Pastor Kim Riddlebarger discusses the irony we find in the Gospel of Mark:
The irony here is important to understand because this proves Jesus’ point made back in the previous verses of chapter 7. The biblical distinction between clean and unclean has to do with the condition of the sinful human heart (which renders all people, Jew and Gentile alike, unclean), and not with the faulty conception held by the Pharisees that righteousness is a matter of what we eat and drink and how we wash our hands. Throughout the cities of Tyre and Sidon and the region of the Decapolis there are pagan and godless Gentiles–people whom the Pharisees and teachers of the law regarded as unclean and therefore beneath contempt. A number of these people come to faith in Jesus, who is Israel’s Messiah and yet who is hated by many of those he came to save. Again, we miss much in Mark’s gospel if we fail to see that the irony throughout this gospel is both thick and intentional.
Another thing we need to remember as we work our way through this “Gentile mission” section of Mark’s gospel is the unanswered question, “just who, exactly, is Jesus?” In the opening chapters of Mark, so far, we gotten the following answers to that question. His own family thinks he’s crazy. The people of his home town mock him as the carpenter and the son of Mary. The people of Israel are debating this matter. Some think Jesus is John the Baptist come back to life–Herod Antipas, king of Israel included. Some think he’s Elijah (probably the followers of John the Baptist). Others think he is one of the prophets, come back to life. Those who watched him feed 5000 people in the wilderness picked up on the messianic symbolism of that event and were trying to make Jesus king. The scribes, Pharisees and teachers of the law, hate Jesus and were already plotting to kill him. They’ve said that Jesus is demon-possessed, a sorcerer and a false teacher. And then there are the disciples, who, as Mark puts it in the previous chapter, are still hard of heart and just plain don’t get it. Amazingly, the only group so far to recognize Jesus are the demons who identify him as the Son of God–more irony!
So, in light of all of this, Jesus will leave Israel for a time for a number of unspecified reasons. But yet there are some good guesses as to why Jesus would do this, considering everything which has gone on so far. Leaving the area would certainly allow the messianic speculation and the tension with the Jewish religious leaders to die down–Jesus knows that his hour has not yet come. From what we can gather from Mark’s “nothing but the facts” description, Jesus will also use this time away from the crowds and on-lookers to rest, regain his strength and to pray. And then there is the most important reason, Jesus will use this time to fulfill messianic prophecy and preach the gospel to the Gentiles–a light will dawn in distant islands.
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