The Overlooked Sigh

The Overlooked Sigh--January 21, 2019

“They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Eph’pha-tha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.” [Mark 7:32-35]

The only world Jesus came to heal is the real world—the world of tangible, touchable details, of earthy, ordinary, messy things like saliva, and of the end-of-the-day weariness that makes you sigh before you gather yourself again for the next thing to be done.  This is the world that needs healing, and it is the only world in which we will find Jesus working.

We Christians continue to have the problem remembering that Jesus came to this world, in all its utter commonness and messiness, this weary world of ours.  We have this need to imagine instead that Jesus walked six inches above the ground, stayed antiseptically distant from those who were in need of him, and was never saddened or worn down by the life he saw around him.  We almost would rather imagine Jesus only “up” in heaven where he can stay untainted by this world of ours and where he won’t get his lovely white robe dirty. We would rather not have to imagine the awfully earthy and intimate image of a man spitting on his fingers and placing them on a sick person’s tongue.  “I mean really, Jesus,” we think, “we know you can heal people simply by your word.  That seems respectable.  That seems impressive.  That seems like what a dignified Savior would do.  Not spitting and poking fingers in people’s ears.”

But there goes Jesus, touching tongues, spitting on his hands, and sighing in the midst of it all, too.  He is a decidedly earthy savior, and we can’t get away from that.  Mark, in fact, seems to want to spend a lot of time on this moment—describing the details down to Jesus’ sighing, even.  Just let that image settle in for you: the Son of God sighing. That sound we humans make when we are tired and our defenses let down enough to show it. That sound we make of release, of letting go. Of unclenching our spirits for a moment. Of surrender.  And yet it is not a powerless sigh—it is much the same as the way Paul tells us that when we pray, “the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:27).  Jesus sighs as a wordless prayer to the Father who will work through Jesus ordinary words, “Be opened.”  Maybe you have never pictured a Savior who sighs.  I must confess that this detail caught me off guard the first time I read it and paid any attention. It makes Jesus seem so very human. 

That, of course, is the whole point.  Jesus is a real human savior (yes, fully God, too, we are sure to remember, but absolutely human, too at the same time), and he has come to real human beings in the real world.  That means the world Jesus entered, and the world Jesus came to heal is the same world you and I still live in.  It means that Jesus knows, really knows, what it is to be brought to the point of sighing.  It means Jesus is willing to get dirt under his fingernails and spit on his hands.

Some part of me has a hard time believing that the Christ of God is willing to get that close to this world.  There is so much that is disappointing, heartbreaking, and rotten among us.  There are smugly smirking faces wallowing in their privilege. There are angry blowhards ranting and bellowing to get our attention like little children.  There are deep sorrows and terrible shames.  And sometimes, it is difficult to believe that Jesus can bear to face all of the worst in us like that.  And yet, here is this story, where Jesus sees the heartache of the human experience, and does not run away from it.  He sighs... and he stays.

I sometimes wonder if the watching world shrugs Jesus off because we Respectable Religious folks have made them think he is from some alien world, or that he will only come close enough to us to drop us a few rules and commandments, but not close enough to touch our ears and our tongues with his own fingers.  If that is true, I wonder if it is our fault that we have given this false impression of our very earthy, fully human, savior.  I wonder—have we acted and talked as if Jesus is irrelevant to the hurts and tiredness of this day, as if he has no part in the joys and celebrations of this day, too?  Have we stopped looking for Jesus to be there in our own sigh-inducing moments?  Have we stopped telling others about the moments we have caught glimpses of him?  Or maybe, are we ourselves still a little bit uncomfortable with the idea of an savior who sighs and spits like the rest of us, regardless of how undignified it makes him seem?  Maybe Mark is giving us another glimpse of Jesus like this so that we will come to recognize him among the sighs and surprises of this new day.  Let us not waste the opportunity to catch a glimpse of our savior, right here in our midst.

Lord Jesus, be with us in all your real-ness and let us let you come as close as we need you to.