By Father Jean-Pierre M. Ruiz
Biblical scholarship recognizes that the Gospels were originally written in Greek. Taking literary shape in the decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the heart of the nascent Church, the Gospels nourished the first generations of believers with apostolic testimony to the words and deeds of Jesus.
The Greek of the Gospels – in fact, of the entire New Testament – was koine Greek, the “common Greek” that was the lingua franca of the era. It functioned as the working language of everyday commerce and politics during the first century of our era and beyond, and it was at least a second language for most educated people in cities throughout the Mediterranean region.
In the Acts of the Apostles, when St. Paul is taken into custody for provoking a disturbance in the Jerusalem Temple, he addresses the tribune in command of the cohort of soldiers, and the Roman official expresses surprise, asking, “Do you speak Greek?” (Acts 21:35).
While we know that St. Paul spoke Greek, we are not sure of whether or not Jesus Himself either spoke or understood Greek. The language with which Jesus was all but certainly most familiar was Aramaic, a Semitic language that was spoken throughout the Middle East at the time of Jesus, and which continues to be used today, both as a liturgical language and as the everyday language of a number of groups who live in western Asia.
On rare, but significant occasions, the Gospels preserve just a few words of Aramaic on the lips of Jesus. On two occasions, Aramaic is the language in which the evangelist presents the words of Jesus’ own intensely fervent prayer. In Gethsemane, Jesus wrestles with the agony that awaits Him: “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will” (Mark 14:36).
Then from the cross He cries out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?,” and the evangelist adds, “which is translated, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Mark 15:34). These are the opening words of Psalm 22, a lament that begins in anguish and ends with the psalmist’s confident praise for the assurance of God’s deliverance.
Why does the evangelist invite us to hear the voice of Jesus in Aramaic? From the fact that Mark translates the Aramaic words of Jesus into Greek, it is likely that this Gospel’s earliest recipients didn’t understand Aramaic. I would like to suggest that the evangelist did this because he wanted to bring the readers of his Gospel as close as he possibly could to Jesus at the most crucial moments in Jesus’ life. Given the privilege of hearing Jesus pray in these moments, in the very Aramaic that was His everyday language, we are brought even closer to Him than the apostles were, for they slept as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, and then fled in fear when He was arrested.
In earlier chapters, Mark’s Gospel presents Jesus’ words in Aramaic at two key moments in His ministry. The first is in chapter five, where he raises the daughter of Jairus back to life, taking the girl by the hand and telling her, “Talitha koum.” The evangelist then adds, “which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise!’”
The second key moment is in this Sunday’s Gospel when Jesus says, “Ephphatha!” (to which the evangelist adds “that is, ‘Be opened!’”), and commands open the ears of the deaf man, who is brought to Him as He travels through the region of the Decapolis – the “ten cities,” Greek-speaking Gentile cities located east of the Jordan River.
In the portrait of Jesus offered by Mark’s Gospel, the miracles are acts of divine power that enact – moment by moment – the proclamation of Jesus that “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). In what Jesus does and says, God comes close in the ways promised to the fearful of heart in the words of Isaiah: “Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared” (Isaiah 35:4-5).
It is also worth considering that these moments in Jesus’ ministry – the raising to life of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the deaf man – two occasions for which Mark’s Gospel presents Jesus speaking in Aramaic, like the two occasions when He does so during the Passion narrative, are especially private moments.
When Jesus went into the house where Jairus’ daughter lies, he allowed only the girl’s parents to enter with him, along with Peter, James and John (Mark 5:37, 40). When the deaf man was brought before him, Jesus “took him off by himself away from the crowd” (Mark 7:33). These are private moments, not crowd-pleasing spectacles. As readers of Mark’s Gospel, we are let in on the action, and we too become privileged witnesses as Jesus comes intimately close with healing words and with a healing touch. The evangelist invites us into the house of Jairus to see the girl restored to life. He allows us to see Jesus look up to heaven, to hear Him groan and then with His touch and with a word, heal the man of his deafness.
Such is the privilege of discipleship that is ours for Jesus tells us, “blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it” (Matthew 13:16-17).
In words we can hear and in deeds that we witness, Jesus comes close to us, speaking in ways we can understand and reaching out to us with His strong and healing hand. It is then incumbent upon us to join with the prophet in words of assurance so sorely needed in our world, “Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God…he comes to save you” (Isaiah 35:4).
Readings for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 35: 4-7A
Psalm 146: 7, 8-9, 9-10
James 2: 1-5
Mark 7: 31-37
Father Jean-Pierre Ruiz, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is a professor of theology at St. John’s University.