Monday, March 19, 2012

Readings: Genesis 49: 1-28, I Corinthians 10:14-11:1, Mark:7:24-37

"Then Jacob called his sons and said, 'Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.'" (Genesis 49:1)

This passage from Genesis is a redemptive passage in the form of a poem or an oracle.  Through all of its wonderful imagery as any great poem would have, it seems that God has enabled Jacob to know what will happen in the days to come and he gathers his sons to impart his wisdom, and the story he foretells is not entirely without struggle.  In this way, God has gone through Jacob to remind and encourage his people that even through all the times of trouble and difficulties, greater than can be imagined, in the future God will bless us and return us all to the “promised land.”  For me, the father figure or that of a parent calls out to me as a strong image through both Jacob and God.

In the reading of Mark, we are witness once again to the powers of Jesus to heal the sick and help the afflicted.  Jesus has arrived in Tyre, Mark 7:24 “Yet he could not escape notice,²⁵but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.²⁶Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.”  Although it is difficult for me to understand what this mother means by a demon inside her daughter, at the same time being a mother of three and witnessing my children’s sometimes off the wall and less than perfect behavior, I can only imagine.  In times of desperation, I could see myself in this way.  This mother has asked Jesus for mercy for her daughter. Jesus casts out the demon. In addition in this passage, a deaf and mute man has been presented to Jesus to be released from this affliction and he too was healed.  Interestingly, Jesus asks them to tell no one, but Mark 7:36 “the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.³⁷They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” It seems as if the mother has come to Jesus for hope in feeling that God has rejected her and her daughter to give her such problems and in the end she is so impressed with Jesus that she wants to tell everyone to put their trust in God and he will lead them out of despair.   

As I reflect, I feel that as parents we try to do the same for our children.  We encourage them through difficulties, we try to impart hope for their future and help them to understand that if you put your trust in God he will always be with you and he will lead you.  He is always with us and he even has a plan for all of us no matter who we are and what impediments we may have.  I always try to tell my children that we are all special and God does know our needs.  We are all here with a purpose and we all have our gifts, we just need to identify them.  We will be led home out of the darkness of the wilderness and into the light.  Just follow and be led home.

(Pam Keagle)