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?


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