7 May 2019 - into your hands

Today's Readings

(Audio)

What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?

We often put Jesus to the test with questions that are similar to this. We don't really need them for faith. In fact, Jesus just miraculously multiplied the loaves in this same chapter of John. The crowd isn't so interested in Jesus as they are in the possibility to have a ready supply of bread. Wouldn't it be nice if provisions were so miraculously provided that their labor was no longer required? Thus might have begun a thought spiral that goes as follows. Jesus did do a thing that would make life easier. He could keep doing it for me. Therefore he should. Therefore if he is truly God he will. So the soul without the fear of God is given to think.

For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.

Jesus does not simply deny the crowd. He does not utterly reject their desires. Rather he explains that their natural desires are meant to point toward higher and more supernatural ones.

So they said to Jesus,
"Sir, give us this bread always." 
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

The followers of Jesus have been some of the hungriest and thirstiest at times. One thinks of Maximilian Kolbe being starved in Auschwitz. Yet spiritually, he was among the most sated. He sang hymns of praise even in so dark as place as a concentration camp because his hidden food was Jesus Christ.

Stephen, similarly, depended more on Jesus than on himself. He was more interested to share heaven with him than to preserve himself on earth. Because this was his priority the vale between worlds became very thin for him even as he moved toward his goal.

But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit,
looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
and Stephen said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

Stephen was not so hungry for more mortal life that he was willing to change his story or proclaim anything other than the saving truth of Jesus. Yet this perspective didn't make him an enemy of those who rejected him. In fact, it connected him all the more profoundly with the one who was waiting to welcome him home. Through Jesus he was able to love even his enemies. So too can we.

"Lord, do not hold this sin against them";
and when he said this, he fell asleep.

A single line of a psalm that Stephen and Jesus both recited can serve us as well.

Into your hands I commend my spirit