Matthew 15:23

Matthew 15:23

Out of many lessons to be drawn from the terrible and touching narrative of the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Lent we notice three.

I. With respect to the disciples. We may learn from what is not written as well as from what is written what a lesson they received upon want of sympathy.They fancied they understood the whole question, and that they could read in our Lord's unfathomable expression the image of their own cold, hard thoughts. We do not read that any words passed between our Lord and His disciples on the subject of this troublesome woman. But what a veil fell from the eyes of these men (so satisfied that they were doing their own duty and the will of their Master) when a few moments later they heard Him exclaim, "O daughter, great is thy faith." The very quality which our Lord was always telling them was so necessary for them and so wanting in them lay in a rich overflowing store in the heart of this heathenish woman.

II. The lesson of perseverance in prayer. The history gives us a picture of a person misled by appearances (1) from want of knowing enough of Christ, and (2) from not yet having risen to that intensity of earnestness and full stretch of faith of which our nature is really capable. There is in Christ the stern goodness of a man of powerful insight; not the softness which, without doing any good, lavishes blessings before they are appreciated, but that paternal sternness which will have us brace ourselves up for a resolute, sustained effort. The prodigal son has a father's welcome, but he must come home; he must come all the way. Like this woman, we may hear the words, "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt," but not till we have deserved the earlier words, "Great is thy faith."

III. We learn something even from the daughter. Evil thoughts are to be intensely guarded against, as the ultimate source of all the sin and misery of this world. It may be that this demon-tormented girl was no sinner above the rest. But the spectacle daily before the mother's eyes was the fruit of sin somewhere, and that sin was the fruit of evil thoughts. If it was not a visitation upon individual evil, all the more fearful is the warning against all sin.

Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College,p. 251.

References: Matthew 15:23. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 529; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 285.Matthew 15:24; Matthew 15:25. Ibid., Sermons,vol. xxx., No. 1,797. Matthew 15:26; Matthew 15:27. Ibid.,vol. xxii., No. 1,309. Matthew 15:27. Ibid.,vol. xii., No. 715; Evening by Evening,p. 87; J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide,p. 140.