What sign you are looking for?

Good News Reflection
Monday of the 28th Week of Ordinary Time
October 11, 2010

Today's Readings:
Gal 4:22-24,26-27,31--5:1
Ps 113:1b-7
Luke 11:29-32
http://www.usccb.org/nab/101110.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_10_11.mp3

What sign you are looking for?

What kind of sign do you need so that you can feel assured that your prayers will be answered?

Reflecting on today's first reading, let's remember why Abraham had two sons. God had promised him ONE son, born by his wife, Sarah. But Sarah laughed at that idea, because the signs of her aged body told her that she was long past fertility. Then as time went by without a miraculous pregnancy, both Sarah and Abraham took this as a sign that God wanted the baby to be born by human means, i.e., through Sarah's handmaid, Hagar.

This decision caused rivalry and animosity between Abraham's two sets of descendants. Four thousand years later, the Middle East is still suffering the repercussions of this decision. (Hagar bore Ishmael, who married an Egyptian woman, according to the Bible. According to the Arabs, he also married a daughter of Sheik Mudad, who bore Adnan, the ancestor of Mohammed, the founder of Islam.) Muslims and Jews have been fighting each other throughout history. What if Abraham and Sarah had continued to wait for God to fulfill his promise, instead of taking matters into their own hands?

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus says, "This is an evil age. It seeks a sign." Why are signs evil? Because we invent our own signs. We see signs that are not really signs.

What help from God are you still awaiting? What resolution to a problem, what new job, what reconciled relationship? Jesus says that HE is the sign that we are given. And he is enough! He is the one who is "greater than Jonah".

The sign of Jonah was his emergence from the belly of the giant fish after three days. Jonah's mission after getting spewed onto the beach (and presumably after cleaning himself up a bit) was to call the Ninevites to repentance. Jesus emerged from the belly of the earth at the end of his three-day ordeal. His resurrection calls the whole world to repentance.

Here is the sign we are given, and it's the only sign that really matters: Since God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, of course he will also give us the new life that we need. Of course he will provide the right resolution to our problems, the job that's right for us, or the reconciled relationships when the time is right. We fail to notice this sign, however, when we're busy watching for other signs. We make ourselves miserable and frustrated by trusting in what we see instead of keeping our eyes on Jesus.

The storms in our lives could be as huge as a hurricane, but if we look for Jesus instead of signs that the storm is abating, we find him in the eye of the storm. The moment we pull away from him, we hit the hurricane's eye wall and it blows off our feet. Keep your eyes on Jesus!

© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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