LENT – WEEK 2 – THURSDAY

LESSON: ROMANS 9:14-24

She came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” Matthew 15:25

The Canaanite woman came to Jesus in a house, as Mark tells us, “and fell down at his feet,” Mark 7:25, and made her plea; “Lord, help me!”

It was now that she received the mortal blow. Before all present, she was told in so many words that she was a dog, not worthy to partake of the children’s bread. What will she say to this? Here she has heard the very worst. She is one of the lost who have been damned, who are not to be reckoned with the elect.

This is a final, irrevocable reply, and no one can debate it. But she does not desist. She concurs with Christ’s judgement and agrees with it. She is a dog, and she wants no more than a dog, namely, to eat the crumbs which fall from the master’s table.

Is this not a master-touch? She takes Christ captive with His own words. He compares her with a dog. She accepts the comparison and asks for no more than permission to be such a dog, as He Himself has judged her to be. Where was He to turn? He was caught. One lets a dog have the crumbs under the table; these are his right.

He now opens up to the woman and grants her what she wishes. She is now not a dog but also a child of Israel.

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PRAYER: Thanks and praise be to you, our loving heavenly Father, for the mercy and grace which brought us to faith in you and your promises and which has kept us in this faith, in and through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.