Preachrblog

 Mark 9:30–37  “The Greatest” Muhammed Ali, a championship boxer, was famed for his trash-talk.  Besides claiming to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”, he was also known to claim, brazenly, “I am the greatest!”  And after seeing his prowess in the boxing ring, at least for a time, it would be hard to argue with him. We admire greatness.  We love to see people do well at their craft, their profession, their vocations.  Ask me some time about my favorite chess grandmaster.  There’s a sort of vicarious living that happens when you get caught up in someone else’s greatness.  You feel a part of it.  We do this so much lately we even have a new term, ‘the GOAT’, G-O-A-T, standing for the Greatest Of All Time.   Mark’s Gospel today calls us to consider a different kind of greatness - true greatness.  Not at boxing or football or computer engineering or investing.  Greatness in the kingdom of God.  And like so man...

  Mark 7:31–37 “Ephatha!” Only a few times in the New Testament do we get to hear the actual words of Jesus in the Aramaic language.   In these cases our English Bibles don’t translate, but give us the actual sounds of the words Jesus made – and we have one of these today.   Some others – well one was when he said to the little girl who had died, “Talitha Cumi”, that is, “Little Girl, arise”.   And of course his quotation of Psalm 22 from the cross, “Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani”, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Today we hear a third example from our Savior’s own lips, the simple command, “Ephatha!”, “be opened!” Now, there’s plenty to say about this one little word.   In opening the ears of a deaf man, Jesus drops yet another calling card of the Messiah.   As Isaiah prophesied, Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing f...