Matthew 15:22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”

What did this Lady mean by calling Jesus, “Lord, Son of David?” Well, she was declaring that He was the Messiah. Many teachers protest that because she was not Jewish, she had no right to approach Jesus based on His being the Messiah. It’s said that’s the reason Jesus didn’t initially respond to her cry. But wait, Jesus has come all the way from the Sea of Galilee to Phoenicia not for some time alone, but, I believe, because of this syro-phonecian woman. That would mean that He’s already responded to her cry. So, why does Jesus seemingly ignore her and push against her request? He’s stretching her faith. Faith is a lot like taffy … the more you stretch it, the more you get.

This is the second time in the book of Matthew that someone called Jesus the Son of David, but only the first time that it was used as a declaration of faith. The first time was in chapter twelve when the crowd questioned whether He could be the Messiah. They were reacting to His healing of a demon possessed man …

Matthew 12:23 And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”

Let me point something out to you. In chapter twelve, the Jewish crowd questioned whether Jesus was the Messiah after seeing the healing. Here, in the middle of chapter fifteen, a Gentile woman proclaims Jesus as the Messiah … but she does so before the healing. Does faith come before or after the miracle? I guess it can come on either side, but I would say that faith that comes before the miracle is much more stable than faith that comes after the miracle. The danger is that we begin to chase miracles. Israel would do that, becoming hungry for the miracles but missing the Messiah. Today, people do the same thing … From an image of Mary they imagine in the crooked lines of cracked paint on their wall, to an image of Jesus on a potato chip or burnt into their toast, to weeping statues. It all becomes a very weak bridge to the next big thing … chasing after stuff … seeking out the spectacle. Some people witness something they consider amazing and then spend their whole life chasing after miracles, signs and wonders but miss Jesus and as soon as the spectacle is over, so is their faith.