Do you not understand this parable?

Mark 4:1-20

Jesus began to teach by the lakeside, but such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there. The people were all along the shore, at the water’s edge. He taught them many things in parables, and in the course of his teaching he said to them, ‘Listen!, Imagine a sower going out to sow. Now it happened that, as he sowed, some of the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and sprang up straightaway, because there was no depth of earth; and when the sun came up it was scorched and, not having any roots, it withered away. Some seed fell into thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no crop. And some seeds fell into rich soil and, growing tall and strong, produced crop; and yielded thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.’ And he said, ‘Listen, anyone who has ears to hear!’

When he was alone, the Twelve, together with the others who formed his company, asked what the parables meant. He told them, ‘The secret of the kingdom of God is given to you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables, so that they may see and see again, but not perceive; may hear and hear again, but not understand; otherwise they might be converted and be forgiven.’

He said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the other parables? What the sower is sowing is the word. Those on the edge of the path where the word is sown are people who have no sooner heard it than Satan comes and carries away the word that was sown in them. Similarly, those who receive the seed on patches of rock are people who, when first they hear the word, welcome it at once with joy. But they have no root in them, they do not last; should some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, they fall away at once. Then there are others who receive the seed in thorns. These have heard the word, but the worries of this world, the lure of riches and all the other passions come in to choke the word, and so it produces nothing. And there are those who have received the seed in rich soil: they hear the word and accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’

Food for thought!

In today’s gospel reading we see Jesus making a new departure. He is no longer teaching in the synagogue; he is now teaching by the lakeside. After he had failed with the orthodox approach to the people, now he has to take unusual methods. Jesus was innovative; he knew how to reinvent himself; Jesus never let himself be beaten by the people’s authorities’ rejection; he quickly adopted his methods of teaching to the circumstances.

We do well to note that Jesus was prepared to use new methods. He was willing to take religious preaching and teaching out of its conventional setting in the synagogue into the open air and among the crowds of ordinary men and women. There must have been many amongst the orthodox Jews who criticized this departure; but Jesus was wise enough to know when new methods were necessary and adventurous enough to use them. It would be well if his church was equally wise and equally adventurous to try new methods and ways of reaching out to the people, especially reaching out to the non-church goers.

Look at what Jesus did. The scene is the lakeside; Jesus is sitting in the boat just off the shore while the people sat on the shore as if in a auditorium or amphitheatre. This new setting needed a new method; and the new method Jesus chose was to speak to the people in parables. A parable is literally a comparison. It is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Something on earth is compared with something in heaven, that the heavenly truth may be better grasped in light of the earthly illustration. Jesus started from the here and now to get to the there and then. He started from a thing that was happening at that moment on earth in order to lead men's thoughts to heaven; he started from something which all men could see to get to the things that are invisible; he started from something which all men knew to get to something which they had never as yet realized.

By so doing Jesus showed that there is a close relationship between earth and heaven. What Jesus is teaching them and us is to see the hand of God in the regular and the normal; in the rising of the sun and the falling of the rain and the growth of the plant; in the birth of new life... Long ago Paul had the same idea when he said that the visible world is designed to make known the invisible things of God (Rom.1:20). For Jesus, this world’s events and happenings are not meaningless; they are all very meaningful. The things that happen in your personal life, your family, your place of work, your church, are all parables calling for your understanding.

That is why Jesus asks: “Do you not understand this parable?”

Who is your true friend?

Mark 3:31-35

31 Just then his mother and brothers showed up. Standing outside, they relayed a message that they wanted a word with him. 32 He was surrounded by the crowd when he was given the message, "Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside looking for you." 33 Jesus responded, "Who do you think are my mother and brothers?" 34 Looking around, taking in everyone seated around him, he said, "Right here, right in front of you-- my mother and my brothers. 35 Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

Food for thought!

I want you to get this scene in your head. Jesus is teaching in the city of Capernaum. He is surrounded by a vast multitude of people. As Jesus is teaching His family shows up. Their arrival creates a moments of tension for everyone there. Jesus is teaching and His family is on the outside of the crowd. They can’t get to Him because of the multitude, so they send word through the crowd to tell Jesus to come to where they are. His family wants Him to stop His teaching, leave the multitude, and go to meet his family. They want Jesus to stop what he is doing and attend to them.  And will not be the last time. You remember this other incident in Mark 3:20-21? 

"Then Jesus went to a house [probably Peter’s], but a throng came together again, so that He and His disciples could not even take food. And when those who belonged to Him ( His family) heard it, they went out to take Him by force, for they kept saying, He is out of His mind!"

The lessons. Sometimes it is our dear ones like mother, father, husband, wife and friends that stand in between us and God, that stand in between us and our opportunities. Of course they don't do it out of evil intentions; Mary and the others weren't acting out evil intentions; they were trying to help Jesus, so they thought. This was a misguided help of good intentioned people. Jesus, however used the occasion to teach us all that OBEDIENCE TO GOD, DOING GOD'S WILL, FOLLOWING GOD IS ABOVE EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY.  

