Packaging sells as much as the contents do. A product may be worthwhile, but a good presentation makes its worth evident. That's why the frame is important to the picture and the setting is key to the gemstone. Even writers know that a good story gets better if you tell it well.

The miraculous cure of a deaf man with a speech impediment is a good story on its own. But the way Mark tells it makes it even better.

The basic story is this: Surrounded by a crowd, a deaf man with a speech impediment is brought to Jesus. The group of people who brought the man - not the disabled man - beg Jesus to lay a hand on him. Jesus takes the man away in private, away from the crowd. He puts his finger into the man's ears, and Jesus spits on his own hand and touches the man's tongue. Jesus looks up to heaven, groans, and says, "Be opened." That did it. The man could hear and was able to speak plainly.

It's a good story. But it is better because of how Mark tells it. The evangelist includes some intriguing details within the story of the cure itself. He also situates the story in a meaningful way.

The story is framed between a geographical opening and a Christological closing. In the opening, Mark tells us Jesus left Tyre, went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, and into the district of the Decapolis. It's a little like traveling from Kansas City to Warrensburg by way of St. Joseph and Clinton. There is a better way. Some commentators use this verse to conclude that whoever wrote Mark's Gospel came from some place far away from Israel and flunked geography.

But another theory is that Jesus really took this route. Not known for tourism, Jesus may have chosen these places because they put him in Gentile territory. Although his own mission to the Gentiles was very limited, his disciples broadened the church's mission to the Gentiles shortly after his death. Mark may be alluding to the Gentile ministry of the church by showing the Gentile travels of Jesus.

To close the story, Mark reports that Jesus ordered the crowd to tell no one about the cure. This produced the opposite result. They "proclaimed" the message, Mark says, using the technical term for preaching. The final statement by the crowd, "He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak," refers to Isaiah 35:5, turning the whole miracle into a homily on verses 5 and 6.

The close of the story, then, is a way of saying who Jesus is. Not just a healer, he is the Messiah, the promised one, who announces the reign of God and brings it to the community of believers.

Mark's skillful storytelling is not limited to the opening and closing. He also includes some intriguing details in the miracle itself. In fact, the story seems to be a parable of Christian initiation.

For those familiar with a catechumen's journey today, elements of the cure read like a catechetical manual. The man cannot hear and speak plainly. This may be more than a physical disability. It may symbolize the spiritual deafness of those who have not yet heard the Gospel. How does one overcome spiritual deafness? Through the assistance of believers. The man's friends present him to Jesus, just as sponsors introduce those without the gift of faith to Jesus today. The prayer and the words of Jesus open the ears of the man and loose his tongue, just as prayer and scripture will make belief more clear to the catechumen.

All these elements make it appear that this miracle was used by the early church to inspire unbelievers on the road to belief in Jesus. The word Jesus says, "Ephphatha," is one of the few Aramaic words that exist in the Gospels. It shows the antiquity of the story and the tenacity of that powerful word to hang on untranslated as the Gospel was told and written in Greek. In English translations, we still repeat the actual word Jesus said, "Ephphatha," a phenomenon that does not even occur at the Last Supper, where today's believers might fully expect to find the unchanged words of Jesus.

The story closes by identifying Jesus as the Messiah. It opens with a hint of the mission to the Gentiles. In the middle we find details about the path to conversion. The miracle is a good story, but its setting makes it great.

Father Paul Turner is pastor of St. John Francis Regis Parish, Kansas City.