Gospel of Mark Series: the healing at Tyre Chapter 7:24-30.

Welcome to my Gospel of Mark Series. During 2012-13, each week, I will write a post about the Gospel of Mark as I review and explore each of the 16 chapters and how it may be applied in our daily lives. My goal is to understand and pray the Gospel of Mark.  I hope you will join me on this journey as we travel through the liturgical season of Year B.  In today's post, we explore chapter 7: 24-30 which is called the healing at Tyre.

Jesus withdraws from the opposition to his mission in Galilee into the Gentile countryside around the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon to the north of Israel.  He goes there quietly, not in a public way. Yet, as Mark says to his reads, Jesus could not be hidden for long.

A greek-speaking woman, A phoenician from Syria, comes to seek Him out.  Agonised by grief, she falls down at the feet of Jesus in the house where He was.  Her little daughter is possessed by evil and she begs Jesus to free her from this demon.

The conversation the woman and Jesus shows the character of both.  There is the woman’s love for her absent daughter, her earnest faith in the power of Jesus to neal, and her confident hope that He will drive out the evil in her.

In Jesus there is a strange reluctance at first to show His power in this Gentile world.  He admires the woman’s perseverance and recognises a genuine faith in her towards the power that was in Him to free people from evil.

We are given a glimpse of His attractive simplicity when He humbly accepts that the woman has bested Him in the argument.  In His human consciousness is there a dawning awareness that God sends Him also to the Gentiles outside Israel?

Through the genuine faith in God which He recognises in this Greek woman, Jesus is able to free the daughter from the evil that possessed her, even though she herself is absent.  the woman questions  no more.

Trusting that through Jesus she has been blessed by God and her daughter freed from evil, she quietly goes off to her home.  There she finds her child cured, lying calmly in her bed.  The power in Jesus frees from evil where he finds persons of true faith in God.

In our journal and/or our discussion group we may wish to reflect on this passage as follows:

• Name the key points that you have learnt about the person of Jesus in this passage of scripture?
• Reflect on the keywords in this passage for they contain the substance and purpose of all the things Jesus said and did-
• What do the sincerity and the feelings in this woman say to you?  What can I learn from this?
• Reflect on my relationship with Jesus and this teaching in the light of this gospel passage. What are my experiences of  asking God for healing for others?
• Try to enter into the feeling of Jesus as this woman argued with Him.
• What are some things in my life that I can ask God for healing?  Make a list of areas in my life that need a change of heart and develop an action plan on how this change of heart might occur. (eg name an area and name one/two changes that you will implement with God's help.
• What impact does Jesus’ teaching have on you (7:24-30).
• How has this passage spoken to you- what does it say to you personally?