Year of the Bible: Part Eight of TwelveVoorbeeld

Have Mercy, Lord, and Help Me! How often do our religious bigotries influence our attitude towards those who "don't deserve" the mercy and kindness of God? The woman in today's reading was not a member of the covenantal people of God; she was a Canaanite. Within three miles of Jesus' location in the region of Tyre and Sidon was a temple to the Canaanite god, Eshmun—a god who offered to heal but also required child sacrifice for appeasement. With this knowledge, is it difficult to understand why this woman would approach Jesus instead of her ancestral god? And yet, we see the hard-hearted bigotry of the disciples as they urged Jesus to send her away. We also see the reality of Genesis 12:3 coming into play. Jesus is the person of the Genesis 12:3 promise: the blessing to the nations. Here we see Jesus' ministry take a turn as He begins to receive any and all who will come to Him. At one point in time, all of us were outside the people of promise. Each of us has gone our own way and rejected Jesus somehow. Let us each recognize the great merciful gift God has given us and ask the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts to those still outside the family of God. Let us remember people are never the enemy; they are victims of our enemy. Let us seek God's grace to receive those seeking help from Jesus even when they "don't deserve it." Question: Does searching your own heart reveal a similar attitude towards people who reject Jesus, chase after gods of their own making, and eventually find themselves in a hopeless situation, abandoned by their god? Prayer: Father, thank you that You heard my cry for mercy and answered my prayer. Grant me Your grace to yield as the Holy Spirit conforms me into the image of Jesus so I may be a source of healing for those who find that there is no healing outside of the goodness of God found in Him.