Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.
She came and fell at his feet.
This woman sensed in Jesus one who could help. Even though Jesus "wanted no one to know about it" when he entered in a house in Tyre he would not be hidden to the eyes of faith of this woman in need.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
We who would give birth to virtue, to good works, to creative endeavors, who would wish to give the world some new daughter to inspire hope and bring the fruits of love, do we not also see our efforts hampered and hindered by the enemy? Perhaps it is literally our children that need healing. Perhaps it is some evangelical endeavor that isn't bearing the fruit we'd hoped. Whatever it is, let us bring it to Jesus.
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
When we don't immediately get a breakthrough from Jesus we might be tempted to despair. But he himself is the one that commends us to persist in prayer without losing heart (see Luke 18:1-8). Jesus does desire to give us the healing we need. But in doing so he wants to draw from us a response of faith.
She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
The woman was drawn to admit that she had no claim to deserve the request she made. She might have given up when she didn't immediately receive what she asked. But she persisted, not on the basis of who she was or what she deserved, but on the basis of who Jesus was. His generosity, she implied, was so great that it couldn't help but overflow from the table of the children to the dogs under the table. He was the sower who scattered so much seed that there was no limit to where fruit might spring up. Like her, we can plead our case on the basis of the mercy and generosity of God. Jesus came that we might have life and have it in abundance (see John 10:10). We can trust in that and make it the basis of a stalwart peaceful persistence until we too receive the breakthrough we need.
The LORD God then built up into a woman
the rib that he had taken from the man.
Eve was meant to be the mother of all the living. There ought never have been a daughter afflicted by an unclean spirit. But, by their choices, that first family turned away from God's gift of life and introduced death and sin into the world. Humanity had no merit to ask for better, yet God himself was too good, too merciful, too generous to leave us in that state. He brought forth from Jesus, who was the new Adam, a new Eve, the Church to able, at last to give true life, true freedom from the works of the enemy. Those who, like the Syrophoenician woman, come to Jesus in faith, receive the new life that pours from his side on the cross. We become the new Eve, and as we do, we begin to bear fruit for the kingdom, fruit the the enemy can no longer keep bound.
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