Unit: Gospel of Markย
Theme: Everyoneโs Invitedย
Lesson text: Mark 7:24-37ย
Supplemental texts: Isaiah 55:1-5; 58:6-7; Matthew 9:35-38; 25:31-40
Aim: Follow Jesusโ example by helping those who are hurting.
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Download a PDF of this weekโs lesson material (the study by Mark Scott, the Application by David Faust, and Discovery Questions by Michael C. Mack): LOOKOUT_April23_2023.
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By Mark Scott
John Baker wrote a book entitled Lifeโs Healing Choices (2007). He asserted that all people struggle with hurts, hang-ups, and habits. Baker worked on staff with Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in California. Warren, the now-retired senior pastor of Saddleback, said that 70 percent of people who came to Christ at Saddleback did so through the Celebrate Recovery program run by John Baker. Spoiler alertโthere are scores of hurting people in this world.
Chapters 6โ7 make the transition between the โboatโ stories and โbreadโ stories in Markโs Gospel. Jesus fed the 5,000 in the wilderness with a very simple meal of fish and โbreadโ (in contrast to Herodโs lush birthday bash). The Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating โbreadโ with unwashed hands. So, Jesus retreated to the far northern country to gain some margin in his life. While there, he encountered a desperate mother, and โbreadโ was the metaphor that carried the conversation along.
Hurt By Demonsย
Mark 7:24-30
The people of Tyre were old enemies of the Israelites. For Jesus to go to that area and encounter people was risky. He was trying to get away and have some โR and Rโ with the disciples. He did not want anyone to know his comings and goings. But โhe could not be hidโ (v. 24, King James Version). A driven mother learned that Jesus had come to the area. She came, fell at his feet, and asked for help for her little daughter who was demonized (Markโs rather consistent way of writing about this was to say someone had an โuncleanโ or โimpure spiritโ). The woman went unnamed, but her ethnicity (Greek) and nationality (Syrian Phoenicia) were mentionedโprobably to highlight the difference between her and Jesus. She begged Jesus for help.
Jesus spoke to her (although he was silent with her at firstโMatthew 15:23) in highly figurative language. This might have ensured a private conversation even though the disciples overheard it. The figures of speech used in their dialogue: children = Israelites; bread = the gospel or spiritual nourishment from God; dogs = pagans, Gentiles, unbelievers. Calling someone a dog is hardly a compliment (even if Jesus did use a diminutive form of the word; e.g., puppy). But I imagine Jesus winking at her when he said these things, perhaps intending to draw her out.
Jesusโ strategy worked, for she was not put off. She realized her place, but she refused to give up. She reminded the Lord that little puppies eat the crumbs that fall from the table. She essentially was saying, โIโll take whatever help you can give meโeven a crumb.โ Ralph Martin called this event, โThe Day that Jesus Met His Match.โ Jesus must have followed his wink with a smile when he told her, โFor such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.โ She had the faith to take Jesus at his word and went home. She found her daughter on the bed (sleeping peacefully?), and the demon gone. Demons know only how to hurt, but Jesus invited the hurting to himself.
Hurt by Disabilityย
Mark 7:31-37
A world not yet fully redeemed has demons and people with disabilities in it. Jesus left the area of Tyre and went north through Sidon before heading back east and south. Jesus had not been in the region of the Decapolis on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee since his encounter with the Gadarene demoniac from the cemetery (Mark 5:1-20). After casting out the demons named Legion from the man, the townspeople begged Jesus to leave. Now they brought to him a man with more than one disability. Why this 180-degree change in the people of that region? The cured man did what Jesus told him to do (Mark 5:19-20).
The disabled man had two problemsโhe was deaf and therefore mostly mute. (After all, we learn to speak by listening.) Jesus had no interest in hoopla, so he took him aside, away from the crowd. Jesus entered his world of silence with sign language. Jesus put his fingers into the manโs ears and touched his tongue (the places of his disabilities) to sign what he intended to do. Jesus looked into heaven (to acknowledge from where the healing would come). He gave a deep sigh (Empathy? Frustration? Tongue speaking? See Scot McKnightโs book, Open to the Spirit), and then spoke the Aramaic word for โopen.โ The manโs ears and tongue were healed.
Jesus told the man not to tell, but the man did anyway. Everyone was amazed and exclaimed that Jesus did everything with excellence! Demons and disabilities are no challenge to Jesus when he invites the hurting to himself.
Author: Christian Standard
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