The Lord's Sermons
- Sermon 37 -
Eleventh Sunday After Trinity. The Healing of a Deaf-Mute
St. Mark VII, 32-37: "And they brought unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseeched him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it: And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak."
(April 17, 1872)
The prompt healing of a deaf-mute described in these verses was one of those acts with which, from time to time, I had to corroborate My teaching so that My disciples and the people who followed Me could also through acts be convinced of the divine origin of My words. These acts were also meant to substantiate and prove My presence on your earth as a higher mission than that of a prophet and seer. Through apparent miracles of the magicians and Essenes the people were used to seeing things done before their eyes which they could not understand, attributing to one or the other a name or power he did not possess. Because of this I mainly performed healings or such miracles those conjurers and magicians could not possibly accomplish.
Concerning the healing act as such and the way I performed it, this had a deeper spiritual meaning than just healing a deaf-mute that he might speak about Me and My miraculous power. I did not need to be praised; actually - as one of the verses clearly states - I forbade the healed and the witnesses to speak about these acts to others. However, this, My command, was only seldom complied with, for forbidding only strengthens the urge to sin. My disciple, Paul, felt this when he sighed: "If it were not for the law there would be no urge to offend against it!" With these words he owned up to the weakness of human nature and at the same time warned people not to feel too sure of having attained a certain strength, so that they may not unexpectedly fall all the deeper.
To enable all of you to comprehend the spiritual significance of this healing of the deaf-mute, concentrate on the words "deaf" and "mute" and then find the spiritual key from the given explanations.
This act was taken as a basis for a Sunday sermon in order to bring you closer to Me. For you must realize that in every word I spoke and even more so in every act I performed during My life on earth, the spiritual significance behind it was by far more important than the actual act, the occasion, or the circumstances under which I proclaimed My teaching to the people following Me. Every one of My words had a much more far-reaching meaning than My listeners suspected and most of today's Bible students have found.
Therefore, I will now explain the two words "deaf" and "mute" in more detail so that it will be easier for us to find out through spiritual correspondences what suits My purpose now and what already then was underlying My word "Ephphatha", and the act, as well as the person on whom this act was performed. It was not incidental that a deaf-mute had to be healed by Me in this particular way, whereas on other occas-sions the blind, the lame, the lepers and others were restored to health merely through My word or the laying on of My hands.
Behold, in order to comprehend this spiritually we have to take a closer look at the two words "deaf" and "mute", whereupon what follows will explain itself.
To be "deaf" is a condition in which the inner spiritual man lacks one of the senses and is deprived of many a comfort and spiritual influences of the external world which flow to the healthy person from all sides through his hearing. This proves to him that even in the vibrating of matter, which brings about the sound, there is something much greater and more spiritual than he thought; for the impressions of sound - from the slightest stir to the highest harmony of music or the even higher expression of all the spiritual ideas in the word - form a great gamut of enjoyments, explanations and manifestations of My Deity and eternity in all material creation, all of which are unknown and obscure to the deaf, just as colours to the blind, particularly when this condition exists since birth.
"Mute" again is the opposite of "deaf". Whereas in the deaf the inner man is, through the lack of hearing, deprived of thousands of effects from the external world, the mute, on the contrary, deprived of the aid of speech, must suffer from his inability to communicate through the greatest and most comprehensive organ, the voice and speech, the impressions received from the external world reflected in his inner self. At the most, besides gesticulation and signs, he has at his disposal inarticulate sounds.
As I already told you in another message, mutual communication is an essential need, a necessary means of progression on the spiritual path. Therefore, it is obvious that he who is mute must be deprived of a great many pleasures of which he becomes only aware if he wants to reflect through communication what he has received from the external world.
Now that I have explained to you in detail the meaning of these two words and the disadvantage of the loss of one or the other ability, you can form for yourselves an idea about those creatures and humans who lack not only one of these senses, but both.
