Ephphatha,...Be opened
Hearing and
seeing are the biblical senses of understanding. It might seem, at
first, that they are simply about what is received, that they are, as it
were, merely passive senses, the senses of reception. Something seen
is received by the eye; something heard is received by the ear. But
there is an activity as well, the activity of seeing and the activity of
hearing.
What is seen
and heard - the acting upon what is received - is there for the
understanding. There is something communicated, the meaning of which
we enter into through the profounder activity of understanding. For it
is not just the words which are heard or the vision which is seen that is
received. What the words signify, what the vision reveals, is given to
be understood.
Our
understanding is our wrestling with the significance of things. It is
a profoundly spiritual activity. It speaks to who we are in the sight
of God - those to whom God would reveal himself and into whose presence he
would have us come. Hearing and seeing, as the senses of
understanding, mean that there is an acting upon what is received.
There is a similar double-sidedness to our “being opened”.
In the Gospel
for today, “they bring unto [Jesus] one that was deaf, and had an
impediment in his speech”. They beseech the healing touch of Jesus
upon this one that is deaf and, if not altogether dumb, at least impeded in
his speech to the point that others must speak for him. There is, in
response, the putting of his fingers into his ears, a spitting upon the
ground, the touching of his tongue - all outward, tangible and physical acts
- but, as well, there is Jesus’ “looking up to heaven”, his sighing
and his saying unto him “Ephphatha, be opened”. There is, in
short, a healing: “and straightway his ears were opened, and the string
of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”
As with all the
healing miracles of the gospels, they signify the restoration of our
natures. What is wanted by God is not the deformity of our being but
the perfection of our humanity. What is wanted is our being made
totally and completely adequate to the truth of God; in short, our being
opened to God signals our willing what God wills for us.
We are opened
in two senses. There is our being opened to receive and there is our
being opened to give. We are not just opened to receive; we are opened
to give of ourselves out of what we have received. “Open your
hearts”, St. Paul tells the Corinthians (2 Cor.7.2).
He means that they are to give of themselves. They are to act upon
what they have received.
What we are
opened out to sets us in motion towards one another. It opens us out
to live sacrificial lives, to be giving of ourselves. It is only then
that we are truly opened for only then are we acting in the image of the one
who has opened his heart totally and completely to us in the sacrifice of
the cross.
In this healing
miracle, Christ looks up to heaven. There is, we may say, his openness
to the Father out of which comes the healing grace in the form of the words
“be opened”. The word is spoken in Aramaic – “Ephphatha”
- but its meaning, its significance, is also opened to us by the Evangelist,
St. Mark. He gives the word and he gives the interpretation, “be
opened”.
On the cross,
too, Christ looks up to heaven. His last word is to commend everything
in himself into the hands of the Father. “Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit”. There is the total openness of the Son to the
Father in prayer and praise. There is a fundamental connection between
the healing miracles of Christ and the death and resurrection of Christ,
even more profoundly, with the give and take of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit, the mutual reciprocity of the Trinity itself.
We are opened
out to the truth of God so that we can enter into that truth, give ourselves
to it, and offer our prayers and praises for it. For what do we give
in the giving of ourselves? We give our prayers and praises, our
prayers and praises to God, which must impel us towards one another in
love. For our prayers and praises are never solitary. They
always connect us to one another and to God, to a community in praise of
God, a community of prayer and loving service. And such is the Church
- if ever we are to be the Church and not some sad parody of its wonderful
mystery. What will it take? Only the giving of ourselves to what
has been opened out to us. What has been opened out to us?
Simply the great and grand things of God himself and for us - the Trinity,
the Incarnation and the redemptive work of Christ. “Our sufficiency
is from God”, the epistle reminds us. The gospel underlines the
point: they “were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all
things well; he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak”.
Will that be said of us?
To be opened
then, means to give. It is the strong counter to our contemporary
“consumer” religion of pleasure and comfort which is all take and no
give. It is not open but closed to the truth of God revealed. He
would have us opened to himself and so to one another. In these days
of renewed beginnings and challenges as priest and people together, we need
to be open to one another, to be sure, but only and first and foremost, by
being open to the things of God. Only then shall we behold the glory.
Ephphatha,...Be opened
