Oct. 18, 2009
Background Scripture: Mark 7:24-30
Devotional Reading: 2 Cor. 8:1-7
If the writers of the Gospels had intended to hide from us anything that might detract from Jesus, Mark 7:24-30 (and Matthew 15:29-31) would not be in our Bibles today.

It appears that Jesus is turning down a request for healing because the petitioner was a Gentile woman, not a Jewess. Even worse, it appears that Jesus is denigrating Gentiles as “dogs.” Before we jump to any hasty conclusions, however, we need to see this in its context.

First of all, Jesus has come to the region of Tyre and Sidon, two Phoenician cities on the Mediterranean coast of Syria just north of Israel. So Jesus has left the Jewish lands and entered an area that is largely Gentile and Greek-speaking. And why is he there?

On the one hand, he has encountered a lot of establishment hostility in his ministry, while on the other the peoples’ response has been overwhelming: He almost certainly needed a breather. For a time, at least, he wanted some privacy away from the crowds: “And he entered a house, and would not have any one know it” (7:24).

No hiding place

Jesus was finding that it was virtually impossible for him to hide himself from the crowds. No matter where he went, “he could not be hid” – not for long, anyway. Though the Church and churches may wax and wane, Christ himself cannot be hid permanently or completely from the minds and lives of people.

And that is where we come in: “Whenever Christ is really present in a human life, shaping its mind, informing its spirit, energizing its efforts, he cannot be hid.” (Halford E. Luccock).

It is suggested that the reason for Jesus’ initial refusal is that he does not want to do anything that will bring him to the attention of the locals. Another source tells us that Jesus did not refuse to heal the daughter, but that he was simply affirming that his mission was first of all to his fellow Jews: “Let the children first be fed …” (7:27).

But he went on to say, “For it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” It was customary for Jews to refer to Gentiles as “dogs.” So, is Jesus infected with the same virus? I think not, for the word he used for “dogs” was diminutive, implying little pet dogs of the house, not the semi-wild dogs of the street.

He knew them

I do not believe Jesus changed his mind, just as I do not pray to change God’s mind with my personal requests. I see Jesus bringing out into the open the unspoken, but perhaps obvious, attitudes of all or some of his disciples regarding Gentiles. He knew his disciples even if they did not verbalize to him their own attitudes.
There are other times when Jesus plays the Devil’s Advocate, as in Mark 9:33-37, when he senses their arguments regarding who is “the greatest” of the disciples. His words to the woman are meant to shame the disciples.

I also believe that although he had never previously encountered her, he “knew” this woman and her persistent faith, just as he “knew” the rich young ruler’s weakness was his attachment to material wealth (Lk.18:18-24).

Whether knowing her was simply a matter of his shrewd intuition or the result of a spiritual gift, I am certain his whole response to her was based on an awareness that she was a woman of persistent faith.

There is a surprise for us, if not for Jesus, in her response. Up until this time it is not recorded that anyone has openly recognized him as the Christ, the Messiah.

But the woman addresses him as “Lord” and in Matthew’s account she says, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David” (15:21-28). Her faith was in a person.

Creeds, doctrines and theologies are all helpful to us, but our faith is primarily in the person of Jesus Christ. Frederick James Woodbridge put it this way: “Faith is the eye that sees Him, the hand that clings to Him, the receiving power that appropriates Him.”