So I was mulling over a gospel reading a week or two ago and had an interesting and (to me) helpful thought. Here’s the reading:
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And he charged them to tell no one; but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well; he even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” (Mk 7:31–37)
What stuck out to me is that everything goes according to Jesus plan right up till the time the free will of the guy he healed gets involved. Jesus tells him to tell nobody and he (and everybody else) completely ignores him and spreads the news like wildfire. It’s not the only time this happens in he gospels, but for the first time it occurred to me, “Suppose Jesus was surprised by this response?”
We do, after all, have other moments in the gospels where Jesus is evidently genuinely surprised.
As he entered Caperna-um, a centurion came forward to him, begging him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion answered him, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. (Mt 8:5–10)
And he marveled because of their unbelief. (Mk 6:6)
Moreover, we have many records of Jesus asking questions, because he genuinely did not appear to know the answer and needed information. And he flat out tells us there are things he does not know, most notably, the day and hour of his return.
Now the Church tells us that the knowledge and the ignorance of Jesus are both revelatory. This is displayed in a strange paradox. On the one hand:
The human nature of God’s Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God” (St. Maximus the Confessor, Qu. et dub. 66: PG 90, 840A ) Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father (Cf. Mark 14:36; Matthew 11:27; John 1:18; 8:55; etc.). The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human hearts (Cf. Mark 2:8; John 2:25; 6:61; etc.). (CCC 473)
So when it is necessary for the sake of revealing God to us, Jesus’ human knowledge, in union with his omniscience as God is enabled to possess knowledge in a supernatural way. That is why we see him display prophetic foreknowledge, such as when he tells Nathanael that he saw him under the fig tree before they ever met (cf. John 1:48). He foretells his own Crucifixion and Resurrection to his disciples, predicts the betrayal by Judas and triple denial by Peter, prophecies the destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem, knows of the death of Lazarus before he is told of it, and can read the minds and hearts of strangers.
But in other moments, he himself freely confesses ignorance, most famously when he tells his disciples, concerning the Day of Judgment, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). How to understand this mysterious combination of omniscience and ignorance? The Catechism tells us:
By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal (Cf. Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; 14:18-20, 26-30). What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal (Cf. Mark 13:32, Acts 1:7). (CCC 474)
In other words, his very ignorance is revelatory. The knowledge denied him is knowledge we do not need to have. He, like we, has to live by trust in his Father, especially when the blackness closes in and he must ask the most terrible question the human soul can ask: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He has plumbed the depths of abandonment experienced by the worst sinner so that the worst sinner can receive his mercy. As the Catechism puts it (CCC 470), “In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity.” (Cf. John 14:9-10)
I think that in a very human and relatable way, that is what we are seeing in the healing of the deaf man. Jesus is given the gifts necessary to carry out the mission that day: he heals the deaf man. He is not given foresight or omnipotent power to determine the outcome of that healing. He expresses his human desire that the guy keep quiet. He is, just like you and me, stuck with the results spiraling out of his control and must, just like you and me, therefore trust the Father to handle all the results of his obedient action.
I find that very consoling. Jesus knows what it is like to have to trust God when things don’t go according to plan. And the paradoxical result is that everything goes according to the Really Big Plan which God has given him:
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Mt 16:21)
Jesus is like us in every way and, in his earthly emptying of himself before his resurrection and glorification, shares in our ignorance and dependence on trust in God, needing the daily bread of revelation, just as we do.
I’d be interested in the input of wiser heads than mine on this take. It seems sound to me.
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