Experiencing God - God's Compassion 175

At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus says the Lord: The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Jeremiah
   
Often in scripture, it is the times when things seem there very worst that God is most present.  This is often reflected in our own lives as well.  It is during the most difficult times; a loss of a loved one, the discovery of a serious illness, a divorce, a loss of a job; that inwardly we turn to God.  Amazingly enough, God is there, more vividly than before, providing comfort, providing strength.  It is also during these times that the community of faith are also there in special ways, providing prayers and support in so many different ways.

In the  above reading from Jeremiah, the people of Israel are defeated.  They are in exile.  They are separated from their home land, their places of worship.  They are separated from all that is familiar to them and all that had brought them some comfort in  the past.  But maybe those were the very things that encouraged their superficial attitudes towards God in the first place.  Maybe those were the things that made them complacent in respect to their faith. 

Now they have been stripped of all those outward things and have no place to turn except inward.  It is there that they find God at the centre of their being.  They discover there the God that they had forgotten.  Stripped of their external comforts, they discover God who wants to re-establish with them that special relationship of love.  "I have loved you with an everlasting love.  I am constant in my affection for you".  This is the law that God wishes to write on their hearts.  This is the law that God does not want them to forget.

In the Gospel of Luke, we read about Jesus wandering with His disciples in the area of Tyre and Sidon.  These are places in current day Lebanon.  In Jesus' day, this would be considered pagan territory for the Israelites. 

It is there that Jesus encounters the Canaanite woman, a foreign gentile.  She recognizes Jesus and immediately presses Him to care for her need.  "Have mercy on me Lord, Son of David" she shouts after Him.

In many ways, she is like ourselves when we are caught in a desperate situation.  We have no where else to turn, so we turn inward and discover a source of hope that we may not have previously recognized.  She sees hope for her plight in Jesus.

Then we have this unusual dialog between her and Jesus.  The Canaanite woman knows the disconnect that exists between herself and Jesus.  She's not Jew.  She doesn't worship in the same way or even believe in the same things, but she is familiar with God's compassion in desperate times, and she sees in Jesus God's compassion at work.  She persists in her request, and it is granted.  She hears the call of Jeremiah to the defeated people of Israel:  "I love you with an everlasting love.  I am constant in my affection for you".  Jesus responds:  "Woman, what great faith you have.  Let your wish be granted."