The world was shocked by the assassination of Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar, the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka. The media carried the news of Mr. Kadirgamar as “a hero of our times, who waged a relentless struggle against terrorism in all its forms, despite continues threats to his life; a national leader, who combined intellectual vigour, political courage and personal integrity of highest calibre and so on”. On the other hand, the media called the murders as “cowards, international terrorists, criminals of war and racism, who did not believe in human rights and so on. It’s here that certain amounts of images are being created in our minds about Mr. Kadirgamar and about the perpetrators. These communicated images need both hearing and speaking aid in order to translate the composition of image and perception from one to the other. It could result either positively or negatively, which either celebrates or bring destruction to life in its wholeness.
Jesus’ healing the man of deaf and mute is quite crucial importance in our scenario, since while affirming life in its fullness and to celebration it both positively and creatively, the composition of image and perception is of vital importance. Since, one could attribute certain characteristics to X and other characteristics to Y, only through image and perception paradigm. Even as we browse through the Sitz im Leben of this exegesis of Markan narrative, I would encourage you to keep this perspective of “image and perception” in its context.
Most of the biblical scholars choose to argue convincingly, the geographical locations that Mark indented to portray extensively the journey of Jesus, in routing from Tyre via Sidon to the Sea of Galilee. This route takes into consideration several possible places in and around the gentile lands north and east of Galilee, which includes “the middle of the territory of the Decapolis”. Mark indented to bring out this setting in order to make his audience clear that Jesus did not want to work publicly in a Gentile territory, primarily because Mark guards against the technicality of Jesus’ mission to the Gentiles. Hence, Mark does not depict Jesus publicly pausing along the route either to teach or to heal till the end of the journey.
However, the depiction of this particular miracle event i.e., “at the middle of the territory of Decapolis”, in a gentile setting denotes the fact that although Mark was constrained to his loyalty to the tradition of Jesus’ mission, yet he shows the legitimacy in Jesus’ ministry of word and deed that extends far beyond the socio-political boundaries of Judaism.
The proper event begins at vs.32, where the identity of the person and those responsible in bringing him stands anonymous. Understanding the possible settings of the narrative, both the man and those brought him to Jesus could be Gentiles. Obviously, they could have the knowledge of Jesus’ reputation to heal. Looking closely at the man, one could understand the fact that he was mute, was more likely due to his deafness. In any case, the man’s hearing and his speaking ability needed healing.
In order to actuate the healing process in the man, Jesus takes the man away from the crowd privately. Biblical scholars have attempted several probable reasons for Jesus to dislocate from the crowd. (1) May be Mark wants to take Jesus away from the crowd, while narrating the story, or (2) It could be a part of Mark’s Messianic Secret, or (3) to avoid the curiosity seekers in the crowd, or (4) a means to preserving the secret process of the healing. However, the secrecy motif could correspond possibly shaping the event in a “Hellenistic” context, a context that is appropriate for Jesus’ healing of a Gentile in a gentile territory. The possible usage of the two gestures of Jesus in healing, by putting his finger into the man’s ear and spittle touched his tongue, implies the fact that Jesus touched the man’s impaired organs to establish contact for healing. The gesture of touch offers hope of healing, where mere words would have been inadequate and Jesus’ spitting connotes a better possible gesture of communication, supposedly a therapeutic function in the Greco-Roman world. Thus each gesture represents an integral part of the healing miracle in the “Hellenistic” context.
Vs. 34 introduces yet another two gestures that combines “looking to heaven” and the “sighing”. The gesture “looking at the heaven”, is a gesture of prayer, while the gesture “sighing” denotes the gesture of receiving of super-human power. In fact, this was the power that fed the multitudes and raised the Lazarus from the dead. Hence, some interpreters put the gesture of sighing as an expression of “pneumatic excitement” that associates with “prayer-like gesture”. It’s a sign of deep distress that lead to prayer that apparently provides healing.
Now, it’s vital to understand that either any one of the gestures or all of them (i.e. touching the affected organs, spitting, looking to heaven or a deep sigh) could have been the means of healing. It could accumulate to the therapeutic gesture forming the process of healing. But the actual healing takes place through Jesus’ authoritative word. The word “Ephphatha” is assumed to be an Aramaic word; hence Mark translates for his audience as “Be Opened”. Jesus’ usage of the Aramaic word in the Hellenistic social settings vocalizes the contextualization of his mission. Therefore, Jesus’ intelligible usage of this word perfectly supports the historical settings of the time, which commanded healing. The healing follows the description of the man’s immediate use of his faculties. Literally, his hearing was opened and he began speaking properly.
