Wednesday - Pentecost 4
Readings
Ecclesiastes 9:11-18
Galatians 5:1-15
Matthew 16:1-12
Meditation
Proof, signs, give me something I can see, taste, touch, smell or hear. Then I will know. But proof often deceives us, or even more common we want more of it. We shouldn’t downplay those things, Jesus didn’t. In Matthew’s narrative Jesus has been all around the region of Judea and Samaria and Galilee and even into the gentile regions of Tyre and Sidon. Jesus has been working miracles. These signs are what Jesus gave to John the Baptist as proof he was the Messiah (Matt 11:4-6). But here we have the Sadducees and the Pharisees demanding a sign. Did they miss the earlier ones? Do they not believe the crowds who witnessed them? More likely they were thinking, “we are the important people Jesus. We are the people your little movement needs to convince. Show us a sign.” The Kingdom of Heaven is for the poor in spirit. Those demanding signs, see the sign of Jonah, the cross. It is only through the humbleness of the cross that we get the resurrection. The Sadducees and Pharisees got their sign, but it became a stumbling block - the messiah can’t be crucified!?! But to those perishing, those lost and who recognize their condition, the cross becomes the humble gateway to resurrection.
May we all see the proof and may the Word keep us safe in a resurrection faith.
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