Last night I just got back from the last event in the Doxology cycle. There were actually three parts to it, although I attended four so our congregation could get a little more lay involvement in the program. NE, twice; MN, once; and then this one. The place where we stayed was called the Broomtree resort about an hour south of Sioux Falls.

The name may not sound that familiar to you--not Sioux Falls, but the broom tree--but this is the place where Elijah, stopped running and prepared to die. Now, you probably will recognize the story which had him running. This was right after the challenge between the Lord and Baal. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal. This contest was no big deal for the Lord, but apparently much too difficult for a fake god, like Baal. It was simple. Whichever God would send fire down on the sacrifice was the real one. You know what happened. You'd think Queen Jezebel would be happy to know which was the right one, so she wasn't wasting her time anymore, but wouldn't it figure, it didn't go that way. She wanted to kill Elijah. Hmmm...you just can't please some people. So Elijah hit the dusty trail. He runs deep into the wilderness, and there under the broom tree he collapses exhausted. While there, the angel of the Lord woke him provided a miraculous meal of bread and water--mmmm...delicious--twice actually--and this refreshed him, sustaining him for another forty days and nights.

So, I would say that's a good name for a resort, wouldn't you? A place where you go to be refreshed? In case you were wondering, it is a Christian retreat center. After the refreshing at the Broomtree, Elijah comes to a cave. It's here, where it ties into our text. And it's another familiar story. But to tie into our text would cause a little problem as you will soon see. The Lord tells Elijah He is going to come to Him and speak to him. The first sign is a mighty wind. Nope. Not the Lord. Next an earthquake. Still not the Lord. Then a fire. Still not the Lord. Then a still small voice, a low whisper. That was the Lord speaking to Elijah. Notice the Lord was in the low whisper.

Now, can you see the problem? What's the matter with this man? He's deaf. He would have seen what the wind did. He would have seen the destruction from the earthquake. He would have seen the fire, but a still small voice, a low whisper, doesn't do much for a man who is deaf.

Jesus needs to give him the ability to hear to God's voice, whether it's a low whisper, or if He's shouting or anyone's voice for that matter. He couldn't a running stream or singing birds--nothing.

That's not the ways ears are supposed to be. They are supposed to hear. Our faces might look strange if we didn't have ears. Many of us wouldn't be able to see if we didn't have ears, because our glasses wouldn't stay on, but that's not really the purpose of ears. The purpose of ears is to...hear. Of course. That's how our Creator created them. Ears to hear. Tongues to speak.

And we know they worked well at first. Adam would talk to the Lord in the garden. He would hear Him and then speak back to Him. I don't know what the conversations were like, but you can bet they were wonderful. When God speaks, anytime God speaks, it's a wonderful event.

But paradise wasn't going to last forever in the garden. Adam shirked his duty and didn't warn Eve away from the fruit, and worse, he ate some of it too. Then all of a sudden Adam acted like he got a really bad case of wax in his ears. He acted like he couldn't talk anymore also.

The Lord comes around. He knows what has happened. He's going to give Adam a chance to come clean. Adam doesn't. "Adam, where are you? Why aren't you here to to talk with me?" Here's Adam's chance. But He doesn't hear His Father's concern. He no longer hears love. Now, he hears judgment. Adam developed a hearing problem.

And you know what? It hasn't gotten any better. Not Adam's. Ours. We're not very good at listening to our Father. We need Him to open our ears. We need Him to clear out the spiritual wax, that blocks and distorts our hearing. We need Him to release our tongues so we can speak the right things. That's what Jesus does today. It's not just for this man in the Decapolis, a group of ten cities on the East side of Galilee. It's for you and me, for us. Jesus is just as much here as He was there. This is the great mystery. Jesus is here doing the same miracle.

But I want to talk about the first miracle in your life. When we were born we were just as bad as Adam. That breakdown in the relationship between the Lord and Adam signaled death. The Lord told Adam it would happen. "The day you eat of it, you will surely die." The Lord wasn't joking. Adam died. His body was alive, but He was dead to the Lord. Adam sold his soul to the devil. So did Eve. That little arrangement they made with him has continued for every single person born since then, every single one, except One, of course. But neither you nor I are that exception. Instead, we are all born with severe hearing problems. We could not hear the Lord. We didn't want to hear Him.

But then a glorious day came for you. The heavens opened, and the Lord broke through our deafness with His name and some water. A pastor spoke the Triune name and sprinkled water on our heads. You were now able to hear His voice. Not only that, that particular day some of you even found your voice, with a howl, as though to say, "Why are you putting water on my head?"

Despite our possible immediate reaction, that was indeed a glorious day for each of us, but unfortunately, we keep reverting to that arrangement Adam and Eve had set up. Our ears were opened that day, but they clog shut again daily. It is such an issue that we need to go back to that first day we could hear time and time again. That's why the Lord is doing it again today, why He is opening our ears and loosing our tongues like He did for that man. Not only is He doing it now, but He is teaching us it must happen daily so we can hear Him. Even as Christians, we may think we are hearing Him, but not.

