Here's Your Sign

Today's readings:  Psalms 46 or 47; 147:12-2, Isaiah 59:15b-2, Revelation 2:8-17, John 4:46-54

Today's reading from the Gospel of John tells the story of Jesus' second miracle, or sign. When a Roman official asks Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his dying son, Jesus tells the man to go home and his son will live. Just as Jesus promises, the man's son recovers and the man and his whole household become believers. However, it's what Jesus says before he sends the man away that is quite telling: “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” (John 4:48)

Jesus does not seemed excited about performing this sign. Nor was he enthused

about his mother pressuring him into his first sign, when he changed water into wine at a wedding banquet. His miracles are often accompanied by aggravating circumstances: the disciples don't believe he can feed a multitude with a few loaves and fishes ... for the second time;  his closest friends doubt him even as he raises Lazarus from the dead; Peter' doubt causes him to sink beneath the waves when Christ helps him walk across the water. Christ hopes for faith that doesn't depend on miracles, yet sometimes he resigns himself to the "necessary evil" of providing a sign.

Many of us have hoped for signs. Who couldn't use a little reassurance now and then? But the real measure of our faith is what we do in the absence of signs. How pleasing must it have been for Christ when peopled followed him not because of what he could do for them, but because of who he was and what he taught? The second time the disciples presented him with loaves and fishes, he commanded them to feed the crowd themselves, and they were successful. Faith is not just believing in what Christ can do for us, but in trusting that he will accomplish miraculous things through us.

Evening readings:  Psalms 27; 93 or 114