Homily For The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity 2025
For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit Amen.
St. Paul in our Epistle is reminding the Corinthians of the glory of God’s care for Israel through Moses. Most associations with Moses' ministry concerned his role as the mediator of the Old Covenant, by receiving the Law for Israel’s benefit. It was Moses who went up on the Mount and received the Law. The Lord evidenced his presence through lighting and flashing on Sinai. Here, St. Paul tells the Corinthians of what he calls the “ministration” of death. Ministration can mean assistance or care, we might understand it like the term “administration” meaning the carrying out of a task or the giving of something to someone. Moses was involved in the ministration of death. Now, the Law was glorious, it is good, it came from the finger of God himself.
How can it be a ministration of death? Because the Law tells us what is pleasing to God, it also reveals to us our failure to obey God’s commands. It is the ministration of death because it reveals our sinfulness. Unless a person is perfectly holy, let me emphasize perfectly holy, completely free of all sin, meeting every intention of God’s law, not merely better than the next person, he or she cannot be in God’s presence, and from God comes all life. The comparison of the law is not between human beings, but a higher standard of comparing humanity with the holiness of God. The Law shows us all, every one of us that we fall short of God’s holiness, and it confirms the sentence of sin which is death. By shining its perfect light, for the Psalmist says, “Thy law is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”, it shows us our need, which is a blessing in one sense. It causes us to acknowledge our incurable spiritual sickness, an ailment unto death. It is a blessing if it leads us to turn to God and plead for mercy, to cry out for an intercessor to go between our sin and God’s perfect holiness.
Even in the Old Covenant of the Law, God showed His mercy to Israel. He was present with Israel in a unique way. He wanted Israel to know that he was really there. His covenantal presence was known in the Lord’s conquest over the greatest military of their era - when the Lord destroyed Egypt’s army in the Red Sea. He fed the multitudes in the wilderness for 40 years - manna from heaven. God’s glory was seen in the miraculous maintenance of the finer details of Israel’s need - for 40 years Israel’s clothing never wore out nor did their feet swell. It was seen in the conquest of Canaan when God defeated stronger and more numerous nations to give them the land. He gave them the blessing of his presence - the pillar of fire and cloud to lead them; the glory of God resting in the most holy place. He gave them the beauty of the Law - whose reception made Moses’ face shine like the sun. He was present but also radically other, demonstrating by His power that he was radically distinct from them. One has to approach the Lord in the manner that he directs.
Moses had to come before Him - no other Israelite. Moses’ presence was mediated - he could not see the Lord face to face and live. Moses could see the back of the glorious train of God’s presence but to see him otherwise would lead to his death. The ministration of death was indeed glorious. How much more glorious is what St. Paul calls the “ministration of righteousness” - the new covenant of the spirit which brings life.
Our Gospel for today speaks to the greatness, the superiority of the new covenant that was brought about through Christ’s righteousness. For Jesus embodied the righteousness of God. He was perfectly righteous in his life. His perfection satisfied the requirements of the absolute holiness of God. Here, for the first time since the Fall, is a man, one man, born of the Spirit, who can approach God’s holiness because He himself is holy God. Hebrews says that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.
He incarnates the healing that our souls need; he incarnates the love of God to heal physical illnesses so as to direct men and women to the only one who can heal the body and the soul.
St. Mark Chapter 8 is our Gospel for today. Here, we read of Jesus' pilgrimage through the Gentile dominated north of Israel. The miracle today, along with stilling of the waves by Jesus word and his exorcism of the Canaanite daughter whose mother in faith begged for the crumbs that fell from the masters table, is wedged between the feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6 and the feeding of the 4000 which came immediately after our Gospel for today. Both these feeding events signalled that a new Moses had appeared on the scene and was working a greater, more comprehensive exodus - one not just out of physical slavery - but truest deliverance of every oppression of human life.
So, here we have added to these previous manifestations of Christ’s power - the healing of the deaf and dumb man. We read that they brought to him a man who could neither hear nor speak. One commentator has noted about this passage - that up to this point in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus had healed a variety of diseases but this is the first instance of the healing of deafness being recorded. This story and the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida are actual healings of physical infirmity, historic events, but they should also be understood symbolically - for the restoration of both points to the restoration of the ability to see and hear spiritually for those who trust in Jesus. The people knew Jesus had the power to heal, and in love for this man who was suffering from such poor condition, they brought him to the Lord. Notice this manner of healing - it resembles some other episodes where Jesus pulls him away from the crowd. There, he directs his attention to the man’s needs. He ministers to him personally. What does this demonstrate?
