Sometimes we cannot understand in the moment.

“Jesus told her, ‘First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.’” (Mark 7:27, NLT)

  This is not the Jesus we normally see.  This is not the Jesus that is full of compassion. Nor is it the Jesus who listens to the plight of the suffering and in mercy offers His healing touch.  This is not the Jesus that sees deeper than the skin tone or the unclean label emblazoned on a person because place of their birth or the diseases affecting their body. This is not the Jesus, who being God in the flesh could know the very soul of those He encountered. This is not the Jesus who gave and gave, and healed and healed, and touched and touched and who loved and loved. No, this is an abnormal Jesus. 

      For here, in this moment … is a Jesus, who is too tired.  Here is a Jesus, who doesn't respond and walks away from one in need. Here is a Jesus that seems to casually disregard the misery of a mother with a tormented child when He has proclaimed His love unto children because of their preciousness to His Father in Heaven.  Here is a Jesus, who seems to ignore all pleas and requests as He emphasizes the ethnicity of the needy person as inferior and not worthy of even an unwanted scrap of food. We cannot understand this Jesus in this moment.

      We cannot understand the Jesus we see in this moment because we do not know all that our Savior knew in this moment.  As alarming and abnormal this incident may seem in our language and in our grasp of the details, we must never forget the purposes of Christ coming to the earth as the Good News and the Healer of the nations. That purpose did not change in this moment. Jesus did know all about this woman, just as He knew of the Samaritan woman's need of more than water from a well.  He knew the deeper spiritual needs.  He knew many things we cannot know. He knew the healing was more than just a victory over a demon. He did care deeply for her child. He was sensing the woman’s needs and her faith  while also teaching the disciples at the same time. In the end, Jesus does cast off the demon, responding to the woman’s persevering faith.  He waited for her faith and then He rewarded her faith.  We cannot from a few sentences ascertain the complexity of this interaction of faith, Christ’s mercy and His power. Maybe we are simply to rejoice in the Christ that delivers from all forms and semblances of bondage on this earth.  For no person really deserves the eternal bread we are given in Christ, much less the crumbs on the floor.  It is and will always be a great joy to be given Christ's miraculously and abundant mercy and grace and that is what we see in this moment. Sometimes we cannot understand in the moment because we cannot know all that is involved in that moment. We must trust the Lord we know,  in those moments as we trust Him in all moments.  It is He, who knows all and gives grace to all ... as He wills in His knowledge, timing and mercy.

“Good answer!” he said. “Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter.” (Mark 7:29, NLT)

Suggested Reading … Mark 7