God Sighs

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by; Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” Phillips Brooks (1835–1893)

There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. 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. - Mark 7:32–35

I love those words from “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight." Indeed, hope was born in that backwoods town that first Christmas morning. Hope is the message of Jesus, hope is the message for the world, hope is the message of Christmas. Our hope is in a God who moved into the neighborhood, who sought us out and whose heart breaks for the ways in which things are not the way they ought to be. In the passage from Mark, above, Jesus looks to heaven and sighed deeply, when confronted with a man who lived a life of disability. Jesus sighed even as He was about to free the man into wholeness -- He sighed at the brokenness of a world where sin and death seem to have the final say.

Author Max Lucado, speaking of Jesus’ sigh suggests that it comes from “a recognition of pain that was never intended, or of hope deferred.” He writes,
“Man was not created to be separated from his creator; hence he sighs, longing for home. The creation was never intended to be inhabited by evil; hence she sighs, yearning for the Garden. And conversations with God were never intended to depend on a translator; hence the Spirit groans on our behalf, looking to a day when humans will see God face to face.”

He continues, “When Jesus looked into the eyes of Satan’s victim, the only appropriate thing to do was sigh. ‘It was never intended to be this way,’ the sigh said. ‘Your ears weren’t made to be deaf, your tongue wasn’t made to stumble.’ The imbalance of it all caused the Master to languish.”

Lucado concludes, “In the agony of Jesus lies our hope. Had he not sighed, had he not felt the burden for what was not intended, we would be in a pitiful condition. Had he simply chalked it all up to the inevitable or washed his hands of the whole stinking mess, what hope would we have? But he didn’t. That holy sigh assures us that God still groans for his people. He groans for the day when all sighs will cease, when what was intended to be will be.”

Our hope comes in the One who sighs in the presence of things that seem hopeless, in the brokenness that surrounds us.

Do you believe God sighs over the pain in the world?
Do you believe God sighs over the pain in your life?
What hurt in the world causes you to sigh?

Peace, hope and love

Doug