God incarnate takes time and attention to tend to him in a way that he can comprehend. Divine condescension - Jesus takes that which would normally be considered unclean - his saliva - and uses it as the instrument for removing the consequences of the Fall. He touches the deaf man’s ears and the man’s tied tongue with saliva. As an interesting aside, the Roman Church has a tradition tied to Baptism in which the priest touches the infant's mouth and ears with the slightest bit of spit from his mouth. Mirroring sacramentally, this event and tying it to baptism and the spiritual implications from that sacrament. Jesus touches this man and commands what only God can command: be loosed. Be set free from the bondage of silence to praise the living God. The same God who commanded light to come from darkness commands silence and deafness to depart. All the created order must submit to the words, commands of the Lord. We read, “immediately, straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”
Commentators are quick to note that the mention of the word to describe the man’s difficulty with speech occurs only twice in the Greek version of the whole Bible, here and in Isaiah 35:6. It should be no surprise that Isaiah 35 is alluded to by the crowds in their response to this miracle. We read in the last verse of our Gospel - He hath done all things well; he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. The crowds astonished, amazed by this miracle, clearly connect it to the promise of Isaiah - where God committed to renew Israel after years and years of exile. To banish oppression with creation itself celebrating this new and greater exodus. This new inbreaking of God would be marked by blind eyes being opened, deaf ears unstopped, and silent tongues breaking forth into song. The healing of a deaf mute is not just about making man whole physically.
It is a sign through Jesus that God’s love is breaking in and will renew all of his creation. It points to the greater healing of body and soul that the Messiah, Jesus brings.
The Epistle reminds us both of the glories of the Law and the greater gift of the righteousness of God in the new covenant. The Law is glorious in that it makes us aware of what pleases God, of what his righteous standards are and what leads us into the good life that God intends. It is glorious but terribly incomplete if it doesn’t lead us to abandon our own efforts and cling to the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. For it is incredibly burdensome, damnatory in fact, to know what God expects, requires but to have no means for satisfying that requirement. Jesus ushers in the new covenant of righteousness - not of our own making but of his compassion, his commitment to deeper provision of complete healing.
In our Gospel, the healing of the man led to wholeness - one who could verbalize with his mouth the power of God which works wonders in this world and for the next. We often want Jesus to solve our felt needs here in the present. There’s nothing wrong with coming to Our Lord with any of our concerns but Jesus is more interested in the resulting belief and trust which come through our answered needs. Our heavenly Father is much more interested, committed, in fact, to those matters of eternal significance, those things that have a bearing on our soul’s ultimate health. Jesus speaks about this in the Sermon on the Mount - it is better to enter life maimed, to be deprived of some needful now if it means we are whole in the life that is to come. For some this morning, maybe it is time to receive true healing from Jesus, through faith and repentance - receiving healing from Jesus that only he can accomplish. The healing starts with our justification. Only Jesus can heal; only Jesus can make us acceptable before God in the final judgment that each and every one of us will receive.
I invite any and all of us to despair of your own flawed righteousness and turn from your self-will and ask Jesus to make you right with the Father. Maybe you have sought healing from other sources - ambition, self-centeredness, other religions. For those who have entered this journey of faith and repentance, having trusted in Jesus, let us continue in that grace by confessing our need for Jesus to strengthen us to continue. For those who still trust in their own ability to do good, their own righteousness, may the light of God’s holiness help you recognize the inadequacy of your standing before God, and may He himself bring you to trust only in Jesus’s righteousness and accept His grace, which is our only hope that God will find us acceptable.
In closing, I ask, can you find yourself in one of these realities? Are you pretty sure God will understand and forgive your faults, because everyone has them? Are you trusting in your good intentions because you aren’t as bad as someone else? Think again. Understand you will stand in the perfect light of God’s complete knowledge and encounter His holiness. Repent and be saved. If you have never trusted Jesus, repent from your self-rule and disobedience and submit yourself to the rule of the true King. Have you believed what God has said, that He can save to the uttermost anyone and everyone who come to him, who turns to him? Have you trusted in Him? Then continue in the encouragement He gives you. He will finish His good work in you as you allow Him to rule and lead you day by day. Pray for the salvation of those who are just coming to understand their need. Encourage the faith of those around you. For all who have trusted in Jesus, we are now called to pray and work for the spread of His kingdom. Let us be obedient with hearts full of joy knowing the grace of God to us in the past and the promises of his loving presence in the future. Amen.
