It was a scream, a shriek, an inarticulate cry from the depths of the heart of a desperate mother! “You’ve got to help her! He’s tormenting my little girl! You can deliver her from his fiendish power! Help, please help!” She screamed her request again and again. To Jesus’ disciples her insistent pleading for help was as irritating as the piercing cry of a raven. They responded by asking Jesus to send her away.
Why were they so callous to this mother’s agony? It’s simple, she wasn’t one of them, she was a Gentile. She had fallen at Jesus feet and showed no signs of giving up until she received the mercy for her child that she desperately needed. A Gentile woman clinging to Jesus was unorthodox, and completely unacceptable in the eyes of Jesus’ disciples. I think that they had forgotten how unorthodox Jesus had appeared to the Pharisees when He had declared all foods clean.
Yet, Jesus didn’t respond immediately, instead He said to the woman, “Let the children be fed first, for it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27). This sounds very harsh to my ears, but the mother found hope in the word “first.” She reasoned that first meant that it was not only for the children. She had already humbled herself at His feet, so she requested that her child be allowed to eat the bread crumbs that fell from the table. Jesus responded by saying, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter” (Mark 7:29).
The definition of unorthodox is, “contrary to what is usual, traditional, or acceptable.” I see this as an unorthodox story. It’s not unorthodox for me because a Gentile woman was clinging to Jesus’s feet, like it was for His disciples. But I haven’t been to many prayer meetings where mothers are at the altar screaming their request that Jesus deliver their little girls from demons. Add to that Jesus’ response of comparing her daughter to a dog! Why is this story in the gospel? What “good news” does it show us?
What I see is that Jesus’ unorthodox message of salvation was not only to one group of people. The tender mercy of a loving savior was accessible by faith, even by someone who was deemed unworthy. But what about this little girl who was possessed by a demon? What do you do with that? One thing for certain, I can understand the mother’s desperate plea. She was both heard and answered. It is an unorthodox story, but it is also true.
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