That Critical Word "unless" Series

Monday of 4th Week in Lent 2021

One of the most contemptible features of our modern culture shows up today in the Gospel of John. Jesus tells this petitioner: “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The man repeats his request for Jesus to come from where he was in Cana to Capernaum on Lake Tiberias. He thought that Jesus would either make that rather long journey downhill or refuse. But Jesus had a third option. He simply says: “Go on; your son will live.” But the official was not disappointed. The critical phrase is “he believed the word that Jesus had spoken.” Like God in the beginning of time, when He spoke the words “let there be light” and there was light, Jesus spoke the words and the man believed. That was the first sign–faith in the official. On his way, he saw his servants coming toward him. I think the natural reaction of most men would be to cringe in fear that they were going to tell him the boy was dead. Nothing of that here. They gave him the happy news, and all the official did was ask when the healing began. That was the second sign. The healing began with the word of Jesus, just as if the Lord had come down to Capernaum. Indeed, the way Jesus performed the sign was best, because the boy may have died waiting for His presence. Isn’t it true that when we ask Jesus for some favor, His timing is always flawless? Sometimes we find an immediate result. Other times we have to wait–maybe a long time.

But let’s reflect on that phrase, “unless you see signs and wonders.” Our modern culture has largely drifted into atheism. We were watching the original Star Trek series from the 1960s recently, and commented on the number of times, especially in the final episodes, when divine realities are acknowledged. There was even one scene where the Son of God was explicitly spoken of. Now I doubt that any of that was particularly high theology, but it was there. Today if you hear the words “Jesus Christ” in a show, it’s likely to be in some kind of oath or exclamation or even curse.

Why? I suspect the total disregard or even hatred shown the Word of God in modern cultural and entertainment venues has to do with our culture’s hedonistic obsessions. It’s preoccupied with having license for all kinds of sexual perversions, and on acquiring the power necessary to prevent any societal strictures on their various moral addictions. Often it comes along with a disbelief in God, who is the ultimate arbiter in moral questions. We see this more recently even in the U.S. Congress. One U.S. representative literally said, "the will of God is not the concern of this Congress." We need to pray for those who are so afflicted, and their enablers, because they are taking our society down a demonic path, wide and bound for ultimate horror.

No, Isaiah and Jesus are in perfect agreement about what will bring human individuals, families and societies to happiness. It’s nothing found in mere material pleasures or human power or honor. Happiness, as all the wise persons have taught for thousands of years, lies beyond what St. John calls “lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and pride of life.” Happiness consists in looking on other humans as worthy of the highest goodness, God, and helping them to achieve that wonderful end.

Isaiah calls this state “new heavens and new earth.” St. John in Revelations uses the same language as Jesus’s goal for creation. Jerusalem, which in Isaiah’s time was a place of strife and sin and foreign oppression, would be made new. Sounds of weeping and cries of distress would be unnecessary, foreign to the inhabitants. How is this? Revelations told the early Christians exactly how. All the inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem would center their worship on God through the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. All of those called saints would renounce their sinful lives and follow the Lamb wherever He goes, even to martyrdom. That’s happened for two thousand years.

When we come here, we are partaking in a foretaste of that heavenly wedding banquet predicted by Isaiah and seen in vision by John. We share the living Body and Blood of the Lamb, memorialized in what looks like simple bread and wine. But just as Jesus did the impossible, healing a dying child over many kilometers, Jesus can heal us, feed us, and embrace us in a love that we must be eager to share with all we know. His loving ministration is the only way out for individuals, families, and this selfish culture. We pray that we have the courage to witness to His abiding love.