Unlocked - Mark 7:31-37
Now some of you may be like her
and come to her defense later on, but I accuse my wife of being a somewhat OCD. Anita has a thing about locks, in particular
about locks on the doors that go in and out of a house. If a door has a lock, it needs to be locked,
especially at bedtime. Very often
Anita’s nighttime pre-bed ritual is to go around to all the doors and make sure
that all the locks are locked. It
doesn’t matter if we haven’t used that door during the day, she needs to make
sure that it is locked. If somehow we
make it to bed without her checking, she will ask me, “Did you check the
doors?” or “Are all the doors locked?”
Unless I can answer with 100% certainty that I did, one of the two of us
has to get up and go check (I’ll let y’all guess which of the two has to get
up). I will admit, she has never asked
me to install additional locks on any parsonage doors, but if it has any type
of lock, it has to be locked…the doorknob, the dead bolt, any chain or slide
locks. If it doesn’t have one of those,
that’s okay, but if it does, the door is not locked unless those are turn,
slid, or chained. And, if there is a
storm door, it has to be locked too…it doesn’t matter that there might be three
or more locks on the wooden door, it doesn’t matter that you might be able to
jerk the storm door open with a hard tug if it is locked, the storm door better
be locked. Going back to the bedtime
discussions, if I respond, “the wooden door is locked.” It is always followed
by, “what about the storm door.” Guess
what, “I don’t know,” is not an acceptable answer that will enable us to simply
go to sleep.
Little does Anita know that if
Arthur Bühl or any of his colleagues were to move into the neighborhood, not a
single one of those locks would do us much good. Arthur Bühl is a private detective out of
Hamburg Germany, and for most of the first decade of the 21st
century, Mr. Bühl was considered the master of lock picking…so fast in lock
picking championships, he was dubbed “Master of the Universe.”[i] Annually lock pickers from around the world
come together to compete with speed and skill, displaying to the world that the
little security we think we have when something is fastened shut and locked is
really an illusion…an illusion that these pickers can shatter in around twenty
seconds.
There are some things, though,
that are locked that neither Mr. Bühl nor any of his friends can open—locked
mouths and ears, locked hearts and minds, locked lives.
We don’t know his name or his
background. We only know that he lived
in the region of the Decapolis between Tyre and the Sea of Galilee. We do not know whether he had been this way
from birth, or if it was a recent development.
We just know that a few of his friends brought this man whose ears and
tongue were locked and presented him to Jesus.
Bühl and his associates use small
knives, screwdrivers, picks, paperclips, and even ballpoint pens to carefully
work their way into the locks they encounter.
Jesus, though, “King of the Universe” needs no such tools. Jesus’ methods, though, might have our chins
dropping faster than the quickest lock pick.
Jesus took this nameless man
aside, away from the crowd that had surrounded them. Jesus breaks open the locks by placing his
fingers in the man’s ears, then spitting, and touching the man’s tongue…finally
looking to heaven, Jesus sighs, then says to the man “Ephphatha,” or, as we
would understand it, “Be opened.” Then,
quicker than the chambers sliding into place on a cheap dollar-store
combination lock, the man was able to hear and speak… “Immediately his ears
were opened, his tongue released, and he spoke plainly.”
Jesus is the one who can open the
locks that no human hands can open. As
he walked the earth, he opened ears that were locked, mouths that were locked,
eyes that were locked, spirits that were locked, hearts that were locked…lives
that were locked. He brought hearing,
speech, sight, and freedom to lives that were sealed with seemingly unopenable
locks. The Gospel of John puts it this
way:
“Then Jesus said to the Jews who
had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples;
and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.’
“They answered him, ‘We are
descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made
free’?’
“Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly,
I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in
the household; the son has a place forever.
So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.’”[ii]
My brothers and sisters, what
aspect of our lives feels like it has been locked up? What areas of our life have produced such
deep trouble and no matter how hard we struggle to unlock them, no matter what
key we put in the lock, nothing seems to work?
