At this point in Mark’s Gospel Jesus has been outside of the Jewish territories and has taken a circuitous route back to the Galilee. In this way, Jesus is working to broaden the perspective of his disciples who not long after will be spreading the Gospel throughout the Gentile world. Here, then, as Jesus encounters this deaf man in the district of the Decapolis, he engages symbolically the lack of hearing of the Word of God among the Gentiles.

Jesus engages in an interesting ritual where he uses his own saliva to anoint this man on the tongue thereby releasing him of his inability to speak. First, Jesus had placed his fingers in the man’s ears and uttered a groan as he prayed for this man’s healing. We do not see Jesus acting in a similar way among the Jewish community. So, is he acting in a way familiar to the magi of the Gentile world who engaged in various rituals and uttered incantations in order to affect their actions, or is he demonstrating something else for us?

Other than the pronouncement of the words of Institution of the Eucharist, the touching of the ears and the lips is the only gesture of Jesus that the Church repeats in a Sacramental form. The minister of Baptism, touching the ears and mouth of the child in a short rite called Ephphatha and says: “May the Lord Jesus, who made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, grant that you may soon receive his word with your ears and profess the faith with your lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father.”

Each of us, as we reflect on our own Baptism, should be mindful of this blessing which is also a mandate as we are reminded that we are also then commissioned and called “priest, prophet, and king.”

Interestingly enough this particular ritual is not present in the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) rites celebrated at the Easter Vigil.

The spiritual directive of the Baptism of a child and that of an adult is at the same time eternally the same and yet significantly different. While the ontological effects of the Sacrament remain the same – forgiving of Original Sin and the sealing of one’s soul with the flood of sacramental grace, the process for getting to this point are different.

Presumably when a child is baptized it is because the child’s family is committing themselves to form the child in the faith. Hence, from this moment forward, the child hears his or her family at prayer, and becomes familiar with the signs and symbols of the faith. Even when this is not the case, Baptism still marks the moment when the Holy Spirit moves as he wills in the heart, mind, and soul of the child. A child is yet unable to speak but does hear and learns to understand the words, the signs, and the symbols. As the child in grows his or her curiosity about the faith, as with the same curiosity of the world around, brings out questions which need to be addressed in a faithful way.

An adult coming to the faith has heard and is ready not just to receive the Sacraments, but also, presumably to share that faith with others. The sure and certain zeal that brings one to Baptism as an adult should be significantly transformative in that person’s life.

Having been baptized we share in ministry of the Church. This prophetic role, the call to evangelize the world, comes from the command to “be open” so that we might speak the truth that we first hear.

But it takes a while to hear and to understand before we can evangelize. The command to the man Jesus heals is to not speak what has happened to anyone. While the man knows he has been healed of his affliction, he does not know Jesus Christ, and he certainly does not know the fullness of the Gospel. This is an important feature of Mark’s Gospel – the so-called “Messianic Secret. If all we proclaim is the miraculous, and we miss the Paschal Events, then we do not know the Gospel.

This man is challenged by Jesus to wait until he knows the end of the Gospel.

We are all here challenged to be wise and to seek to understand the faith, to grow in the faith, so that when we do speak we proclaim the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.