Monday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, February 13, 2023

Mark 8, 11-13

The Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. He sighed from the depth of his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” Then he left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other shore.

“A sign from heaven.”  Despite the abundant signs on earth which showed Almighty God’s approval of the Lord Jesus, the Pharisees sought a “sign” from heaven.  We can only speculate what sort of sign they wanted from heaven.  We can be sure, though, that no sign would have sufficed to prove  to them that Jesus was the Son of God.  To this point the Pharisees had seen him cast out demons and instantaneously heal every kind of sick or paralyzed person.  They may have heard stories of how he fed large crowds and calmed storms.  

The Pharisees were looking for something very different from Jesus of the son of Mary, the carpenter of Nazareth: “This is the son of man who has righteousness, with whom dwells righteousness, and who reveals all the treasures of that which is hidden, because the Lord of the spirits has chosen him, and whose lot has the pre-eminence before the Lord of the spirits in uprightness for ever. This son of man whom you have seen shall raise up the kings and the mighty from their seats and the strong from their thrones, and shall loosen the reins of the strong and break the teeth of the sinners.”  This passage is from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which was probably written by a Pharisee.  It illustrates how the Pharisees expected the Messiah to arrive on earth already glorified, and not healing the miserable, helpless sick and lame beggars, but deposing and appointing kings.  While the Book of Enoch was not included in the Hebrew Scriptures read in the synagogues, it made for a very popular and influential work.  It serves us today in revealing what so many people were awaiting, and helps us to understand how they got the Messiah so wrong.  They were expecting a powerful outward appearance, not powerful works of love.

“He sighed from the depth of his spirit.”  The Lord comes before them as one who would provide them with every good thing but they only want a cheap show.  We can also see this as a refusal to a prayer.  In this case, the Pharisees possessed no faith in him, and they were also asking in bad faith.  St. Philip asks for something like this at the Last Supper: “Lord, shew us the Father; and it is enough for us” (John 14, 8), which the Lord also declined to do, though pointing out that anyone who saw him saw the Father.

If we appreciate the great works the Lord performed long ago and which he continues to perform through the Sacraments and through the prayers of his holy ones, then we will see great things in time to come, in his good time, not on our schedule: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you shall see the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1, 51).