Seeing Is Believing
Friday, Fifth Week of Lent
Good Afternoon, dear reader! Today, we are again seeing the theme of words and deeds. If our words and deeds don’t match up, then people feel no confidence in you. You absolutely need to “walk the walk and talk the talk”.
We see, in today’s first reading, that the prophet Jeremiah is speaking out against those who have persecuted him. He is aware of the fact that his supposed friends are always waiting for him to make a mistake, to find some fault. He warns his detractors that God may come down to exact His revenge. Notice how he says MAY. That one little word will make them wonder. This is not a direct threat. It’s more of a passive-aggressive statement. I believe that Jeremiah also phrased it this way because he knew that it was not up to him to judge or punish these people. God may come to punish…. or He may not… are you willing to risk it?! lol
When we look at todays Gospel, we see it is similar to our last few readings in this book. The Jews are mad, they think that Jesus is committing blasphemy for saying He is the Son of God or God incarnate. It seems no matter where Jesus goes, these people just don’t understand. Jesus tries to tell them that it’s fine if they don’t want to believe His words, but look at the things He has done “If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe Me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe Me, believe the works” (Jn 10:37–38, NAB). This is clearly a case of seeing is believing.
Once again, the Jews try to arrest Jesus, and once again He avoids it, as it is still not His time to be captured. After all this, Jesus decides to go to the river where John the Baptist baptised Him. He again encounters more people. They tell Jesus that even though John did not perform any sort of miracles, the things he said about Jesus were true, so this Jesus is the real thing. Again, a case of seeing is believing.
Sometimes it’s hard trusting in people, especially if they say one thing and do something else. How can you actually believe what they say? We see this so much in the world today. Promises are made, rhetoric abounds. It is up to us to discern whether or not they will live up to the things they say. We need to decide based on reputation and past actions if they can be trusted. It’s a sort of slippery slope.
However, we as Christians know that faith comes from believing in what we cannot see. But, God gave us the ultimate sign that we CAN believe….the empty tomb. We know that God lived up to His word. We can believe all that was prophesied in the Old Testament, we saw it play out in the New Testament. We saw it played out on the cross. Because of this, we know that we can trust in everything God does and everything He promises us.
Be blessed, dear reader. And, as always…. be a nice human. 😇
Father Bill’s reflection on today’s readings:
“What Faith Can Do” Kutless:
Check out the Everyday Faith blog:
