Eighth Saturday of Ordinary Time

“By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I shall ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.” They discussed this among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?”– they feared the crowd, for they all thought John really was a prophet. So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.”

We cannot hedge our bets when it comes to God. We either believe or don’t. We might have doubts, but in the end we either choose to let God help our unbelief and allow ourselves to believe… or we turn our backs on God. Each of us must answer this question for ourselves: Was Jesus’ teachings and baptism of heavenly or human origin? If we believe the latter, then we set aside God and simply see Jesus as at best a decent man or at worst a charlatan. If, however, we choose to believe Jesus came down from Heaven, then we must also accept his teachings whether we agree with them or not. There is no cafeteria in Heaven where we can pick and choose our beliefs, there is only one banquet that everyone partakes from… made up of the fruits of the Truth, the Way, and the Life. We might not understand or like the taste of some of these fruits, but they are given to us out of love and we would do well to accept them because they come from God, Who loves us.

By what authority did Jesus live his life? What do we truly believe about the origins of his power? How can we show God that we believe in Him, even if there are certain aspects of the faith we have difficulties accepting?

O Lord, we believe, help our unbelief.

Amen.