Experiencing the Extra-Ordinary

My days are mostly ordinary. They’re filled with work, meetings, errands, friends and family. I tend to pray that I will meet God in the mundane-ness of the everyday, but honestly my expectation of what that means is pretty low. But I was reading again the story of Jesus’ encounter with the deaf man in the region of Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7:31-37). Surely, this man woke up with no thought that anything different was about to occur in his life. He began the day in his usual way, until his friends arrived and hurried him off to meet Jesus. I wonder if he even knew what was going on. Were his friends able to convey to him that there was a healer in the area, or did they just convince him to go along with them? I imagine that he didn’t fully comprehend what was happening, because of the way that Mark tells us that Jesus “took him aside, away from the crowd” and because of the way that Jesus healed him. We know that the power to heal emanated from Jesus to such as extent that he could speak healing (the Roman centurion’s paralyzed servant) or bring a cure with the merest touch (as in the case of the hemorrhaging woman), but for this man, who couldn’t hear, Jesus sticks his fingers in his ears, spits and touches his tongue. Why the rigmarole, I’ve often wondered? But now it seems a gentle and gracious way to give this man some idea of what is about to happen – namely that the Kingdom of God has broken out and swept around this man and his life will be changed forever. Mark tells us that the “people were overwhelmed with amazement” that this deaf-mute man could suddenly hear and speak plainly. I wish Mark had told us what he said! But the reminder to me is that if we are alive to the Kingdom of God, no day is truly ordinary. Extraordinary things are possible. Swirling all around us, ready to break out, is the power of God to change lives, heal the wounded, and overwhelm us with amazement.