Gaza, a Palestinian girl and release

And he [Jesus of Nazareth AD 30] called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them … “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” 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. Mark 7: 14-30

Having enjoyed “Jersey at its best” during the past few weeks, the distress and human suffering in Gaza and Israel in the past week have been terrifyingly devastating to all who have watched TV and read the newspapers. Horror upon horror upon horror. And why? What is the root cause of all this evildoing? Do, please, read carefully the five incidents in bold above from Mark’s First Century Biography of Jesus Christ. The first incident is that Jesus spoke a parable to the crowds around him. What you eat, he said, will not defile you; no food will make you bad or evil; instead what is coming out of you is what defiles you, is what makes you bad and evil.
.	‘There is a little hell within the heart of every child of god, and only the great God of heaven can master that mischievous indwelling sin.’ (C H Spurgeon, minister and writer, 1834-1892)
The second thing to note is that Jesus’ key followers did not understand what he was saying to them through the parable. Maybe in Jersey today, Christians still don’t understand that, by nature, they are bad and evil within. The third incident is Jesus’ explanation of his parable: “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Did you notice the word “coveting” in this list of immaterial, intangible evils within the human heart? Try Googling “Gaza covet”. And then try Googling “Hamas covet”. Is covetousness – that weightless spiritual attribute – one of the many ethereal causes of the frightful physical suffering and bodily death and soul-destroying grief which we’ve seen in Gaza this week? The fourth incident in bold above is Jesus’ decision to leave Israel at that very time. He went to Tyre and Sidon – a Gentile, non-Jewish area. There a woman who has heard of him comes and falls at his feet. She is a Palestinian, a Syrian Phoenician. The amazing thing is that she has seen, in her little daughter, the seeds of badness and evil in her heart. She begs Jesus to remove this “demon” from her child. Jesus is a Jew. He is the long-promised Messiah – long-promised to Israel by prophets over the 2000 years immediately proceeding AD 30.
.	‘The holiest person is ... one who is most conscious of what sin really is.’ (Oswald Chambers, Scottish evangelist, 1874-1917)
You’ve read the words in bold above. Jesus tells her that he has come to deal with the bad and evil within the hearts of the people of Israel, the children of God. The Syrophoenician mother of a little daughter asks only for crumbs that the children of Israel will allow to fall to the floor. The fifth incident in bold above is the removal of intangible bad and evil from within the heart of her daughter. Of course, the little girl will not become perfect instantly. There’s a parable here. The awful power of evil – the demon within - has gone. She will need to wait for the total removal of evil and injustice from all the world – one day, after the day of judgment has passed. That’s why Jesus came – the heart of each human being can start to be cleaned up. In 2014. And cleaned up, eventually, for evermore.

Richard Syvret

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