Thoughts for the Day

The Pharisees came and began to argue with Jesus, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’ And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

In John's Gospel the word 'sign' is used for the miracles that Jesus carries out, and in this little reading from Mark's Gospel, the Pharisees have come asking him for something similar. All Israel believed and many false Messiah's promised, that when the Messiah came he would carry out some earth shattering sign of his presence. Many thought he would divide the waters of the Jordan and create a pathway between for people to walk from one bank to the other, or else he would command the walls of Jerusalem to fall. In today's reading the Pharisees are testing Jesus to see what he will do to prove who he is.

I have always loved this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning - particularly as I fight God's plant, the blackberry, in our garden:

'Earth's crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.'

The Pharisees failed to see the evidence of God at work in the world - in the stars, in the face of a small child, in the glory of field - and they were too blind to see that the Messiah had come to save God's people.

Heavenly Father,
the Pharisees were too blind
to see who Your Son, our Lord, really was.
They failed to listen to his teaching,
to see that the blind were given sight,
the dumb could talk,
that lepers were healed,
and the dead were brought to life.
Help us to see the signs of Your presence
all around us
and rest secure in the knowledge
that You are always with us.
Amen.