All Things Well

Mark gives us the route. Jesus leaves the region of Tyre and Sidon and comes to the sea of Galilee by way of the Decapolis, the ten towns where mostly Gentiles lived. It is a long loop through foreign country, and it is the wrong way to go for anyone in a hurry. That road is how Jesus reaches this man.

"And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him." The man arrives in other people's hands, and the first thing Jesus does is take him out of them: "he took him aside from the multitude." Then He puts His fingers into the man's ears, spits, and touches his tongue. This man cannot hear a word of explanation, so Jesus shows him what is about to happen in the only language he has. Then Jesus looks up to heaven and sighs, and He speaks one word that Mark keeps in the language it was spoken in: "Ephphatha, that is, Be opened."

What the crowd says is bigger than they knew: "He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak." Isaiah had put those two things on his list of what would happen when God came to save His people: "the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped," and in the next verse, "the tongue of the dumb sing." The words "done all things well" also echo the first page of the Bible: "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." A crowd in a foreign district reached for the language of creation without knowing what they had picked up.

Jesus walked the long way round to reach one man in a district that was not His own. Then He told them to keep it quiet, and they spread the news anyway. The long route was never wasted, because the man at the end of it was the reason for every mile. The same Lord still takes the long way round to reach one person, and He still does all things well.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 252 is Sins Remembered No More (Hebrews 8:12).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two