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Mark 7:24-37
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*24 *And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.
*25 *But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.
*26 *Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth.
And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
*27 *And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
*28 *But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
*29 *And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.”
*30 *And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
*31 *Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.
*32 *And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
*33 *And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.
*34 *And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
*35 *And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
*36 *And Jesus charged them to tell no one.
But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
*37 *And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well.
He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
}}}
The past two weeks we have been studying Jesus’ response to the Pharisees question regarding purity before God.
Last week we saw how Jesus denied inherent impurity in anything that God creates.
Perhaps to demonstrate that point, we now see Jesus traveling to “unclean” Gentile territory where he interacts with two individuals in some very unique ways.
Remember that Mark’s aim throughout is to prove that Jesus is the Son of God.
He is the promised Messiah who has come to bring the promise of God to fulfillment.
The promise to restore all things.
The promise to “save” in the fullest sense of the term.
Messiah will bring with him the peace of a kingdom that will never succumb to evil.
It’s the promise of passages like Isaiah 35:3-4:
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/Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
/ \\ /Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! / \\ /Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.
/ \\ /He will come and save you.”/
}}}
Mark wants us to believe that Jesus is that Savior.
He doesn’t want us to miss him.
Too many do.
Sometimes we miss him because we don’t understand him.
He does things we don’t expect him to do, and we can’t understand why.
That’s what we are faced with in this passage, as we see some interesting things—even strange things—about him in two different stories.
There are a few things that these two stories have in common that invite us to study deeper into what Mark may be telling us about Jesus.
Let’s consider in these two stories the setting we find Jesus in, the secrecy he wishes to keep, and the strange ways he acts.
!
THE SETTING: JESUS IN GENTILE LANDS
It is striking to find Jesus spending so much time in Gentile territory.
His last visit to the Decapolis was very brief.
He healed a demon possessed maniac and then left (Mark 5).
But now he spends extended time there, in fact traveling in such a way as to remain in non-Jewish lands.
So we are invited to ask why he went there.
!! The Long Journey
The last place Mark locates Jesus is Gennesaret back in Mark 6:53.
From there, Mark says, Jesus goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon, some 35 miles to the west and north.
Then, in verse 31, Mark says he returned from the region of Tyre” by going “through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.”
This is quite a journey, well over 100 miles on foot, and it is anything but a direct route.
It is like when you board the plane in Oklahoma City to go to Detroit and they send you to Dallas first.
There must be a good reason to go so far out of the way from the destination.
!! The Land of Tyre
Furthermore, he goes to Tyre, an old Phoenician city-state located on the Mediterranean coast, in modern day Lebanon.
This was not exactly a favorite resort town for Jews.
This was the homeland of Queen Jezebel who, through her marriage to King Ahab, introduced Baal worship in Israel.
Tyre became the target of many Old Testament prophetic condemnations (Ezekiel 26; Zech 9:3-4), and the Jewish historian Josephus referred to the inhabitants there as the Jews’ worst enemies.[1]
But Tyre was still an important city in Jesus day, about the size of Jerusalem in population and power.
We might then think that Jesus has gone there for strategic purposes to extend his mission.
But Jesus “did not want anyone to know” that he was there (v.
24).
Matthew’s account (Matt 15:21-28) gives us this explanation from Jesus: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v.
24).
When Jesus sent out his disciples to further his teaching he commanded them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles . . .
but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 10:5-6).
He is the /Jewish/ Messiah, sent on mission particularly to them.
So why did he go there?
!! Withdrawal from the Pharisees
From the story Mark has been telling we can venture a guess.
He has been in frequent and recent conflict with the Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem (Mark 7:1).
And in chapter six we read that he had drawn the suspicions of Herod, who had murdered John the Baptist for proclaiming the same message Jesus himself was proclaiming.
So when we read in Mark 7:24 that it was Jesus desire to remain hidden, we are led to believe that Jesus has come here to escape the harassment of the Pharisees and the threat of Herod.
Remember in Mark 6:31 Jesus had invited the disciples “to a desolate place” to rest, but then proceeded to feed five thousand people?
With Jesus now looking for privacy among a people to whom God had not sent him, maybe now he will get some rest.
!
THE SECRECY: JESUS DOES NOT WANT TO BE KNOWN
But even Jesus does not get his wish.
Mark tells us that though he did not want anyone to know he was there, “he could not be hidden.”
And then after he heals the deaf man, he orders those who witnessed this miracle “to tell no one.”
Once again his wish is ignored.
“The more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it” (Mark 7:36).
From a literary perspective you can tell a lot from a character by the way the storyteller describes how that character responds to different situations.
Here, as in the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus’ desire for anonymity takes second place to the needs of people.
He keeps giving in to people.
Still, we wonder what is behind this desire for secrecy?
!! Worker of Wonders
His first encounter is with a woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon.
Imagine that you have a child with an illness that doctors cannot diagnose or treat.
You feel like you’ve done everything you can, and you are starting to lose any hope.
Then news begins to spread that someone has come to your city who has reportedly been able to heal diseases similar to the one your child has.
You would undoubtedly do exactly what this woman did.
Mark tells us that as soon as she heard about Jesus she came and fell down at his feet.
And she begged him to help her daughter.
Mark has recounted three previous exorcisms so far; we are primed to read about another one here.
But Jesus has not come to Tyre to do miracles.
He wanted to remain hidden, and he seems reluctant to help this poor mother.
Jesus is more interested in obscurity than in anything else, and he seems intent on keeping it that way.
Why does he seem so reluctant to help, giving in to her request only after she seemingly wins the debate between them?
The answer lies in this ongoing desire of Jesus to remain hidden from public view.
It seems strange, doesn’t it, that if he has come as Savior that he would also want to remain in obscurity?
Of course his fame is spreading with every miracle performed, yet Jesus sincerely wishes that this would not be so.
He frequently tries to silence his fan base as he does in the next episode (v.
36).
*Jesus’ Brothers: “Show Yourself to the World”*
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