The Lord is just, and his justice is impartial. We too are exhorted to be just and impartial by the apostle James in his letter. Not conferring special honours to one, while denying others the dignity due to them and to all. That is not the example that Christ has left us with.
Today’s Gospel demonstrates this for us first by the locations encountered: Tyre, Sidon, the Decapolis. Although nearby, these are not Israelite territory but Gentile. Jesus may be showing his impartiality in another manner also, in whom he is dealing with in these territories. That is possibly to Gentiles, not fellow Israelites.
“Here is your God” proclaims Isiah – pointing to the fact that all that follows is not only God’s promise to be carried out, but that it will be conducted by God himself. This passage reminds of me of another. Pilate proclaiming as he presents Jesus to the crowds, “Behold the man!” Both are true in the person of Christ, and we see both present in the Gospel. He demonstrates his divinity by acting in the person of God himself, in fulfilling his promises made which we have heard in the prophet Isiah, and his true, bodily humanity in the way he performs this healing.
However, unlike other healers who acted similarly at the time, Jesus then instructs them not to tell of it. He is not seeking any attention, anything for himself or another motive, but only the glory of God. As he says elsewhere, he is looking to find and establish true worshipers of God, “in spirit and in truth” – another line of Jesus elsewhere to a non-Israelite.
This theme of Jesus sometimes conforming to the norms of his time and place and yet simultaneously turning them on their head is constant in his life. Like his impartiality, it demonstrates the inexhaustible mystery of God. This helps prepare us for the upcoming Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The cross, which was not only a sign, but the reality of defeat and death has been absolutely transformed and established as the sign and reality of victory and of eternal life.
– Aaron Neiva