In the Gospel of Mark, there is a story of the Pharisees approaching Jesus and asking him for a sign. Mark indicates that they were wanting to test him, but I’ve always thought that what they were really looking for was some evidence. “You claim to be the Messiah—where’s the proof? Show us a sign!”
If that’s the case, then the Pharisees are in good company, because who among us has not asked God for a sign? “You tell me, God, that you love me and that you are watching over me. Could you please show me something that would prove it?”
One of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner, once imagined a scenario in which God did just that. Let’s suppose, said Buenchner, that one night God rearranged the stars in the Milky Way to spell out the words: “I Really Exist … Signed God.” What would happen?
Buechner concluded that the following Sunday worship services would be filled to capacity. In fact, they would overflow into stadiums and open fields. A kind of hush would settle on the world—but only for awhile. And then things would slowly return to normal—because as that message burned on in the night sky, week after week and year after year, people would eventually begin to take it for granted. In time, the world would look up and see the message, and say, “So what?”
I think Buechner is precisely right ... and he’s right in two respects. In the first place, it is the nature of holiness to be absorbed into the background. For example, if tonight, you were look up into the vast Milky Way, there is a message of God written there. But we have seen it so often that we have become blind to it. The wonder of it has been absorbed into our assumptions, so that it now takes a special vision to see it.
But Buechner is right in another respect as well. The question “So what?” is the appropriate one because, if that is the only message there is—that somewhere, out there in the universe, God exists—then frankly, that’s not the sign we need. The sign we need is to know that there is a God who is right here beside us, a God who is willing to draw close enough to enter into a relationship with us. That’s the sign we need. And in the person of Jesus Christ, that’s the sign we get.
The irony of this passage from the Gospel of Mark is that the Pharisees were asking Jesus for a sign—and he was the sign! God sent the only Son to be a part of our lives—what greater proof of God’s love could we possibly want?
If that’s the case, then the Pharisees are in good company, because who among us has not asked God for a sign? “You tell me, God, that you love me and that you are watching over me. Could you please show me something that would prove it?”
One of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner, once imagined a scenario in which God did just that. Let’s suppose, said Buenchner, that one night God rearranged the stars in the Milky Way to spell out the words: “I Really Exist … Signed God.” What would happen?
Buechner concluded that the following Sunday worship services would be filled to capacity. In fact, they would overflow into stadiums and open fields. A kind of hush would settle on the world—but only for awhile. And then things would slowly return to normal—because as that message burned on in the night sky, week after week and year after year, people would eventually begin to take it for granted. In time, the world would look up and see the message, and say, “So what?”
I think Buechner is precisely right ... and he’s right in two respects. In the first place, it is the nature of holiness to be absorbed into the background. For example, if tonight, you were look up into the vast Milky Way, there is a message of God written there. But we have seen it so often that we have become blind to it. The wonder of it has been absorbed into our assumptions, so that it now takes a special vision to see it.
But Buechner is right in another respect as well. The question “So what?” is the appropriate one because, if that is the only message there is—that somewhere, out there in the universe, God exists—then frankly, that’s not the sign we need. The sign we need is to know that there is a God who is right here beside us, a God who is willing to draw close enough to enter into a relationship with us. That’s the sign we need. And in the person of Jesus Christ, that’s the sign we get.
The irony of this passage from the Gospel of Mark is that the Pharisees were asking Jesus for a sign—and he was the sign! God sent the only Son to be a part of our lives—what greater proof of God’s love could we possibly want?
posted by Dr. Robert Crilley at
10:49 PM
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