Matthew 15:21-28

THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN

Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30. “And rising up, He departed thence into the regions of Tyre and Sidon. And having come into a house, he wished no one to know it; and He was not able to be hidden. For a woman, hearing concerning Him, whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, coming out, fell down at His feet. And the woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by race, and asked Him that He may cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, Let the children first be fed; for it is not good to take the bread of the children and cast it to little dogs. But she responded and says to Him, Yea, Lord, for even the little dogs under the table do eat the children's crumbs. And He said to her, On account of this word, go; the demon has already gone out of thy daughter. And having come into her house, she found that the demon had gone out, and the daughter was lying on a bed;” a confirmation of the demon's departure, as hitherto her vexation and misery had been such that she could not rest, day or night, but incessantly leaped, struggled, gnashed, foamed, and wallowed, a raving maniac. We have many such now, comparatively unknown, because secreted away in mad-houses and lunatic asylums; there being no such institutions in that day, every family having to care for their own maniacs, lunatics, and epileptics the best they could; consequently giving great notoriety to all such characters, generally denominated demoniacs, because all these abnormal conditions are in some way imputable to Satanic influence.

Matthew 15:22 : “My daughter is awfully demonized. And Jesus did not respond a word to her; and His disciples, coming, asked Him, saying, Send her away, because she crieth after us. And He responding, said, I am not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” These lost sheep were the rank and the of the Jewish Church, both membership and clergy, who are actually lost in the fogs of dead formality and empty hypocrisy, to which they were vainly clinging for salvation, with the exception of a saint here and there.

Matthew 15:28 : “Then Jesus, responding, said to her, O woman, great is thy faith; be it done unto thee as thou dost believe. And her daughter was healed from that hour.”

Why did Jesus, with His apostles, suddenly leave Capernaum, and go away into Phoenicia, a heathen land? It was not to preach the gospel, as the time of the Gentiles had not yet arrived. It was to take much needed rest for their weary bodies. The Twelve had labored so assiduously in their double-quick evangelistic peregrinations throughout all Israel, that when they all returned to Him at Capernaum a few days previously, seeing them worn, jaded, hoarse, foot-sore, and leg-weary, He advised them to go aside into an “uninhabited region and rest a little while.” When they undertook it, the people in the cities dotting the bank of the Galilean Sea, observing them going away in a ship, some following in boats, and many running overland around the sea, anticipate their disembarkation, so that by the time they have reached the mountain park off the coast to the northwest, between Bethsaida and Tiberias, they find many people on the spot, the crowd increasing, as they pour in from all directions, till, by the middle of the afternoon, when our Lord, moved with compassion for the hungry, miraculously feeds them on five loaves and two fishes, they find a swelling throng of ten thousand. Though, sending away His disciples, dismissing the multitude, and going under the darkness of the ensuing night into the mountain to pray; walking out on the stormy sea at midnight, to the relief of His tempest-tossed disciples, embarking with them and returning home to Capernaum; the multitudes, embarking on several ships at Tiberias, follow on across the sea, where they find Him, and give audience to that wonderful sermon on entire sanctification (John 6), which upset so many of His disciples that they “turn back, and walk no more with Him,” now He resorts to a second attempt to secure that physical rest which He had already admonished them to take; as He knew that they had to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth and preach to all the Gentiles; hence the importance of hygienical prudence. Consequently they now leave the land of Israel, and go off among the heathens, to whom as yet they had no commission to preach. Though they propose to go into retirement and remain a little while in voluntary exile, in some way this woman finds them out. Syria and Phoenicia join by a mere air-line, and consequently there was much miscegenation between them, this woman being a mixed-blood of these two celebrated ancient Shemitic races. Such is her importunity, crying after them incessantly, that the disciples get utterly worn out with her annoyance; so they implead their Master to send her away. Consequently He dismisses her, by a positive notification that He is not sent to the Gentiles, but to the children of Abraham. Such is her importunity that the Master is constrained to deal very plainly with her, informing her as to the impropriety of taking the children's bread and casting it to contemptible little dogs. The woman unhesitatingly accepts the situation, oblivious of the opprobrium, responding, “Yea, Lord, for even the little dogs do eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table.” At that moment, Jesus responds, “Great is thy faith, O woman Let it be done unto thee as thou dost wish.” From that moment the demon evacuated her daughter, so that she could lie down and rest sweetly on the bed like a tired child. O what a happy respite from raging mania! What is the solution of this wonderful problem? Why did Jesus call her “dog?” Of course, He knew all about her, even before He went thither; and traveled all the way from Capernaum, not only to give the Twelve and His own weary body. the much-needed rest, but to meet this wonderful woman, whose heart, amid all the superstitions of idolatry, the Holy Ghost had prepared for the mighty work of demoniacal ejectment, destined to bring a heavenly sunburst into her home. While we see here that this miracle was wrought commensurately with the faith of the mother, yet Mark, whose message Peter, an eye-witness, dictated, says nothing about her faith, but only indirectly emphasizes her humility, which is the granite pedestal on which alone the majestic column of faith can rise and penetrate the skies. Now you see that after Jesus has notified her that she is excluded by the impassable wall separating Jews and Gentiles, having discarded her under the opprobrious epithet of a contemptible little dog (as the Jews called all the Gentiles dogs, thus stigmatizing their impurity, as the dog is the unclean animal interdicted by the Mosaic law), when she unhesitatingly, without the slightest repellency of the insult, accepts the situation, shouting, “Yea, Lord, even the little dogs do eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table:” “All right; I accept the situation, and take the dog's place under the table of my Lord and Master, infinitely delighted to be the Lord's dog rather than the devil's queen.” That sweeps every objection from the field, and leaves Jesus her humble Servant. Consequently He says, outright, “O woman, great is thy faith! Let it be done unto thee as thou dost wish;” i.e., “If you are humble enough to take a dog's place and be satisfied with dog-fare in the house of God, rather than a queenly crown in this wicked world, all right! You can have anything you want! All heaven is open to such humility! Come right along, and take it!” This kind of humility and faith leaps a million of miles above the partition wall for ages standing between Jews and Gentiles; while the pearly gates spontaneously fly wide open, and angelic platoons sweep out from the golden city, making the heavenly arches ring, “Welcome home, Syrophenician woman and demonized daughter!”