I Like My Jesus to Be (Part 3)…

In the last post, a Greek woman had asked Jesus to heal her demon possessed daughter, but in the way she approached Him, we saw that she didn’t really understand who He was.

Jesus tells His disciples, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Alfred Edersheim writes, “This was absolutely true, as regarded His Work while upon earth; and true, in every sense, as we keep in view the world-wide bearing of the Davidic reign and promises, and the real relation between Israel and the world.”

The woman then says, “Lord help me”, no longer using the Davidic title. The following dialogue appears cryptic at first glance. Jesus responds:
“It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

From our viewpoint, Jesus’ words seem nothing but offensive. But He is compassionately teaching her by merely following “the heathen woman’s” lead in the context of the original “Son of David” title that she called to Him under. We can read into His response knowing that as the non-Hebrew woman invoked her wishes upon Him with a distinctly Hebrew title (Son of David), He followed suit and responded in a distinctly Hebrew way. Jews saw heathens as dogs, and so what right did she have to ask for blessing from the house of David? Jesus was getting her to think about the implications of who she thought Jesus was.

The woman replies:
“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

In this, we see that she has come to understand that in the context of Judaism, she may be considered a dog compared to the children sitting at the master’s table. But the master is still the master of the dogs as well, and in her response, she has understood the context of what she originally requested. Jesus was no longer strictly a Jewish figure to her whose Work was just for the Jews, but a Messiah who’s Person and Work was more than enough for everyone, including the dogs under the table. In this, the Lord recognizes the faith that He has led her into, and she is no longer a dog under the table, but a daughter of Abraham. Christ heals her daughter.

There are some interesting implications from this text:

1) We see that Christ will not let us make Him into something He is not. And yet, we see that He continues to have great compassion even when we do. In view of the woman’s faith, we must understand that Jesus healing her daughter was not contingent on the Syro-Phoenician woman’s correct response or display of faith. If this were true, then Jesus would have been stirring up her emotions and trying a woman already tormented by her daughter’s demonization. The girl being healed was based on Jesus’ own compassion and power.

2) I am humbled to remember that I, as a non-Jew, have been included in the family of God. Christ is not just for “all nations and conditions..” but “[for people] in all states of heart and mind…in the very lowest depths of conscious guilt and alienation from God…” ‘Children’ and ‘dogs’ stand before God without merit, except that which is Christ’s. In recognizing that our sin is overwhelming and pervasive, we are lead to cry out, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table”, and in such we taste of the children’s bread, which is Christ Himself.

*Historical information and quotes taken from Alfred Edersheim’s “The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah”, pages 500-503