There is no feeling or reception of the harmonies coming from the outside nor a reflecting of their impressions on the inner man. This lack presents a colossal impediment for spiritual progress; for he who can receive external impressions only through other means than his hearing and communicate what he has received only by makeshift means, misses out on a lot in My great creation which others, without realizing it, receive freely and abundantly.
There was every reason why the people at that time asked Me to heal this deaf-mute. They were guided by the thought that he too was to hear My Word and be able - once his inner self had been nourished with a never-suspected spiritual abundance - to comprehend his own and also My mission on earth.
So many people still, even now, shut their spiritual ear against My creation and My teaching and to many to this day My entire creation is a dumb conglomerate of substance and matter, the laws of which, in their opinion, have come into existence by chance. To so many I call: "Ephphatha!", that is, "Open your ears and listen to the song of rejoicing of all nature, which preaches nothing but love from the last atom to the vastest central sun! Open your ears and listen to the deep spiritual knowledge that was given you in My teaching in order to educate you to something higher, something greater than just herbivorous and carnivorous animals that are endowed with greater intelligence than the others!"
To so many I call every day, every hour, even every moment. Thus every emotion, every idea, which cannot possibly be the product of stuff or matter, shows them clearly that in every corporeal bestial man there is hidden a spiritual, higher man who is meant to spiritualize the external person to make him a worthy encasement for the inner man and a created being which is a credit to the Creator.
And behold, thousands have condemned themselves to being deaf and dumb. They do not understand what a vast treasure of spiritual beatitudes in My nature wants to have an effect on them; they are cold or dumb when they receive these impressions. All spiritual harmonies go unnoticed past their ears and their inner self is empty or filled only with impressions from the lowest sphere of matter or sensuality, degrading them from the human level to that of the beast.
Their within is empty, and because they are unable to give anything of spiritual value, they also do not receive this from others. For them there exists only matter and everything spiritual is the product of a deranged brain.
Through the words I have already been giving you for some years, I am calling the "Ephphatha!" to My erring children, putting My fingers in their ears so as to save them while it is still possible, before the whole of nature will be sounding in their ears with the sounds of trumpets, instead of soft harmonies, the things they do not want to understand when taught in a friendly way.
I did not create men to be deaf against all My works nor did I endow My creation with such an abundance of wonders that it should be a silent book for My spiritual beings.
Nothing in My entire nature is or shall be deaf and dumb! Everything that is alive shall hear the voice of its Creator, its Father. For he wants to fill the souls of His created beings with the impressions of His creations in such a way that all the delight of existence is contained in the communication of that which has been seen, felt and heard.
My nature shall not be dumb; for "dumb" is as much as "spiritually dead". With shouts of joy everything shall testify to being alive, to enjoying life, and to recognizing its Creator, its loving Father, in all creations of the external world. Thus material creation shall be the foundation for the spiritual and spiritual creation spiritualize all that is material.
Nothing in the world shall be deaf or dumb, least of all man who, as the "ultimate product of material creation on this earth, carries within him My image!
As I restored his hearing to the deaf-mute so that he could hear how everything in nature praises Me, he also was no longer to be dumb, to enable him to join in the song of rejoicing and recognize Me as his Lord, but also as his loving Father.
You, too, should allow yourselfes to be healed, as I healed that deaf-mute, so that you - no longer deaf to My words -can loudly proclaim to the others, with the might of your voice full of conviction, that the acts and miracles performed by Me almost two thousand years ago were only to intimate spiritually what I had in mind with all mankind when I created it and when I set you humans to be lords of this earth!
I did not intend My beings to be deaf and dumb, but wanted to educate them for My Kingdom with open spiritual ears and eloquent tongues to hear Me and My creation and proclaim openly: "Hosanna on high! Hail Him who granted us this extraordinary grace to hear Him and at the same time gave us also the means of communicating to others what we had heard, that it may not only be our own, but may become a mutual possession for all who want to become His children!"
Therefore, I want you to offer Me your daily praise in order to prove to all the world by word and deed that you, during My ministry, have been neither deaf nor dumb!
Heed this for your salvation as also for the benefit of your fellowmenl Amen.