I Wish it Were Me Instead of You

 

Matthew 15:21-28

“I wish it were me instead of you.” That is what my mother and father said when I was a kid and got the flu, measles, mumps, chicken pox, pneumonia or any other disease that kept me in bed and out of school for any length of time. “I wish it were me instead of you.”

I always wondered why mom and dad said that when I was a kid. As I grew up and older, their words showed me that parents are willing to do anything, even exchange circumstances, so that their sons and daughters do not have to suffer.

That’s the case in our Gospel today as the Canaanite mother of a young girl who suffered from something evil. She went to Jesus and addressed him as Lord and Son of David. She got down on her knees and begged Jesus to help her.

This mother, like every mother, loved her daughter and wanted a better life for her. This believer, like every believer, begged the Lord Jesus to help her.

It’s good to keep in mind how practical the Gospel is. We cannot do everything for ourselves. Where science and medicine fail, as they sometimes do, love, faith and grace are necessary to save us from evil, sickness and eternal death.

Our God is a loving God, and like our parents, wants the best for us. He wants us to be loving, believing, forgiving and kind. If you’re a child, thank God, your mother, and your father for making life better for you, by loving you and the Lord. If you’re a parent, remind your sons and daughters how much you love them. As a family, I encourage you to pray together and stay together.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named: Bless all children, and give their fathers and mothers the spirit of wisdom and love, so that the homes in which they grow up may be to them an image of Your Kingdom, and the care of their parents a likeness of Your love. We pray in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.