The chief priests and the Pharisees
convened the Sanhedrin and said,
“What are we going to do?
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.” (Jn 11:47-48)
Signs and wonders can be a great thing. Signs and wonders can also be a very confusing thing or a frustrating thing, especially when the signs and wonders happen to someone else, rather than to ourselves. Jesus spent a good part of his adult ministry doing good works for so many people. His signs and wonders, though, were not always the unifying reality that so many of us would think.
Instead, a lot of people saw His signs and wonders as a problem. The chief priests and Pharisees in today’s Gospel were particularly concerned. They were afraid that Jesus’ signs and wonders were going to be a rallying force for the majority of the Jews. If that happened, Rome would surely bring their power down upon the Jews in order to maintain control.
Instead of seeing the glory of God in Jesus’ signs and wonders, all the chief priests and Pharisees could see was trouble on the horizon. They viewed Jesus and His works as a major threat to their peace. Many people demanded signs and wonders from Jesus in order to test Him, as well. They wanted Him to prove Himself as the Son of God.
We should not do that to our God. Yet, there are many times in our lives that we seem to engage in the same behavior. We test the Lord. We task the Lord with certain signs in order that we might believe. We set out, in effect, to make God prove to us that He is God.
FAITH ACTION: Many people came to the Lord demanding all sorts of signs in order to prove that He came from God. Do we demand of the Lord as well? Is our faith so weak that we have to have signs from Him? Let us echo the words of the father of the possessed boy when he asked Jesus to help his son: “I do believe, help my unbelief!”
Kindly pray for our eighth grade parishioners who are being Confirmed this morning. May the Holy Spirit rush upon them and strengthen their faith!