Do you want a miracle today? Do you seek a deeper knowledge encounter with Jesus? Do you seek refuge from your enemies? Do you seek a better life, financial stability or career?Whatever you seek, you can get in the Lord, but are you ready to ‘pay the price’ or you want a quick fix to your problems? If you seek with the wrong intention from religion you get the wrong result, and vice versa. If this is difficult to understand read slowly…
John 2:13-25
Just before the Jewish Passover Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money-changers’ coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.’ Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: Zeal for your house will devour me. The Jews intervened and said, ‘What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?’ Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said. During his stay in Jerusalem for the Passover many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he gave, but Jesus knew them all and did not trust himself to them; he never needed evidence about any man; he could tell what a man had in him
POINTS FOR REFLECTION
1. Like the Jews, we all seek for signs one way or the other. Is it wrong to seek for signs you ask me? There’s nothing wrong asking God for a sign. Infact, the bible is laden with examples of persons or group of persons seeking signs as confirmation of God’s approval. In fact to canonise one a Saint in the church miracles obtained from God and attributed to the saint’s intercession is sought as a sign by the church as a confirmation that the person enjoys beatific vision of God. The only problem with seeking of signs is the intention: for what motives or the motivation for seeking signs?
2. Jesus knows the heart of all men: Jesus knew that many of those seeking signs are not doing in order to believe him, or increase in faith, but to satisfy their greed. Today people’s ears have grown dull to listen to sound doctrines, they want a QUICK FIX to their many problems rather than PERMANENT SOLUTIONS. And in order to satisfy gullible persons, many ministers fake it and today it has degenerated into what someone described as “Priestcraft and Pastorpreneur“- a concept developed to describe present day church as ‘money making ventures’ rather than a place of worship. In life there are no “quick fix buttons” but there are solutions to problems that comes gradually.
3. As was the case in the temple at Jerusalem, so it is today. The rate of gullibility, perversions, abuses in religious matters today is disservice to faith and the purpose of the church. A maxim says: cults strives where the church fails. Churches have lost their glory and turned into cults- some fetish secret cults where people gather for money-making rituals. They no longer preach repentance and conversion that brings lasting and permanent solutions to problems but prosperity and material increase, which encourages the capitalist environment we find ourselves, thereby creating (directly or indirectly) enthusiasms to be rich and successful.
4. You are God’s Temple! (1Cor 16,19). God no longer dwells only in the Temple at Jerusalem as the Jews thought, nor does God limit his presence in the Blessed Sacrament or sacramentals in the church. If Jesus comes into your life now what shall he be driving out? Remember he knows the heart of everyone. You can deceive men by saying ‘I have good intentions in my heart but you cannot deceive God, he will turn you over like the money changers and disgrace you.
TASK: Pray Psalm 139 now and understand that to be truly blessed Christian, you don’t need Signs, wonders and miracles before you believe. If you doubt me ask Apostle Thomas (John 20: 27-29) because in Jesus crucified, as St Paul says in 1 Cor 1:22-25, we have both Power, Wisdom and miracles- everything you need:
While the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here are we preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human.
The ultimate price is holiness, discipline and sacrifice
Amen. May God grant us the unflinching zeal to do right
Amen. GOD bless you
On point Fr. Well done
Thanks and may God bless you. Amen
Great reminder that it’s only in genuinely seeking Christ that we are fulfilled. It is surely only in Christ that I have permanent solution to life problems.
Thank you Fr.