And all who heard were completely amazed. "How well he does everything!" they exclaimed. "He even causes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak!" (v. 37)

An interesting aerial photograph was printed on the front page of our city’s evening newspaper recently. You must have noticed it. In a single, striking frame, the entire shoreline of Lake Michigan from Milwaukee to Sheboygan was pictured. The photograph encompassed an area of fifty miles from north to south.

With some kind of X-ray-like film, the picture revealed a seepage of unnaturally over-heated water emanating from the nuclear power plant near Sheboygan into the normally cool, clean waters of the lake. The point of the photograph was to show how the beautiful, glorious waters of Lake Michigan will eventually be ruined if this kind of invasion is allowed to continue. The accompanying story suggested that somebody must begin to act now, so that such an ecological breakdown is stopped, and the waters can be rehabilitated to their original glory.

To me this newspaper account was a parable about another seepage going on. I’m talking about the spiritual breakdown that has invaded our entire human society. It has caused a loss of glory among us. It calls for a widespread rehabilitation and a return to an original glory.

This little Bible story before us spells out the human breakdown surrounding us on every side. It also portrays for us the resurrection power and victory of Jesus Christ, signaling a return to glory. And the story calls us, as baptized children of Easter, to be partners with the living Lord in his mission of world rehabilitation. Let’s talk about this "return to glory."

I

First of all, the Bible story spells out for us the human breakdown surrounding us on every side. In verse 32 we read, "Some people brought [Jesus] a man who was deaf and could hardly speak." There was physical deficiency here. The man could not hear. His tongue didn’t work; he could not speak. People are meant to hear with their ears and speak with their tongue! This man could do neither. Somewhere, no doubt from birth, there had been a physical breakdown.

So, from the very first pages of the Bible, we may talk about the human breakdown afflicting us on every side. The word "breakdown" is a pretty popular word in our vocabulary these days, isn’t it? We no longer just talk about the problems of the world. Today we refer to the breakdown of morality. We don’t just abhor economic problems anymore. Today we are caught in a breakdown of the economy. In a similar way we talk about the breakdown of our political system, the breakdown of marriage and the family. And not least of all, there are the "nervous breakdowns."

In poetic fashion, the early biblical stories of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel strongly suggest that something has been lost. Paradise lost! An unnatural seepage. A breakdown.

II

And if that word "breakdown" is in common use today, so is the opposite word, "rehabilitation." The man in the Bible story was deaf and could hardly speak. He desperately needed rehabilitalion. "Physical rehabilitation," we call it.

We use the term in connection with other forms of human breakdown too: rehabilitation for the alcoholic, for the drug abuser, for the criminal in prison, for the stroke victim. All around our city are "rehabilitation centers" for these and similar maladies.

When there is a breakdown of human relations, we can also speak of the need for rehabilitation. Marriages are often in need of rehabilitation, when relations between husband and wife become so rusty that daily conversation between the two almost comes to a halt. And when a marriage fails and ends in divorce, the two persons involved are often still in need of rehabilitation, so that they can make a re-entry into society as single persons.

Black Americans are often in need of rehabilitation. For decades millions of them have been effectively shut out of the social system. They frequently find themselves in economic ghettos as well as neighborhood ghettos, both of which breed despair and a lack of hope.

Even the organized church, plagued by brokenness and fragmentation among Christians, cries out for rehabilitation and mending. For too long a time we people of God have been separated from one another. Our denominationalism has made us little better than the infirm soul in this Bible story. Through the years we have become deaf to one another’s voices, or with our God-given voices we have failed to speak to one another in love. Jesus, the great Healer, is crying out to the Church in our day: "Listen to one another! Speak to one another! Be the one body I have made you!" Oh yes, rehabilitate the church!

In this Bible story we are told that the man "was deaf and could hardly speak." Plainly, he had a communication problem. He couldn’t hear what others were saying and he himself found it difficult to respond.

Most likely it is something like that which is at the heart of our human breakdown. Though speaking lots of words, we are not always hearing each other! Many times we just refuse to respond to one another at all. Each person, each neighborhood, each city, each group, each coalition of common interest seems to be going its own way, doing its own thing, not hearing, not listening, not caring.

Communication problems! How ironic! How ironic that in this age of sophisticated communication aids, one of our public utilities (albeit for profit motives) has to plead with us to "reach out and touch someone!" We are deaf and paralyzed of speech. Yes, "the man was deaf and could hardly speak." We all need a return to glory.

III

One there was who did communicate. One there was who did reach out and touch someone. Oh how Jesus touched this man! "They begged Jesus to place his hands on him. So Jesus took him off alone, away from the crowd, put his fingers in the man’s ears, spat, and touched the man’s tongue."

This is the breakthrough for the breakdown! In this simple miracle of touching, the emerging resurrection victory of Jesus Christ was already signaling a return to glory. "At once the man was able to hear, his speech impediment was removed, and he began to talk without any trouble." A return to glory! Talking again. Hearing again. Can you imagine the glory this man experienced in that single shining moment? Speech! Hearing! Restored communication! All because Jesus dared to touch, to get close, to heal.

In a similar way Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, dared to touch us. He touched our sins. He took our sins. He suffered for them. He died in our place. He defeated our human breakdown once and for all as he rose from the dead and as he stood alive again, the First Child of Easter.

And you are his Easter children as well! We are all the baptized children of Easter. No more human breakdowns for us, because now we have broken through the waters of baptism’s drowning. In that healing stream we have been rehabilitated. We are now partners with our living Lord in his mission of world rehabilitation. Our program is RETURN TO GLORY at every level of living.

How do we do it? The same way Jesus did. "Jesus took the man off alone, away from the crowd, put his fingers in the man’s ears ... and touched the man’s tongue." We will do it by isolating every needy soul from the crowd and by hearing and listening to that one person who stands before us.

World rehabilitation is a grand vision. We will never do it alone; we will never serve all. But there is that one person you can take away from the crowd and touch. One friend, one relative, one person of another race, one Christian outside your own denomination; and with that person you can he together, and speak, and hear each other, and heal one another, and have a perfectly marvelous return to glory!

The word "Communion" is very similar to the word "communication." Right now we are about to come to the Holy Communion. As we eat and drink, we will take up our mission to communicate - to share, to touch, to be at one. Here at the altar we return to glory.