Thursday 9 February
Mark 7:24-30
Jesus encountered a Syrophoenician woman. He was in the region of Tyre, which was outside Palestine, just to the north of Galilee. He may have gone there for a time of rest and reflection, but even there he was known and people came to him. It must have been hard for the woman to approach Jesus. As both a woman and a Gentile, she might have expected to be rejected by a male Jewish preacher. Yet her desperate desire for her daughter to be healed gave her the courage to approach him.
Jesus’ answer may seem rather harsh to us. We know that he did not come into the world to save only the Jews, but he was clear about Israel’s special role in God’s plan of salvation. As Paul says, the gospel ‘is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek’ (Rom. 1:16).
We can look at the qualities this woman showed as a model of faith for us. Though she was a Gentile, she had faith in this Jewish healer. She had the humility to risk rejection by approaching him, and to fall at his feet in supplication. It also required humility to continue asking him even after his harsh-sounding answer, and the phrasing of her request is strikingly humble. She did not reject Jesus’ comparison of the Gentiles to dogs, and asked only for a scrap from the table. We can also admire her persistence in asking and her refusal to be discouraged. Because of her humility, faith and persistence Jesus granted her request for her daughter to be healed.
These are all qualities we should try to have in our prayer. We need to have faith in Jesus’ power to heal us and to grant our requests. Indeed, without faith we would not approach him in prayer at all. It requires humility to accept that we are needy and kneel before the Lord in prayer. Jesus himself taught that we need to be persistent in prayer and not be discouraged by an apparent refusal (Luke 18:1-8). We do not need to produce these qualities in ourselves by willpower: the Holy Spirit can give us hearts filled with true faith and humility.
‘Lord Jesus, grant us the grace to come before you as the Syrophoenician woman did, so that like her we may receive the healing which you long to give us.’
1 Kings 11:4-13 • Psalm 105(106):3-4, 35-37, 40
Mark 7:24-30
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