“He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” (Mark 7:37)
On a windy, November day, the town of Paradise, a small rural enclave of Northern California, was completely decimated by a fast-moving fire. Eighty-six people lost their lives and over 80 percent of the structures were burned to the ground. It remains California’s deadliest fire in history. No one escaped unaffected by the destructive force of the fire. After the fire was contained and eventually extinguished, residents who came back into town to check on their properties reported an eerie feeling of peace. Peace in this instance was the absence of chaos and fire. It was the quiet of empty streets and charred rubble.
But the peace here was not shalom. Shalom is the Jewish concept of wholeness or universal flourishing. It will be many years until shalom is restored in Paradise.
This week we have read about Jesus opening the ears and restoring the speech of a deaf and mute man as well as opening the eyes of a blind man. Jesus also referenced two other miraculous moments when he fed thousands of people at once. All this amounts to the overwhelming fact that Jesus is more powerful than our disabilities or our deficits. He has the power to restore shalom, to make all things right and all things new.
Just as Jesus has the power to heal the deaf and the blind, he has the power to restore shalom in your life.
Trust that Jesus has the power to restore shalom to your life.
Mark A. Moore is an associate professor of theology at William Jessup University and the spiritual formation pastor at Faith Legacy [Wesleyan] Church in Sacramento.
© 2020 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
