A Cry For Help (Mark 7:24-30)

I asked my friend to tell her story. She began hesitantly. “I’m not sure what Sarah wanted me to say. The prayers I prayed for my son weren’t eloquent; in fact, sometimes I couldn’t find the words to express what was in my heart.” She told how she had prayed for eight long years while her son was ensnared by drugs. I listened and nodded with understanding. I knew what it was as a mother to pray for my children when words were replaced by tears.

“Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly tormented by a demon” (Matthew 15:22). My translation says that she kept crying out, but when I looked it up in the Greek it translated the word “crying out” as screaming or shrieking. In Mark it says that Jesus had entered a house hoping that no one would know it. But she had found Him and she wasn’t going to leave without being granted mercy for herself and for her child.

Who was she? In Mark she is identified as a Greek, a Syrophonician by birth. Matthew refers to her as a Canaanite. She was from the same pagan region that the infamous Jezebel had been from. All of these ways of identifying her would point her out as an enemy of the Jews. Yet here she was, crying for mercy and falling at Jesus' feet. Not only that, but three times she calls Jesus “Lord.”

This story is unsettling though, because at first Jesus didn’t say a word to her. Jesus’ disciples assumed that He felt the same way about this intrusion as they did, and urged Him to get rid of the nuisance. Instead, Jesus said to her that He had been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Her simple response was, “ Lord, help me.” Now the picture changed from lost sheep to children, and Jesus asked if was right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the pet dogs. She had come on behalf of her own child, and she knew Jesus was her only hope. And she refused to let go of Him until He blessed her by helping her child. Her response was a response of faith that even the dogs were allowed to eat the crumbs that fell from the table.

Here is a basic fact: She believed in Jesus. She knelt at His feet in worship. She had a child who was being cruelly tormented by a demon, and because she loved her child, she had come to Jesus for help.

I look at this story and remember why Jesus came. I see a reflection of the Heavenly Father’s heart in this grieving mother. To set His children free from the snares of Satan, He gave His one and only Son, so the everyone who believed in Him would not perish but have eternal life. That “everyone" included this woman who knelt at His feet crying, “Help me!”