Later in vs.36, Jesus’ command of maintaining the “secrecy” was disregarded. The situation is intensified here. Although “the secrecy motifs” interrupts the narratives flow, yet in fact it actually counters those who over-whelmed with astonishment that attributes to the miraculous deeds, rather than to applause praise to the wonder-worker (God). Jesus’ role is always known to draw from the crowd. But on the contrary, Mark the narrator exhibits the futility of any attempt of Jesus to keep the low profile in the healing ministry.
However, the end of this pericope echoes the words of Genesis 1:31 regarding the God’s work for creation “He has done all things well”. This declares the fact that Jesus’ work is attributed to God that reflects the restoration of fallen creation. Instead of being a divine miracle worker, Jesus’ healing represents God’s work of doing “all things well”. It was the messianic age that was in motion. Reflecting from Isaiah 35:5-6, “He makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak”. It’s the age that proclaims “Good News” to those living beyond the socio-political territorial boundaries into the periphery. It is to them that “their ears” and “their tongues” are healed. Hence, they can hear and declare the salvific paradigm of the “Good News of God’.
The narration of this event denotes that fact that miracles restore the blocked communication between God and humanity. In fact, miraculous signs confirm God’s active presence of God’s claim, promises and words. Therefore, miracle shows the characteristics of God’s communication that is relevant and purposeful, since miracles are divine. It is God’s intervention into human history with a purpose to set right communicative relationship with the human. It is through miracle that God’s presence and action signs within the factor of humanitarian importance. It’s a proof of not merely God’s existence, but the intervention that challenges faith by invoking one’s communicative relationship and commitment to God.
James Ross states that image and perception are two basic elements of communication that links (associates) one with the other. The healing of deaf-mute person restored the blocked communication with others. Taking the incarnation of Jesus as an example, the image and perception is utmost importance, since it enabled the humanity to relate with God, thereby activating the good news of God in human history.
There are few factors that I see regarding image and perception in relation to the passage.
Firstly, thought and speech as fuel for image and perception. It is interesting to note that the process of encoding and decoding (it’s a communication module, where encoding process converts words into ideas and decoding process converts ideas into words) activates the process of image and perception s. The thoughts create perception through hearing and speech creates images through words spoken. When Jesus restored the deaf-mute person, he was affirming the life-giving module to the man the ability to image and perception. If Jesus was merely healing the deaf and mute without the ability to encoding and decoding, then such a partial process of healing would be like using certain language without really understanding its imagery meaning and listening to words that ascribe no meaning at all to the hearers.
Secondly, thoughts and speeches carry sensory expressions and experiences to cater image and perception building. That is to say, words thought or spoken can have sentimental values and emotion-building capabilities within its features. Therefore, thoughts and speech can either power play over ones sentiments or emotion over the other. Here, the quest of power play could either build empires that suppresses the sensory expressions and experiences of the other or can build value-based communities that caters and respects the sensory expressions and experiences of the other. Jesus’ healing of the deaf-mute person contributed to the latter state of value-based community syndrome, than empire building.
Thirdly, thoughts and speeches correspond to image and perception of understanding the self in the other. More often, the intra-personal communication becomes too self-cantered in nature. Hence, the speech quite often communicates the individualistic attributes of the self. The perception and the imageries become closed from the other’s point of reference. In fact, the other becomes immaterial for the self. Such a pattern of intra-personal communication is dangerous to the life of community. On the other hand, if the intra-personal communication could associate with the trans-personal communication, i.e. the communication with the divine, then the awareness of the otherness within the self becomes a reality. Jesus identified his self within the other (deaf-mute person) when he exhibited the gestures of looking above with a deep sigh for the other. In fact, after the healing it became obvious that the people were over-whelmed with astonishment of the complete healing of the person, since his healing of deaf-mute did liberate him as well.
Finally, image and perception build critical consciousness. Paulo Freire, who authored the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, discusses the possibilities of critical consciousness through education. Perception creates high possibilities and what might be syndrome. Most often one needs few sets of dogmas to govern the life-style. However, the question might be: who created these dogmas in to our life’s system? More often is all that we heard and said that constantly created them. These dogmas control the very life system. There are ‘life affirming’ dogmas or ‘life destroying’ ones too. Someone put it as “Lethal perceptions and image” that one could have critical consciousness, which looks for newer avenues from those that binding us so tight. Jesus’ spit liberated the tied tongue and set it loose. Hence, unless our perception sets us free, we could hardly contribute creative images that affirm life in its fullness.
