Jesus, Not So Gentle, Meek or Mild
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We have been comforted in so many situations with the image of Jesus as “the Good Shepherd,” both through the images of and his own words in that we flinch at anything that seems to contradict that image. Mark records two incidents that seem to go so far against that image that some preachers would prefer to ignore the passage or explain it away, either as just an element in Mark’s apparent emphasis on Jesus’ focus on his purpose to the point that he seems to have little time for anything that distracts from it. John Peter Lange, author of A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Mark, writes that Mark writes his gospel as a sort of “Hero epic:” “The deeds of divine heroism which it describes, find, as it were, an appropriate body in peculiarities of expression, whether by an accumulation of strong negatives (οὐκε͂τι, οὐδείς) and by rapid transitions, or by rapid succession in the narrative. In fact, the word εὐθέως may be designated as the appropriate watch-word of our Gospel. While Matthew transports us gradually into the events of his time, as he relates what “came to pass in those days,” the peculiar expression “immediately,” “forthwith,” “straightway,” employed by Mark, hurries us from one event to another.”
John Peter Lange, Philip Schaff, and William G. T. Shedd, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Mark (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 2.
James W. Voelz, by contrast, in his contribution to the Concordia Commentary series, , describes the theme of Mark in terms of “ambiguity:” “Rather, when one reads this Gospel against what else we know, when we read this Gospel against the foil of depictions from elsewhere—both the kerygma of the early church and the books of the Old and New Testaments, especially the other Synoptic Gospels—then we see a different, a stranger, and a more fascinating picture, a different, strange, and fascinating tale and protagonist indeed. Read literarily, the story of the Second Gospel is the story of ambiguity throughout.”
James W. Voelz, Concordia Commentary: , ed. Dean O. Wenthe (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2013), 54.
Either way, one could read these passages as being evidence of a quirk of impatience, but maybe the result of Mark’s handling of the Gospel, except these two incidents are not peculiar to Mark. Matthew also records Jesus, interaction with the Syrophoenician woman, and in the same way (), and both Matthew and Luke tell us about Jesus’ casting out of the demon that his disciples were unable to accomplish (; ).
Thus, we must conclude that Jesus is presented this way in Mark because that is what happened. That is how Jesus spoke in those incidents. Jesus was harsh, perhaps even dismissive of people who were in need of his intervention because of their own inabilities. What are we to make of this, not only in terms of how we understand the work of Christ on earth, but also in terms of how we see him at work in and through the Church? Is this a unique situation that we can safely ignore, or do we accept that there are times when, speaking “as an oracle of God,” we will speak and act in ways that seem harsh to those who are limited to a carnal understanding of the ways of our Lord?
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. But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 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.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”
These two incidents have points in common, as well as contrasts. They share the presence of two parents who are grieved by the demonic oppression of their beloved child. Both of them have watched their child suffering the tormenting impact of being controlled by an alien, hostile personality that would destroy the one whom they love. Both of them turn to Jesus, believing what they have heard about His ability to break the chains of demonic possession and bring deliverance to their imprisoned child. The depth of the crisis makes each parent speak in terms that show the desperation of the situation.
The contrasts are equally clear. The first parent is a woman, taught by culture to be humble, beseeching rather than demanding, while the second is a man accustomed to engaging in negotiations, demands, settlements… While she normally experiences power as that which she must appease, he experiences it as something that he can control and direct. She begs (ἐκβάλῃ - 3rd person subjunctive (which expresses possibility or potentiality) of ἐκβάλλω), while he demands (βοήθησον -2nd person imperative (expressing command, request or volution) of βοηθέω.
The final, most significant contrast is their place in terms of the promises of God given to Israel in the Messiah. The woman is “a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth” (). The man, while no identification is given, lives in a a place where “scribes” also reside, for when Jesus, Peter, James and John come down from the “mount of transfiguration,” they see a crowd surrounding the disciples, which includes scribes (). Since the man is not defined in terms of nationality, it is save to infer that he is an Israelite.
Jesus’ reaction to the woman fits with what Paul would later say in , “both to the Jew first (emphasis mine), and also to the Greek.” In fact, one could argue that his response to her is not harsh at all, as he never rejects her, but merely asks that she “wait her turn.” He responds to her by pointing out that he is Israel’s Messiah, to which she responds that she seeks merely a gift that might fall her way, not because she deserves it, but simply because she in in the place where the giver is. Her statement shows her faith, not only in Christ’s power, but also in his graciousness in the exercise of it.
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.”
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.”
Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 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.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
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.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .
In a sense, Jesus’ words in the second incident are directed to two groups. The first group, the crowd that is engaged in a dispute, includes his disciples. Jesus speaks, not only to the man who declared his problem in verses 17-18, but also to the rest of them, including his disciples.
And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.”
The disciples could not cast the demon out, although they tried. Why had they failed? they would later ask that very question, to which Jesus would reply, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer” (v 29). James would write in his epistle regarding the role of prayer in the face of sickness:
And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Far too often, in the words of James recorded in , “You do not have, because you do not ask.” Could it be that the root of not asking is not believing, either in the power, or worse, the graciousness, of the Lord to address the issue that lies before us? Will there be issues that confront us today to which God’s promise speaks “yes” and “amen,” but we doubt that God will respond at all, so we remain silent? How long will be hear with us in our fear to stand in the evil day, or our doubt concerning his expressed desire to save all who come to him by faith so that we don’t proclaim the Gospel by which we are saved to those who are without salvation, without hope, trapped in bondage to things that they neither understand nor see any alternative? As the late Martin Franzmann wrote in his hymn of triune praise, “Thy strong Word did cleave the darkness; at Thy speaking it was done.” These words apply, not only to the creation story of , but also to the redemption story of . The light of the Gospel of Christ breaks the darkness of sin, fear, and doubt.
Jesus harsh words come to us out of his gracious love, a love that desires above all things, that we “have life and that more abundantly.” While those words, and the later epistle of 3rd John’s opening prayer concerning “the beloved Gaius,” "that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul” have been misused by the idolatrous prosperity gospel proclaimers, it remains true that God does not desire our harm, but our good, so much so that He even uses the intentions of the devil to do evil to us for our good, as it is written,
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Thus, we do not need to fear or avoid the “harsh words” of our Lord, knowing that He loves us, as He says, “with an everlasting love,” a love that is not conditioned upon anything about us, but is based in His divine nature, as it is written,
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .
The ultimate “harsh word” of God fell, not upon us sinners, but upon His son, “who knew no sin, [yet] became sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” This strong word gives us confidence and the blessed hope that sustains us even in our weakness, knowing that in our weakness, he is strong, for He is Emmanuel - God with us.
“So let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds though Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.”