Lessons in Aramaic

Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Much of the dialog in Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ is in Aramaic, the language spoken by the Jews in the early first century. The word "Ephphata" that Mark uses in today's passage is Aramaic. Why did he do this, instead of translating the word into Greek just as he translated the other words that Jesus said? This is not the only time Mark has done this. On another occasion, when a young girl dies, Jesus takes her by the hand and says in Aramaic, "Talitha koum!", which means "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" (Mark 5:41). 

And a third time Mark has Jesus speaking in Aramaic is shortly before his death where he cries out, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?", which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). Why did Mark do this? It certainly wasn't to give us language lessons but to make us pause for deeper thought. He wanted us to pay attention to the words that Jesus said just as he said them to emphasize the fact that it was our Lord who was saying them, and they had deep significance.

When Jesus said, "Talitha koum," which means "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" he was also telling us, who are dead in sin, to "get up" to a new life in him. Paul would later write: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:13-14).

When Jesus cried out to his Father, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?", which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", he was echoing our own cries when we feel forsaken by God. It is a cry made in despair, sometimes in anger, at the abandonment we feel. But it was also meant to assure us that just like the Father would never abandon Jesus, with whom he was one, he would never abandon us either. "Remember," Jesus would tell us. "I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

And, in today's passage, when Jesus says, "Ephphatha!", which means "Be opened!", he is telling us to open our ears, to open our mouths, and most of all, to open our hearts. He wants us to open our ears to hear his life-giving word. He wants us to open our mouths and share this word that gives life with others. And he wants us to open our hearts to receive his great love — always accepting, always forgiving, always sacrificing. And once we have received it, to let it spill out of the hearts into the world around us.

How's that for some lessons in Aramaic?