Why does this generation demand a sign?

Mark 8:11-13

The Pharisees came up and started a discussion with Jesus; they demanded of him a sign from heaven, to test him. And with a sigh that came straight from the heart he said, ‘Why does this generation demand a sign? I tell you solemnly, no sign shall be given to this generation.’ And leaving them again and re-embarking, he went away to the opposite shore.

Food for thought

Sometimes we get used to the ordinary, and we begin to take the ordinary for granted, and then start to look for the extraordinary, the abnormal and the sensational. We do this even with God. The people in the Gospel reading of today came to Jesus and demanded “a sign from heaven.”

When the Pharisees came to Jesus and demanded something extraordinary, something uncommon, they were looking for some ABNORMAL event that defies the laws of nature; something to entertain themselves with. To Jesus such a demand was not due to the desire to see the hand of God at work; it was due to the fact that they were blind to the hand of God at work in him. They forgot, as we do often, that God is everywhere and in every event of life: "In him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28)

Do you see God's hand at work in your life, or in the life others? Or you see your life as a mess without meaning, without sense? Or you are able to see meaning and sense and the hand of God at work in your life? To Jesus the whole world is full of God's presence; the corn in the field, the leaven in the loaf, the grass on the hillside, the new born baby all speak of God. Jesus did not think that God had to break in from outside the world; he knew that God was already in the world for anyone who had eyes to see.

Someone once said, "Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries." This poet was referring to Moses and the burning bush. Why does anyone ask a sign from God when morning after morning he or she wakes up from sleep alive, when everyday the sun arises, each night the stars appear, each morning the thirsty grass is wet with dew; the corn fails not its harvest, nor the air stops to blow. Imagine what would happen to the airplanes if all the air stopped blowing, what would happen to you and me if all the air disappeared? From him who has eyes to see and a heart to understand, the daily miracle of night and day and the daily splendour of all common things are enough sign from God.