The Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major (Optional Memorial)
“Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith!” (Matthew 15:27-28)
Three times, a Canaanite mother asked Jesus to heal her daughter. And three times, Jesus denied her. But she persisted, and he finally relented and granted her prayer.
So was Jesus testing this mother’s faith? Or did she really change Jesus’ mind?
On the one hand, if Jesus was really just testing her, why would Matthew leave out that important detail? So maybe he really did change his mind. This makes sense when we widen our scope of Scriptures. So many stories speak of people “changing” God’s mind. Think of Abraham negotiating with God over the fate of Sodom. Or think of Mary’s conversation with Jesus at the wedding of Cana. Though his hour had not yet come, the wine had run out! And, of course, there’s the parable Jesus taught of the persistent widow changing a judge’s mind.
But on the other hand, Jesus is the Son of God! Rightly did the disciples say about him, “You know everything” (John 16:30). By his very breath, the universe was called into being. How could we ever hope to persuade him? He declares, “As I have resolved, so shall it be,” and “the Lord of hosts has planned; who can thwart him?” (Isaiah 14:24,27). Surely this must have been Jesus’ plan to draw out this mother’s remarkable faith.
What a mystery is born when human faith meets the sovereignty of God! Yes, God is completely in control. And yes, he bends low to answer our prayers and draws us to work out his plan alongside him. He even lets us be bold enough to come to him, confident that he honors our desires. Of course, we’ll never understand this fully until we see Jesus face-to-face. But for now, revel in this mystery. Let it tug on the corners of your mind and open your heart to how wondrous are the ways of God. Gaze in awe of the Lord, who has the wisdom to weave the lives of so many free people into his plan for the whole world.
“Lord, you inspire awe in my heart. Who is like you?” Amen!
Numbers 13:1 Adonai said to Moshe, 2 “Send men on your behalf to reconnoiter the land of Kena‘an, which I am giving to the people of Isra’el. From each ancestral tribe send someone who is a leader in his tribe.”
25 Forty days later, they returned from reconnoitering the land 26 and went to Moshe, Aharon and the entire community of the people of Isra’el at Kadesh in the Pa’ran Desert, where they brought back word to them and to the entire community and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 What they told him was this: “We entered the land where you sent us, and indeed it does flow with milk and honey — here is its fruit! 28 However the people living in the land are fierce, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the ‘Anakim there. 29 ‘Amalek lives in the area of the Negev; the Hitti, the Y’vusi and the Emori live in the hills; and the Kena‘ani live by the sea and alongside the Yarden.”
30 Kalev silenced the people around Moshe and said, “We ought to go up immediately and take possession of it; there is no question that we can conquer it.” 31 But the men who had gone with him said, “We can’t attack those people, because they are stronger than we are”; 32 and they spread a negative report about the land they had reconnoitered for the people of Isra’el by saying, “The land we passed through in order to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people we saw there were giant! 33 We saw the N’filim, the descendants of ‘Anak, who was from the N’filim; to ourselves we looked like grasshoppers by comparison, and we looked that way to them too!”
14:1 At this all the people of Isra’el cried out in dismay and wept all night long.
(iv) 26 Adonai said to Moshe and Aharon, 27 “How long am I to put up with this evil community who keep grumbling about me? I have heard the complaints of the people of Isra’el, which they continue to raise against me. 28 Tell them this: ‘As surely as I live, Adonai swears, as surely as you have spoken in my ears, I will do this to you: 29 your carcasses will fall in this desert! Every single one of you who were included in the census over the age of twenty, you who have complained against me,
34 It will be a year for every day you spent reconnoitering the land that you will bear the consequences of your offenses — forty days, forty years. Then you will know what it means to oppose me! 35 I, Adonai, have spoken.’ I will certainly do this to this whole evil community who have assembled together against me — they will be destroyed in this desert and die there.”
done wrong, acted wickedly.
7 Our ancestors in Egypt failed to grasp
the meaning of your wonders.
They didn’t keep in mind your great deeds of grace
but rebelled at the sea, at the Sea of Suf.
13 But soon they forgot his deeds
and wouldn’t wait for his counsel.
14 In the desert they gave way to insatiable greed;
in the wastelands they put God to the test.
21 They forgot God, who had saved them,
who had done great things in Egypt,
22 wonders in the land of Ham,
fearsome deeds by the Sea of Suf.
23 Therefore he said that he would destroy them,
[and he would have,] had not Moshe his chosen one
stood before him in the breach
to turn back his destroying fury.
____________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment