Have you done it yet this week?
Heaved your shoulders and let out an exaggerated sigh?
Your cheeks inflate as the air rushes through,
Or your head rolls back and your eyes follow.
I’m guilty of it.
Usually I give one of those sighs to communicate to someone (or even to myself), that something is not right.
I’m upset. I’m tired. I’m complaining. I’m irritated.
Our body language can do a great job of communicating for us.
But what about when Jesus sighed?
Was His sigh exaggerated like mine can be?
What was He communicating?
I noticed recently in reading Mark that Jesus sighed twice in just 2 chapters.
The first is when a deaf man with a speech impediment was brought to him.
He could not speak to ask Jesus to be healed, so his friends begged on his behalf.
Jesus took the man aside, made signs to him, and then looked to heaven and
Sighed.
It was a deep sigh – the word is repeated twice.
He said, “Be opened.”
The man’s tongue was loosed and his ears could hear.
No longer blocked, no longer bound.
The next time Jesus sighed is a chapter later when the Pharisees came to him.
They were arguing with him, testing him, demanding a sign.
They wanted Him to prove to them He was from heaven.
This time Jesus gave an emphatically deep sigh.
The word is repeated and it has emphasis.
But Jesus sighed in His spirit – that means the sigh was not apparent to the Pharisees.
They could not hear His sigh.
He would not give a sign to them.
Why did Jesus perform a miracle the first time, and not the second?
Why did He sigh?
The deaf and mute man came to Jesus with a request.
The Pharisees came to argue.
The deaf and mute man wanted to be healed.
The Pharisees wanted to test Jesus.
The first man had faith.
The Pharisees had jealousy.
In reality, the deaf man and the Pharisees shared the same problem.
Ears that could not hear.
In one case, it was physical.
The man could not hear.
In the other, it was spiritual.
The Pharisees would not hear.
So when Jesus sighed the first time, perhaps He was sighing at the effects of sin in the world – the suffering that this man had endured.
But when Jesus sighed the second time, perhaps He was sighing at the hardness of hearts that would not open to Him.
He sighed in His spirit – truly aching for this generation that would not hear His sigh.
They would not see His desire for them.
They did not want to listen to Him.
They would not come to Him to be healed, but to argue.
Oh, how sin grieves the Savior.
He longs for chained hearts to come to Him with the desire to be freed.
Still today there are so many hard hearts that do not hear His sigh.
They do not acknowledge His love for them.
The gracious Savior yearns for them to come, and will by no means cast them out.
May we sigh with the Savior, longing for our family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even strangers
to come,
to listen,
to know His love,
and be healed.