Pastors in the early church saw just how important this account was when they baptized people. They would re-create exactly what Jesus did. They would stick their fingers in people ears and touch their tongues. They even called this rite, the Ephphatha, which is exactly the Hebrew word Jesus said, "Be opened."

Since we don't do that anymore, so we don't see it reenacted, it is good that we look a little closer at what Jesus did. He took the man aside. Why do you suppose He would do that? He had to get him out of the crowd. He wanted to have the man's attention. Apparently it wasn't just Jesus and the man, though. Mark tells us detail for detail, and we know Mark is really the account that Peter gives. So, it's a pretty safe guess Peter was one of them witnessing this miracle. I would bet, if it weren't the rest of the twelve, then it was at least James and John, the other two that always seemed to be together when they witnessed miraculous things.

So Peter tells us what Jesus did, and each step must be important, or Peter wouldn't be telling us. He takes the man aside, away from a jostling crowds, filled with gawkers, and skeptics, and who knows what else. He takes Him aside, and puts his fingers in his ears. "Yes, I am going to open your ears." It's like sign language.

Then He spits and touches his tongue. Yes, I think it may actually be what it sounds like: Jesus touches the man's tongue with His spit. Go ahead, and get your shudders out and your "Ewww, gross." It was a different day. Besides, this man touching his spit on this other man's tongue is God. Why does it bother us so badly? Is it really a matter of hygiene? Is God going to pass some disease through His spit? For that matter, would He allow you to contract something from somebody else's spit, if you were to use the chalice? I don't think so, but that's a little off track.

Jesus spits and makes a healing mud one time. At another time, He puts His spit on a man's eyes. Now He touches a man's tongue with His spit. Spit. Saliva. Saliva is mostly water, and what was it that gave us the ability to hear our Lord's voice and speak His praises? Ah hah! Wasn't it water?

Then He sighs. Breath going out. Just like on the day He rose from the dead, breathes on His disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit," and then He gave them the office of the Keys. The Holy Spirit here just like then and just like at our baptisms. And then finally, "Ephphatha," be opened.

Let's compare our own baptisms with what happened here. Water? Check. Holy Spirit? Check. Ability to hear the Lord's voice and speak His praises? Check. It's no wonder the early Church saw this miracle as talking about baptism.

Nor is it any wonder this has been recorded in such details and comes up in our readings annually. Now, let's look at it for today. We do have trouble hearing. Jesus makes that clear when He says, "Let him who has ears, hear." Well, of course they have ears. But not all hear. It signals that this is a special ability, one that is given to the people He chooses. Ones that He has made His people, His children.

Sometimes we still have a hearing problem. We hear what we want to hear. We hear what we don't want to hear and try to shut it out, or say it is spoken for someone else. Sometimes we simply refuse to hear. This is a serious problem. When we don't hear, when we shut Him out, we close ourselves off to His blessings. He opens our ears to hear His wonderful words.

Sometimes His wonderful words hurt. They are designed to do that. Our Lord is bringing us a word from His Father through the Holy Spirit, and sometimes we need to hear words that hurt, words that keep us from hiding like Adam had done. They flush us out. But having heard the words that sting that remind us we are what we would like to tell ourselves we aren't, that is sinners, then He speaks a word of life. After all Jesus is the Word. That's what St. John, the Disciple and Evangelist tells us and that's what we are told in the book of Hebrews. He has spoken to us by His Son. We are given Jesus.

In the Word we hear we are given the crucified and resurrected Jesus. He is the Word. He goes into our hearts by means of our ears. This is medicine for our hearing problems.

But we also have speaking problems. We don't know how to praise or pray. We need to be able to hear before we can speak. Then we need to actually hear. We may think we automatically know how to pray. Many will tell us we should just say what comes to our minds from our hearts, but Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor who opposed Nazi Fascism, had this to say about that kind of prayer. "The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart." We need the Word of God to fill our heart, before we speak and that will only come by hearing.

That's why the prayer services of Matins and Vespers start off with Psalm 51:15. "O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise." Natural heart condition doesn't cut it. Natural is what we had when we were born, the arrangement with Satan. Instead, to pray and praise we need to hear. To pray and praise we need to be healed.

When we confess the faith, the tenets of the Christian faith, we don't make up those words. These words were given to us by God. He did these. I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit, who spoke by the prophets. We wouldn't know this, had He not told us, and so we speak back to Him all He has told us.

The miracle has been happening. Our Lord has been healing, but He has additional medicine. He gives Himself to us in His Word, but He also gives us His crucified and risen flesh in His Supper. Through this He gives us life and salvation.

So, we pray Ephaphatha, "Open my ears, Lord." Furthermore, we can see we will want to pray it every Sunday, every Sunday right before worship, because here He speaks to us, and we will want to hear everything He has to say because it is our blessing.

AMEN