Did Jesus Redeem Mankind? — Page 159
159 patient recovered). She had heard that the Messiah cast out devils. Once she saw the Messiah going somewhere and ran after him shouting and calling him the holy one of God, that he might come and cast out the devil from her daughter. . But the Messiah would not pay her any heed, for, the woman was of the Gentiles. She nevertheless, continued crying after him and begging of him to save her child from the devil. . When the disciples saw the woman thus crying after him, they besought him saying the woman was coming after him crying from a long distance begging that he cast the devil out of her daughter. The Messiah thereupon said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel", (Matthew, ch. 15:24). . The Messiah thereby meant that his principal mission was to preach to the ten tribes of the house of Israel that had been lost and to re-establish them in their faith. It appears that through revelation the prophets had learnt that these tribes had forgotten their own faith through contact with foreign race and were no longer observing the Mosaic law and God had willed that they be reclaimed to their own faith. The term 'lost sheep' connotes that they were not only apparently gone away to foreign lands but that they had also imbibed the influence of alien faiths and were thus lost physically as well as spiritually. It is therefore that the Messiah said that no sign would be shown to the Jews but the sign of the Prophet. Jonah that that would be his biggest sign. He had likewise stressed that his main mission was to gather together the lost sheep of Israel. To the same effect is a statement of the. Messiah occurring in St. John: "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (St. John, ch. 10:16).