Mark 7:24-29
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Main Point: This Kingdom is for Gentile’s too, and those with faith receive it’s benefits even now.
Main Point: This Kingdom is for Gentile’s too, and those with faith receive it’s benefits even now.
24 He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre and Sidon. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but He could not escape notice.
Where is Tyre and Sidon?
Map.
As the Pharisees head back to headquarters, Jesus heads out of the country.
Why?
For a few reasons:
He and His disciples really do need rest.
It wasn’t His time to be crucified yet.
But most importantly as we pay attention to what Mark is trying to DO here we notice that this follows directly from the previous passage where Jesus is beefing with the Pharisees and Scribes about ritual cleanliness laws they had made up.
And the way Mark tells the story is hilarious to me.
Immediately after his conversation about what actually defiles a person, He packs his stuff and heads to a place that would DEFINITELY defile you. Gentile country.
To put
“Only kin’s aloud in here.”
“Alice, are you blind? Can’t you see the family resemblance? That’s my brother.”
Jesus is showing solidarity by even spending time with the Gentiles.
But He is here to rest,
and it says He didn’t want anyone to know it,
but that He couldn’t escape notice.
Does that mean that Jesus isn’t all powerful?
No.
This is revealing something that took the church 400 years to hammer out.
Does Jesus have one will or two?
Because passages like this make it sound like Jesus wants something that He doesn’t get.
The cliffs notes version is that if a will is something that is connected with your nature, and you have someone who is 100% of two things, then you have 2 wills.
This is how it is possible for Jesus to DO the will of the Father, while also being one with the Father.
“We say ... that the Word, by having united to himself hypostatically flesh animated by a rational soul, inexplicably and incomprehensibly became man.”
He is both God and man.
Not independently of each other, like the God part of Jesus and the human part of Jesus.
His human will is not in contrast or opposition to the will of the Father but is submitted to it.
And the reason why this is important, and why Mark highlights this,
is because we are about to see the will of the Father bring about something that no one could have expected.
Remember the main point, “The Kingdom is for Gentiles too.”
And so Jesus encounters this lady...
25 Instead, immediately after hearing about Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at His feet.
I’m assuming that word had spread up to this region that there was someone down in Galilee who was some sort of Jewish promised one.
And if you lived in Tyre, you probably weren’t Jewish.
And Mark tells us exactly this,
in fact he makes a point to highlight her non Jewishness.
26 Now the woman was Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
Syrophoenician is a descriptor to indicate where she is from, and saying Syrophoenician would be like saying “Tucson Arizonan”.
And when she hears that Jesus is in her town,
she runs to him.
Why?
Because her daughter is possessed by a demon.
In Matthew’s gospel, Matthew adds that she says that her daughter is “Severely” possessed.
So this woman is desperate.
Because she loves her daughter.
“The greatest blessing we can ask of Christ for our children is, that he would break the power of Satan, that is, the power of sin, in their souls; and particularly, that he would cast forth the unclean spirit, that they may be temples of the Holy Ghost, and he may dwell in them” - Matthew Henry
And apparently willing to run to a Jewish man with who has been helping almost exclusively Jewish people, which she is not one.
If she for some reason has had an encounter with a Jewish religious leader before, it is likely that the encounter was not pleasant for her,
as the Jewish authorities would have viewed her as unclean by nature of her non-Jewishness.
But the severity of her daughter’s condition, and the persistence of her faith drives her to Jesus.
And she repeatedly asks him to heal her.
And what does Jesus do?
Well, his response is dynamic.
Meaning He is going to accomplish more than one thing at the same time.
He is going to highlight this woman’s faith,
He is going to reveal the will of the Father,
And He is going to rescue this little girl from the demon that has her hostage.
What is the will of the Father?
36 But as I told you, you’ve seen Me, and yet you do not believe. 37 Everyone the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of Him who sent Me: that I should lose none of those He has given Me but should raise them up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of My Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
This is rooted all the way back in Genesis 12.
My sense is that Jesus was trying to take a nap when this woman showed up.
But He submits His will (wanting to take a nap) to the will of God, which is also His will, which is that this woman would experience the benefits of the Kingdom and be blessed.
But remember the first thing I told you Jesus is going to do in his dynamic response.
He is going to highlight her faith.
And also her wit!
Note, Where Christ knows the faith of poor supplicants to be strong, he sometimes delights to try it, and put it to the stretch. - Matthew Henry
27 He said to her, “Allow the children to be satisfied first, because it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
A couple things to notice:
There’s something that’s always bothered me about this passage.
Dogs in the NT and OT is almost exclusively a derogatory label.
6 Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.
2 Watch out for “dogs,” watch out for evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh.
15 Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.
18 Do not bring a female prostitute’s wages or a male prostitute’s earnings into the house of the Lord your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the Lord your God.
That’s not the word Jesus uses here.
You ready for this...
Little Dogs.
Puppies.
When we look at the Greek it’s really clear Jesus isn’t talking about dogs that eat trash in the streets,
He’s talking about dogs that live in the house!
And not just a household dog, but a little puppy!
Oikos Conversation
Kyrios
Jesus isn’t telling her “No”, more like “not yet”.
Everybody eats in the house
But “not yet” isn’t good enough when your daughter is tormented by a demon.
So she replies this way:
28 But she replied to Him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
This is a brilliant response.
This is the only time someone calls Jesus Lord in a direct conversation in the whole book of Mark.
It’s significant because this is a Greek woman using the Greek word for the master of the house in reference to Jesus.
She is saying,
Yes I agree,
I also know you’re the master of the house,
AND
remember what the little puppies do?
Quigley
Eats 4 meals a day.
I will always feed my dog his meal.
But you know what he lives in a house where others are eating too and he’s happy to take the leftovers.
That’s what this woman is asking for!
And Jesus loves her wit and her faith. So he responds this way:
29 Then He told her, “Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” 30 When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.
And the Demon. Was. Gone.
“Note, Christ can conquer Satan at a distance; and it was not only when the demoniacs saw him, that they yielded to his power (as ch. 3:11), but when they saw him not, for the Spirit of the Lord is not bound, nor bounded.” - Matthew Henry
What is the Spirit of God saying to the 21st Century Church?
Where are you in history?
You are in the church age family.
The age in time that God has fully revealed His plan and is drawing the nations to Himself!
You don’t need to ask for the scraps, the whole meal is on offer to you!
49 One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50 You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God.
“Tell you what, when all this is over with, we’re gonna move to the same neighborhood together. we’re gonna get old, and we’re gonna get fat, there won’t be all this black white between us.”
This is the project.
Reconciliation between God and man.
Here is your invitation,
Bring your worst to God.
Because He wants to make you his child and heir.
This woman brought Jesus the horrifying case of her little princess being possessed by a demon that hated her.
What do you need to bring to Jesus?
Your family?
Your addiction?
Your sorrow?
Your anxiety?
So, be encouraged.
Where is Jesus now?
I mean the human person that rose from the dead?
Seated with the Father in heaven.
And He has given us His Spirit who intercedes for us.
Just like Jesus could mess up the hold that demon had on that little girl from afar,
From where Jesus sits now, ruling over all creation, with all authority in heaven on earth having been given to him, holding the keys of death and hades, there is nothing that is too big or too far for Jesus to conquer in your life or in the life of our church.
He rules it all,
And He is liberating it all