“HE GIVES NOT A CRUMB, BUT HIS BODY”
Saint Matthew 15: 21-28
Reminiscere: 8 March Anno Domini 2020
Father Jay Watson SSP
It’s always Jesus going “thence”
He comes to people (monergism) people don’t come to Him.
Tyre and Sidon (King Hiram) once sent magnificent cedar trees/lumber to Solomon to build the Temple. Now The REAL TEMPLE, destined to be hung on wood not so noble, comes to Tyre (and Sidon) to re-build a suffering woman and daughter (who really was suffering more?)
The woman, called a Canaanite by the Evangelist, is no longer the “Canaanites” that were destroyed by Joshua/Jeshua/Jesus [Heb. 4.8 NIV] and his armies, but rather a believing Canaanite/Gentile who is brought back to life (i.e. her daughter) through The REAL Joshua!
The Holy Spirit worked prayer of faith that she cried out clamped down tightly on the content of said faith (Jesus). Her petition was perfect and simple: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David.”
This is how you should, you must, you do pray. Don’t “backseat-drive” God, don’t try and micro-manage His actions. Just cry out for Mercy. Trust in His Mercy. He is Mercy! Be in Him and have Him in you (Word, Word, Word).
Yes, she does share with Jesus the specific problem, “my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.” And you think you have it bad? Demon possession is ghastly, ugly, horribly damaging.
It is so foul, so filthy, and so down in the gutter of stench…“beneath a famed Rabbi”…that the “12” did not want The Lord to be burdened by this kind of uncleanness…a Canaanite? Well, in all fairness to Peter and the others, Jesus had made the distinction before between Jews and Samaritans and “Greeks.”
Jesus correctly stated the order of things, God’s mysterious schedule and ranking of the order of salvation: FIRST THE JEWS, the lost sheep of Israel. This was even the way the Gospel went out after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension: “peace…to the Jew first, and also the Gentile” [Rom. 2. 10b]. The Good News release from sin and peace would start in Jerusalem of Judea and then go to Samaria and Galilee and to the ends of the earth. The Lord even had His Disciples go only to Jews on their own inaugural two-by-two preaching, teaching, healing, AND exorcising mission.
But this day, Christ would impart a far greater teaching miracle; TRUTH, beyond any sequence of person or place. He would show them the power of His Word and His Presence. For it was Christ’s Person and Work which made her faith so indomitable that not even insult, derogatory slander, or delay in delivery could wither it.
God compares a woman at the end of her rope—her rope, her works, her efforts, her ANYTHING—to a dog; and unclean creature not worthy to eat the food meant for the family, God’s children.
With a theological acumen that rivals Saint Paul’s, i.e. she knows, BELIEVES, that Israel is not just the DNA blood relatives of Abram (exalted father), but all who belong to Abraham (father of many) “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory… and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all,” But Paul goes on: “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed” [Rom. 9. 4-8].
When this rock of a woman, no less granite-like in Christ’s Grace than Peter himself, says “truth Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table,” she is in essence again quoting The Word, as Paul later shares with the Galatians: “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham” [Gal. 3.5-7].
She was saying “I am a child of Israel because I know Who you are Rabbi, and what You came to bring.” She knows He is Messiah, The Christ of God, the long-waited for God/Man sent to redeem Israel and all the world. She knows that He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. She knows He is the Resurrection at the last day, but also, MERCY personified in the “right-here-and-now!”
Oh, she’s not going anywhere until she gets those crumbs, or, even that one crumb…because even the smallest iota from the Hand of Christ is still the bread from heaven which brings life—which will give some mercy, some surcease, some relief for her poor little girl!
That’s how you pray. That’s how you stay right up in Jesus’ face…because He’s always right there for you and all His elect in the first place…His Words open up your eyes of faith (which are your ears) and you are given all His Mercy.
Demon possessed? You were born dead in sin, and an enemy of God, a brood of fallen “old Adam.”
Exorcised? You are + Baptized!
“Great is Thy faith” because Great is The God/Man Who has given you your faith. Great is His Grace and Mercy.
You were made whole from that + (point to font) very hour, and from this very hour.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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