Where are we???

Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. (Matthew 15:29-31 ESV) Reading quickly and casually, passages like this seem to repeat themselves over and over again in the gospels. On the one hand, that is a good thing: Jesus consistently performed miracles that amazed, bringing glory to God. But after awhile, we might ask: "Why waste the writing space?" Since the gospel writers picked and chose a small selection of events from thousands they had to choose from, why chose to repeat the same thing over and over. Because there IS something different here that is significant, that we need to wait until the very last phrase to find: "they glorified the God of Israel." Jesus is no longer in Israel. These people are Gentiles. For the disciples the experience is old hat, but this is a whole new group of people, who had heard about this Jesus from the other side of the lake, who has now come to them. It is no longer second hand experience; they can now see for themselves.