Maybe it is relationships…trouble
at home, at work, or in our community…
Maybe it is an addiction…whether
it be to substances like alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or to gambling, or
pornography, overeating, or some other area…
Maybe it is fear…
Maybe it is something that we have
done that has locked us up…maybe someone else’s actions seem to have sealed our
lives shut…and again, nothing we do seems to unlock the hold those things have
over our lives.
The truth of the matter is, no
matter how hard we struggle, we will never be able to unlock those things on
our own, it is only when we surrender our lives to the True Locksmith that we
will ever find our lives unlocked, open, and free.
When we bring our “locked-up”
relationships before Him and ask Him to be the key to open them up, we will see
a change. Most, if not all, relationship
trouble comes about when those involved in the relationship find themselves at
an impasse. I know what I want, and you
won’t concede, you know what you want, and I won’t concede. For me, our relationship is about me, for
you, our relationship is about you. We
are stuck, we are locked up, because it is about us. When we bring it to Jesus, and make our
relationship about Him…when we look to Him to see what a successful relationship
looks like, and pattern our lives after Him, we see those relationships unlocked. Suddenly a love-filled relationship is not
about what someone can do for me or give me, it is about what I can give to the
relationship.
When we bring our lives locked by
addiction to Him, we will find the one and only Key that fits the hole in our
lives that we tried to unlock with things that have become false gods in our
lives. Addictions erupt because we feel
there is something missing from our lives and we try to fill it. Maybe we take a drink and feel the numbness
it brings to that ache, and decide it is the only way to complete the void, yet
it takes more and more drink, and longer and longer periods of numbness. Perhaps it wasn’t a drink or a smoke or a
hit…maybe it was looking and longing at images that sexually aroused us, and we
decided that arousal was what love felt like and if we just kept feeling
aroused, we would be complete, but suddenly it took more and more images,
images that were more and more graphic, and the need continued to grow. For others it is nothing that folks would deem
immoral or wrong, but simply ordinary things that become the addictive
substitute for that emptiness…maybe it is eating, maybe it is shopping, and the
trouble is that we try to complete ourselves with these things, only to find
ourselves in a locked-up mess. The only
One who can unlock us is Jesus…when we come before Him and realize that He is
the only One who can fill that void in our lives, the only One who can take
that emptiness and make it whole. We
will find the Love that he offers to us perfectly fills us, and rather than eat
away at us, destroy us, or use us up, when Jesus fills the void, He strengthens
us and builds us up, and enables us to live fully.
Perhaps we are locked up by
fear. We spend our lives worrying that
the worst case scenario will always come true.
We live our lives in a constant state of worry. We worry about anything and everything. We are afraid of heights, because we might
fall. We are afraid of water, because we
might drown. We are afraid of the dark,
because something we can’t see might get us.
We are afraid to drive, because we might be in a crash. We are afraid to fly, because hijackers might
takeover and use the planes as weapons.
We are afraid to speak, because someone might get upset, not liking what
we say or we might forget the words. We
are afraid to give money, or give things away, because we might not have enough
for ourselves. The list of things that
we are afraid of or worried about could go on forever. These fears bind us and lock us away from the
rest of the world at times. It is Jesus
who can unlock us from those fears. When
we come before Him with the fears, we are reminded that there is nothing to fear. We are reminded of His Words, “I am with You
always, to the end of the age.” When we
come before Jesus with our fears and ask Him to unlock our lives, He reminds us
that God will look after us, will protect us, provide for us, and that in Him,
our lives will never truly end.
My friends, relationships,
additions, fears, are only a few of the things that can come in and lock up our
lives…and the truth of the matter is that whatever locks up our lives, whatever
makes us stuck that we cannot seem to get any further, is sin. It is Christ, and Christ alone, that can free
us from sin. Jesus is the key that
unlocks that sin and sets us free…He is the One that calls us aside, sticks his
fingers in our ears, spits, grabs our tongues, sighs, and looks us in the eye
and says, “Ephphatha, Be opened, You are unlocked, You are free.”
In the Name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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