As we read the Gospels, the portrait of Jesus that unfolds is one of a gentle, compassionate man and a mighty, sovereign God. To give more weight to His humanity than His divinity is to have an inaccurate picture of Jesus the Christ, our Lord. As we seek Him today, may we seek all of Him. May we long to know Him fully and accurately, not simply chasing, as some have, after those things with which we hope He will provide us. Shusaku Endo, in his work, A Life of Jesus, captures the limitations of such a search:
The copious miracle stories in the Synoptic Gospels as well as in John bring home to us the sad fact that the crowd sought nothing more than the threadbare question of whether Jesus did or did not perform the miracles. Behind these miracle stories we sense the lonely figure of Jesus himself, standing quietly in the crowd of people demanding nothing but corporeal wonders.
Jesus did not reject these kinds of sick and crippled people. On the contrary, the Gospels clearly relate how with his disciples he went to the valley of the lepers, whom other people detested, and how he visited the hovel of a man who suffered the agonies of malaria. The lepers in those days used to shave their heads, they wore distinctive dress, and they were put away at a distance from any towns or villages. They called out a warning when anybody approached. Jesus walked through the mountain coves and the gullies where these forsaken lepers were forced to live. He wanted to restore their healthy bodies. He wanted to restore to the blind the use of their eyes. He wanted to make the lame walk. He wanted to bring back a lost child to a bereaved mother.
But a look of sadness came to his eyes when he could not do it. He held the hand of a leper, or a lame man, and he pleaded earnestly his desire to take upon himself their misery and pain. He asked for a share in their suffering, a chance to be partners with them. But the lepers and the cripples were hoping only to be healed. They came pleading to Jesus: "Cure us! Cure us!"
What are we to make of these exclamations of Jesus, which the Gospels have left us along with the miracle narratives? "You seek for a sign, but no sign shall be given except the sign of the sign of the prophet Jonah" (Matthew 12:39). "Why does this generation ask for a sign?" (Mark 8:12). "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe" (John 4:48). "Blessed are those who have not seen me and yet believe" (John 20:29).
The realistic pathos in these words of Jesus, preserved for us in the Gospels, comes from the fact that the people appearing before him were looking not for "love" but for signs and wonders. They wanted only quick and tangible benefits.
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