In today's gospel we hear of Jesus healing someone possessed with an unclean spirit. Immediately those around him accuse him of being in league with the evil one. They were demanding to see signs that he was indeed from God, and not from the devil. They were demanding a sign from heaven to prove that he was of God.
Jesus points out the foolishness of their accusation that he drives out evil spirits though the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons. Jesus clearly points out that a kingdom divided against itself can't stand.
What's amazing about their demand to see a sign from heaven is the fact that all throughout his 3-year ministry he was healing people who were sick, there were other examples of Jesus expelling demons, plus feeding 5,000 people only with a couple of loafs of bread and a fish. These are all signs from heaven that for anyone who have eyes to see with. But for whatever reason, these people coming to him today have blinders on and continue to reject Jesus as the Messiah.
As we read this gospel, let us not be like those questioning Jesus and his motives for healing someone. Let us accept him for who he his: our Lord and Messiah. He'll be there for us in each of our difficulties to bring us the healing that we need. Jesus says in today's gospel, "Whoever is not with me is against me..." Let us always be WITH Jesus and turn to him in all our needs.
From Arlene B. Muller
ReplyDeleteAmen. JESUS is LORD, Savior, Messiah & the Incarnate GOD THE SON, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
I think, at least speaking for myself, what tempts us to have doubts & have difficulty putting our full trust in Our LORD is that He often does things differently than we think we want Him to act. In the days when He walked the earth, Our LORD did things that some people believed violated GOD'S Law, when actually He was only violating how human tradition was incorrectly interpreting GOD'S Law, such as many times when He healed people on the Sabbath, which scandalized some of the religious leaders.
In Isaiah 55 GOD tells us that His ways are not our ways & that His ways are so much higher than our ways: as high as the heavens are above the earth.
I know that I share the human tendency to desire to be in control & to want the LORD to fix situations in my life & the lives of others MY WAY. Sometimes GOD might choose an immediate healing or "quick fix" that makes us immediately happy, but at other times we run into various situations in life that are full of ups & downs. & what we experience is Our LORD helping us THROUGH instead of delivering us FROM! (Recall Isaiah 43: "when you pass THROUGH the fire, I will be with you...")We experience GOD'S help in every situation when we turn to Him & often we can see GOD'S hand in the unexpected small check that comes in the mail when our checking account is overdrawn, or our car breaking down less than a mile from our mechanic, a tow truck coming sooner than expected, a mechanic staying at work after hours so our car can be taken care of the next day, & a wonderful friend who responds by providing us with more generous help with the repair bill than we requested or even imagined! Sometimes we still have a few situations that seem desperate at the same time & we don't know the way out of them & we experience extreme stress. But if we turn to the LORD in prayer--even if sometimes in our anxious state of mind the only prayer we can utter is "HELP!" , Our LORD will point the way to help us & we can see His hand of blessing, even though we don't have the "quick fix" or "instant cure" that would take our troubles totally away.