Reflection On Mark 8: 11-13
There is a proverb which states, “There are none so blind as
those who won’t see.” It means if your
mind is set on one direction, it will be almost impossible to convince you of
something different. Such is the frame of mind of the Pharisees concerning
Jesus. When they approach Him and ask for a sign from heaven, their mind is
already made up that Jesus is fake. Their intention is to expose Him as such
and thus to undermine his authority and even hopefully, to completely discredit
Him and have Him lose popular support.
The Pharisees were the perennial negative critics of Jesus.
They were the many little crosses He had to accept and carry every day prior to
His big cross. Notice how they boldly stepped forward here and immediately
started to argue with Jesus. They refused to take the Lord’s words at face
value. They claimed a sign from the heavens would enable them to place their
faith in the Lord, but Jesus knew that even the most spectacular signs would
not convince them to accept him as the promised Messiah and certainly not as
the Son of God, equal to the Father. The only sign they received from Jesus was
that of a frustrated sigh, from the depths of His spirit. A sigh is the
expression of a deep audible breath. It often implies a kind of hopelessness in
a certain situation. Then the Lord simply boarded the boat and left. We cannot
answer every question to the satisfaction of every person. Some don’t really
want to know what we think, they just want to argue. We have all been in those
situations where there’s not much we can do except, like Jesus, give a sigh and
say, “Good bye, I’ve got to catch a boat.”
Suppose, even if the Pharisees accepted Jesus upon
witnessing a spectacular public display of power, what value would such a faith
have? It would not be a free homage of the mind, a free gift of oneself, but
the terrified groveling of a slave at the feet of a tyrant. God wants to
respect our freedom totally. God does not want puppets; instead He wants sons
and daughters.
Question
Yourself:
What is my
attitude towards Jesus?
Do I faith
in the Lord or seek miracle?
Do my thoughts prevent me invoke God’s assistance?
prosatbi_taSalt Lake City Mary Walton https://wakelet.com/wake/sdzmFLSoFlfyGJsNyUL4c
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