Luke 9:7-9
Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening,
and he was greatly perplexed because some were saying,
“John has been raised from the dead”;
others were saying, “Elijah has appeared”;
still others, “One of the ancient prophets has arisen.”
But Herod said, “John I beheaded.
Who then is this about whom I hear such things?”
And he kept trying to see him.
and he was greatly perplexed because some were saying,
“John has been raised from the dead”;
others were saying, “Elijah has appeared”;
still others, “One of the ancient prophets has arisen.”
But Herod said, “John I beheaded.
Who then is this about whom I hear such things?”
And he kept trying to see him.
Reflection
Is seeing
believing? Do we have to witness
something happening with our eyes to know that it is true? Our answer might be
“Yes, we do to need see something to believe it.” Although when we finally see
whatever it is we are looking for, that particular instance becomes a fact, the
truth, something indisputable. We no longer have to decide whether or not we
want to believe it because we know the true outcome.
Is that why Herod
wanted to see Jesus? Did he need visual confirmation that he was real and that
the stories of the miracles he was preforming were actually true? Did he need
to make sure people were not mistaken Jesus for Elijah or even John the
Baptist, the man he himself beheaded? If he saw Jesus with his own eyes would
he then believe that he was the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary? Was his
pursuit to see Jesus driven by his desire to want to believe or was it derived
from the fact that he wanted to do whatever he could in his power to prove
Jesus could not be our Savior?
Regardless of Herod’s
answer to these questions, he was trying to come up with excuses so that he
could properly rationalize who Jesus was and what Jesus was doing.
The problem is that
you can not rationalize FAITH! We can and may be able to rationalize why
something may be either important or not so important to us, why we need
something now, or why it is ok to act in a certain way.
However, we can not
and we should not ever try to rationalize Jesus. The rationalization we would
do will not lead us to what we are looking for. Are minds can not imagine the
unimaginable; that’s why we have Faith! We should not need to know the answers to
these questions to believe, just as Herod should not have had to see Jesus to
believe. We, instead, need to believe because our Faith gives us the power to,
because we know the truth, have heard the truth, are present to the truth, and
will one day be witness of the truth, Jesus Christ!
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