers, you've probably sighed. If you've tried to resist temptation, you've probably sighed. If you've had your motives questioned or your best acts of love rejected, you have been forced to take a deep breath and let escape a painful sigh....
All these sighs come from the same anxiety; a recognition of pain that was never intended, or of hope deferred.
Man was not created to be separated from his creator; hence he sighs, longing for home. The creation was never intended to be inhabited by evil; hence she sighs, yearning for the Garden...
And when Jesus looked into the eyes of Satan's victim, the only appropriate thing to do was sigh."It was never intended to be this way." the sigh said. "Your ears weren't made to be deaf, your tongue wasn't made to stumble." The imbalance of it all caused the Master to languish.
So, I found a place for the word. You might think it strange, but I placed it beside the word comfort, for in an indirect way, God's pain is our comfort.
And in the agony of Jesus lies our hope. Had he not sighed, had he not felt the burden for what was not intended, we would be in a pitiful condition. Had he simply chalked it all up to the inevitable or washed his hands of the whole stinking mess, what hope would we have?
But he didn't. That holy sigh assures us that God still groans for his people. He groans for the day when all sighs will cease, when what was intended to be will be. by Max Lucado
Applying it: What situations cause you to need comfort? A broken relationship, a lost loved one, or overwhelming anxiety? Pray, thanking God that he still groans for his people.
Exploring it: Comfort-Job 15:11; Psalm 23; 71:19-21; 86:17; 94:19; 119:50, 76; Isaiah 12:1; 40:1; 2 Corinthians 1:3 Hebrews 6:18
FRIENDS:
Father, you are God and Creator, but we come to you as children coming to their father, as children who would ask their father to hold and comfort them, hoping to receive some words of wisdom. As you stilled the storm on the sea of Galilee, will you still the storms that rage within our hearts? In our sorrow will you comfort us and draw us ever closer to you? In Jesus' name, Amen
FOOD:
The Famous Peabody Hotel Sugar Cookies
1 1/2 cups margarine
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup real butter
1 large egg
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons vanilla
Cream together margarine and butter. Slightly beat the egg and add to creme mixture. Add the sugar to mixture. Add flour slowly and beat until thoroughly blended; add vanilla. Dough will be stiff. Prepare dough into long rolls and refrigerate over nite. Slice and bake for 12-15 minutes in 350° oven
FUN:
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