(Audio)
What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
The crowds had already seen signs Jesus had performed on the sick. They followed him because of them and thus were present to experience the multiplication of the loaves. Yet the crowd proved insatiable. One sign only increased there appetite for an even greater one. Humanly speaking, they probably had their reasons for this. Jesus had said that he was the one of whom Moses had written, the one about whom he said a "prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kindred; that is the one to whom you shall listen" (see Deuteronomy 18:15). While Jesus did not come to abolish the law (see Matthew 5:17) the way in which he fulfilled it revealed him taken upon himself a greater authority than that of Moses, an authority equal, in fact, to the one from whom Moses received the law.
You have heard that it was said ... But I tell you (see Matthew 5:21-48)
In fairness, belief in this one who spoke with the voice of the lawgiver, who not only healed disease but forgave sins, was not something that could be conceded lightly. To that end, the crowd wanted to test how Jesus compared to Moses.
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
The crowd asked for bread from heaven and yet Jesus had in fact already given bread to the crowds and they did not believe. To validate a categorically different truth than the authority of Moses the sign itself would also need to be of a different kind.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
There are signs of the sort which humans can devour, which titillate curiosity and play into argumentation, but which do not satisfy in a lasting way. They are consumed, motivate us for passing moments, but leave us fundamentally undecided, still wanting more. This is no slight to the signs themselves. It is rather we who desire to make more of the signs than they are meant to offer. We sometimes prefer to to focus on such signs when the one who is himself the revelation of the Father is in our midst.
“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.”
Jesus wanted to give a sign that could finally satisfy. This sign was his life, his crucifixion and resurrection, and especially his own flesh and blood given in the Eucharist. These events together comprised one sign, validated by the Father. It was a sign which was no longer something external to us, something that would simply pass through us. Instead, it was a sign we could receive into our very selves and so sate our desires on the one who alone could satisfy them. The other signs could only point to this sign. What else would healing mean if the recipient would die once more? What else would feeding the crowds mean if they would hunger again? Only with Jesus himself would they finally find rest.
Stephen was an example of one who was so sated with Jesus that the world have nothing to offer him, nothing that could dissuade his absolute fidelity to his call to follow him.
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
Stephen may seem like an outlier, but we are all meant to be as conformed to Christ as he. We too can fix our gaze on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (see Hebrews 12:2), and so have the strength we need to be faithful in the face of trials. We too can have within us the same power to forgive that Jesus, alive in Stephen, empowered.
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”;
We too, sated on the bread of life, the bread which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote to death (see Letter of Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians, Chapter 20), can finally and confidently entrust everything into the hands of the one who loved us first.
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
No comments:
Post a Comment