A little girl in my home church in Paris, Illinois wanted to be baptized. So one Sunday evening we gathered as we usually did for Sunday evening service, and as we prepared for the baptism, the little girl froze in fear. She began crying, almost to the point of hysterics and no one could figure out what was wrong. Normally she was not afraid of water, so that couldn't be it. After talking with her, though, we found out -- she had witnessed the baptism of a man who had an artificial limb and when he came up out of the water, his prosthesis remained in the water, so to this little girl it appeared that he had lost a body part because of his baptism. She was finally baptized once we convinced her of why that had happened and it wouldn't happen to her.
Many people misunderstand things in life. It might be a word or a behavior, and generally people don't do it on purpose; they just don't have a frame of reference by which they can understand what they perceive.
Take, for instance, the case of the deaf and mute man in today's text, verses 31-37. Some people had brought a man to Jesus who was both deaf and [what the text says] "dumb." Even the translators of the Bible misunderstood this account because of the belief of the time of the translation. Those who the world used to call "deaf and dumb" are anything but dumb. They were mute either because of their deafness or some other reason, but they simply couldn't talk. I personally have several deaf friends who don't speak as I do, but are highly intelligent. To add to it, their "silence" is actually rather refreshing compared to the world's busy, noisy, existence.
I heard of a preacher who was preaching a barn burner of a sermon and proclaimed from his revelatory text that there would be no deaf in heaven. His meaning was that all Christian deaf on earth would be able to hear in heaven. What the deaf heard was that no deaf will be allowed in heaven. Major difference in meaning, huh? What a misunderstanding!
So did these people who brought this man to Jesus even really know him or were they just trying to do the guy a favor? Did this guy even ask to be "healed?" Do you realize that many in the world misunderstand deafness? Many deaf don't see the lack of hearing as a handicap. I don't see it as a handicap, either. I have the opposite problem: I have super-sensitive hearing and I can't filter out all of the noise and it drives me crazy! Now who has the handicap?
These men begged Jesus to lay hands on the man. He took the man aside and stuck his fingers in the man's ears, then spit and touched the man's tongue (the potter has to wet his clay before he remolds it, doesn't he?). The text says Jesus looked up to heaven and told this man's body to be loosed and open up! The man could then hear and speak plainly.
A handicap is only a handicap if you let it be one. So if the deaf don't see deafness as a handicap generally, what should we make of this text? Man was not originally designed to be deaf or mute, but through several possible reasons, deafness occurs in people all around the world. So healing the deaf and mute man was part of Jesus' way of restoring him to how he was designed. That has nothing to do with a handicap. That has to do with the King of the universe deciding that he needed this particular deaf and mute person able to both hear and speak for his purposes. Does that mean all deaf need this "healing"? Not at all. There are several others who are deaf that God needs to be deaf so that he can do a great work among the deaf community.
The point is not deafness or the ability to speak. The point is in being available and willing to be used by God however he needs us at any given point in our lives. Don't misunderstand God's ways. Think about it...
