"… What sign showest Thou to us, seeing that Thou doest these things?"[1] [John 2:18]
CHRIST IS RISEN!
This question the Jewish leaders asked Jesus after he routed the money changers out of the temple. It is a stupid question. They shouldn't be asking "what sign", instead they should be asking for forgiveness! The Lord had showed them a very personal sign, much like He would later do to the people of the Gergesenes[2]. Their greed blinded them to the blessing the Lord gave them; He exposed their sin and gave them an opportunity to repent. This was the sign!
Sins blind us to the signs the Lord is continually showing us. We also look for external signs, but the truest and most reliable signs are those that the Lord reveals to the heart. The rulers of Jesus' day truly are the fulfillment of the prophesy (an ongoing one, continually being fulfilled): "And with the elect man wilt Thou be elect, and with the perverse wilt Thou be perverse."[3] The Lord appeared to them to be a questionable person because or their personal perverseness – their pride, avarice and ambition. such sins, and all the rest of the vast panoply of human perverseness blinds us to the signs that God desires to reveal to the human heart.
If a myrrh streaming icon comes to the church, people who have not darkened the church door for a year or more will stream to it, with tears and supplications, and even be in a kind of ecstasy. After the icon travels to another place, they will go on to the rest of their mundane lives, missing the signs that God would give to them every Liturgy in the Eucharist, if they would bother to prepare themselves with expectation.
The greatest miracle and sign in our daily lives is the Eucharist, and it is of course, powerful because of the greatest external sign, the sign of Jonah[4]. This is all we need, if we are living real Christian lives.
Only a pure heart can see such signs. How many signs did we miss today?
Priest Seraphim Holland 2013 St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, McKinney, Texas
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[1] Our parish is being encouraged to read the Gospel of John during the Pentecostarion period. If we read 1/2 chapter a day plus the remainder (about 2 chapters) the day before Ascension, we will finish in forty days. On Bright Wednesday, the suggested reading is John 1:1-12, & Bright Thursday the rest of Chapter 2
This small essay is a prayerful meditation on some part of the "assigned" reading. REMEMBER – read the scripture to apply it to yourself. This is all important. There may be parts you do not understand, but there will always be something that touches your heart if you read it prayerfully.
If you have comments about this verse or another in this selection (John 2:1-12), please add them in the comments, or email them to me.
[2] In the region of the Gergesenes, the Lord expelled the demons form the two demoniacs and allowed them to go into a herd of swine (an animal considered unclean by the Jews), and they all rushed down a cliff into the sea and were drowned. Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39
[3] Psalm 17:26, Septuagint, Boston Psalter. I also love the way the KJV renders it, with that marvelous word "froward" – "With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward."
[4] The sign of Jonas is the resurrection: " Mat 12:38-40 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. (39) But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: (40) For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
"Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man" (2:23-25, the end of the reading).
When I get the signs that I wish and hope to see, I believe. But there are many signs that are placed in front of me that I choose to ignore because I do not like what they are telling me. I 'trust' when things are going the way I would like them to go. But genuine trust is believing in the Lord, obeying in faith, even when the signs are not those I wish to see and are pointing me in a direction I do not wish to go.