Devotions for Teachers: Practicing His Preaching

Mark 7:29        Then Jesus told her, "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter."

           

This is an unusual story and an unlikely miracle from Jesus. It appears at first that Christ is reluctant to help the woman because she is a Gentile. She has to persist in order to get Jesus to do what she wants. This begs the question:  If she had been Jewish, would Jesus have treated her differently?

But I believe that there is a lot more to this event than just ‘He said, she said.’ Jesus’ credibility is on the line and His authenticity as a preacher is being challenged.

If you look back to the passage of scripture before this (Mark 7:17-23), you’ll see that Jesus had been preaching about what was clean and unclean. He was quite specific about what was holy and unholy, which meant that He was going against the traditional kosher values of His community. This was radical teaching as far as most of the Jewish clergy were concerned. It separated Jesus from His religious peers and must have upset more than a few people.

And yet in this incident, Christ seems to be following the traditional line that all foreigners were unclean and therefore unworthy of God’s blessings. The arch traditionalists would have been delighted at His initial response to the woman, but if Jesus had  left it there and didn’t heal the Syrophonecian woman’s daughter wouldn’t He have been guilty of hypocrisy, of not practicing what He Himself had only just preached?

As usual, there’s a lot more to this passage than we realize at first. I think Jesus highlights the lack of compassion that just keeping to the letter of the Law engenders. He has to go above and beyond the Law in order to help this woman and that, my friends, is what Christianity is all about.

I also think that Christ would have healed the young girl, but that the Syrophonecian woman showed that she was willing to beg for help, no matter what the cost was to her pride. This really impresses Jesus because it is an act of faithful submission and genuine prayer.  She doesn’t take Christ for granted and she fully relies upon Him to help in her time of greatest need.

We all come to Christ in prayer on a daily basis, but how many times do we take His blessings for granted? Perhaps the lesson that we all need to learn, especially during Lent, is to humbly approach the Lord with our personal requests.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, You ask us to seek You in prayer and to sincerely ask for guidance and help, forgiveness and healing. Sometimes we take You for granted because we are too busy to be humble and in too much of a hurry to wait. Forgive us for being self-focused. Help us to humbly pray. In Your Holy Name. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message or offer some feedback, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.