Asking Questions
13 October 2017
It is a good thing to question. We should question the credibility of anyone whose authority we are accepting.
However, when the people question Jesus’ authority over evil in today’s gospel reading, we get the impression that they did so as a way of avoiding the truth, rather than finding it. The answer that they were fearing had implications that they did not want to face – if Jesus truly had God’s authority then they had to listen to him.
It is a human tendency to want to avoid the difficult questions, but it is a human tendency that we need to work against. Today’s society makes it very easy for us to distract ourselves with busy lives and 24-hour entertainment. We need to consciously make time to listen to our own questions.
Do I really believe that Jesus has God’s authority?
If this is true, then what does that mean for my life?
Do I really believe that, if I find myself in the power of something that I know is not good and right, Jesus has the ability to free me from that?
Ruth Burrows, a Carmelite nun, wrote in her book “To Believe in Jesus”:
It is one thing to give an intellectual assent to the truth of Jesus and to his role in our lives, quite another to believe in him, or on him, as an older translation aptly has it – that is, to make him and him alone the ground on which we stand, the vantage point from which we view all things, make all judgments and choices.
How would your life look different if you really believed in Jesus?
>> Readings