Ep. 47: The Canaanite woman
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MATTHEW 15:21-28, MARK 7:24-30
Jesus needed a break. Too many discussions and opposing voices, disappointments and defections. What was needed now was a strategic withdrawal. He left the region and turned north to the borders of Tyre and Sidon. There he sought shelter in a house and was visited by the Canaanite-Phoenician woman, drawn by his fame and needing help for her demonised daughter.
The disciples were lacking in mercy, ‘send her away, for she cries after us’, they declared. Jesus, naturally, was more merciful. ‘O Lord, You Son of David!’ she cried. This was the most distinctively Jewish designation for the Messiah and yet it came from the mouth of a heathen! Jesus was happy to bless her for this. Spoken by a heathen, these words were an appeal, not to the Messiah of Israel, for David had never reigned over her or her people. She used these words because the promises to David were fully and spiritually applicable for her, despite being a heathen.
To have granted her the help she needed was both easy and hard. It was easy because he was able to help her in her need; it was hard because it flew in the face of what he was trying to achieve, not for people to see his works of healing merely as works of power.
His miracles were intended as signs to Israel, not the heathens. In her mouth, then, it meant something to which Jesus could not have easily accepted. And yet he could not refuse her petition. And so he first taught her that which she needed to know before she could approach him in such manner, the relationship of the heathen to the Jewish world and of both to the Messiah. And then he gave her what she asked.
If we view this as the teaching of Jesus to this heathen concerning Israel’s Messiah, all becomes clear. She had spoken, but Jesus had not answered her. When the disciples asked that she might be sent away because she was troublesome to them, he replied that his mission was only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This was absolutely true, as regarded his work while upon Earth; and true, in every sense, as we keep in view the worldwide relevance of the Davidic reign and promises and the real relation between Israel and the world. Thus baffled, she cried no longer ‘Son of David,’ but, ‘Lord. Help me.’ She had acknowledged Jesus for who he was!
It was then that the special teaching came in the manner she could understand. No expression was more common in the mouth of the Jews than that which designated the heathens as dogs. Most harsh as it was, as the outcome of national pride and Jewish self-assertion, yet in a sense, it was true, that those within were the children, and those without were ‘dogs.’ Only, who were they within and who they without? If they are dogs, then they are the Master’s dogs and under his table and when he breaks the bread to the children, in the breaking of it the crumbs must fall all around. ‘The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their Master’s table’. Heathenism may be like the dogs when compared with the children’s place and privileges; but he is their Master too and although they are under his table, when he breaks the bread there is enough to spare for them.
She now understood what she prayed and she was a daughter of Abraham. And what had taught her all this was faith in His Person and Work, as not only just enough for the Jews, but enough and to spare for all - children at the table and dogs under it; that in and with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, all nations were blessed in Israel’s King and Messiah. And so it was, that the Lord said it: ‘O woman, great is your faith: be it done to you even as you wish’. And her daughter was healed from that hour. Edersheim summarises:
‘He is our Master and, as he breaks the children’s bread, it is of necessity that ‘the children’s crumbs’ fall to us, enough, quite enough, and to spare. Never can we be outside his reach, nor of that of his gracious care and of sufficient provision to eternal life. Yet this lesson also must we learn, that as ‘Heathens’ we may not call on him as ‘David’s Son,’ until we know why we so call him. We must learn it and painfully first by his silence, that he is only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, what we are and where we are, that we may be prepared for the grace of God and the gift of grace.’
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)