Yes, many times, our greatest distraction in doing God's will, and in embracing new opportunities are our relations, our friends. The tendency not to offset our dearest people or our dear past experiences many times make us forsake God-sent opportunities. This is why the burden of what we know already limits us in embracing new opportunities. The old is the enemy of the new. THE TIES THAT BIND US ARE THE TIES THAT BLIND US. (Andrew Hargadon). 

Another lesson. There is in this passage a great and practical truth. It is very common to have your closest people to be not your blood family but others not related to you by blood. The deepest relationship of life is not always the blood relationship; it is the relationship of mind to mind and heart to heart (like husband and wife). It is when people have common aims, common principles, common interests, a common goal that they become really and truly friends.

If Paul can, so can we!

Acts 9:1-22

Saul was still breathing threats to slaughter the Lord’s disciples. He had gone to the high priest and asked for letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, that would authorise him to arrest and take to Jerusalem any followers of the Way, men or women, that he could find. Suddenly, while he was travelling to Damascus and just before he reached the city, there came a light from heaven all round him. He fell to the ground, and then he heard a voice saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ he asked, and the voice answered, ‘I am Jesus, and you are persecuting me. Get up now and go into the city, and you will be told what you have to do.’ The men travelling with Saul stood there speechless, for though they heard the voice they could see no one. Saul got up from the ground, but even with his eyes wide open he could see nothing at all, and they had to lead him into Damascus by the hand. For three days he was without his sight, and took neither food nor drink.

A disciple called Ananias who lived in Damascus had a vision in which he heard the Lord say to him, ‘Ananias!’ When he replied, ‘Here I am, Lord’, the Lord said, ‘You must go to Straight Street and ask the house of Judas for someone called Saul, who comes from Tarsus. At this moment he is praying, having had a vision of a man called Ananias coming in and laying hands on him to give him back his sight.’

When he heard that, Ananias said, ‘Lord, several people have told me about this man and all the harm he has been doing to your saints in Jerusalem. He has only come here because he holds a warrant from the chief priests to arrest everybody who invokes your name.’ The Lord replied, ‘You must go all the same, because this man is my chosen instrument to bring my name before pagans and pagan kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he himself must suffer for my name.’ Then Ananias went. He entered the house, and at once laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, I have been sent by the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on your way here so that you may recover your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately it was as though scales fell away from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. So he was baptised there and then, and after taking some food he regained his strength.

He began preaching in the synagogues, ‘Jesus is the Son of God.’ All his hearers were amazed. ‘Surely’ they said ‘this is the man who organised the attack in Jerusalem against the people who invoke this name, and who came here for the sole purpose of arresting them to have them tried by the chief priests?’ Saul’s power increased steadily, and he was able to throw the Jewish colony at Damascus into complete confusion by the way be demonstrated that Jesus was the Christ.

Food for thought!

Today, we mark Paul's turn around; his conversion. The First Reading of today tells us of the incident. Every time I read this story, I stand amazed at the grace of God. When I see the Lord taking this great sinner and transforming him into the great saint, I realize that there is hope for people like you and me. The truth is, Saul was a very unlikely candidate for the service of the Lord. Here was a man who was feared and hated by Christians and one who did everything in his power to destroy the name of the Lord Jesus. Yet, God reached down and took this man from where he was and used him to change the world. God used him in such a great manner that Paul's ministry is still reaping fruit today.  

When we look at Paul, we may be tempted to think that he was some kind super saint. We may feel that there is no possible way that the Lord could use us like He did Paul, or that God could even use us at all. Some of you may have asked the question, "Can God really use my life for anything?" The answer is YES. And he wants to use you in your world, your place of work, your neighbourhood, your family, and according to your skills and talents. He will not remove you from your world; he will send you to your world. Did you notice that Paul still went to Damascus? That Paul stood among the people he was going to imprison and arrest and kill? He went to the same people, not to imprison and arrest or kill them, but to proclaim to them good news. Yes, he still went there, but he went there a different man, with a different message, and different mandate.

You too can proclaim good news to the same people you have known until now, people like your spouse, your children, your neighbours, your colleagues at work. If you have held some resentment against any of these people until now, you can change and hold, not resentment anymore but love and forgiveness. You can change from being a carrier of bad news to carrier of good news. You can and should still go to your Damascus; but take there not hurt but heart; not hate but love. 

Let us be another Paul in the world we happen to be. The First Reading says, "And all who heard him were amazed and said, ‘Is not the very man who harassed and overthrew and destroyed in Jerusalem those who called upon this Name? And he has come here for the express purpose of arresting them and bringing them in chains before the chief priests?’ 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and continued to confound and put to confusion the Jews who lived in Damascus; Paul turned around from hate to love. So can we.

Misunderstood!

Mark 3:20-21

When Jesus returned to the house where he was staying, the crowds began to gather again, and soon it was so full of visitors that he couldn’t even find time to eat. When his friends heard what was happening, they came to try to take him home with them. “He’s out of his mind,” they said.

Food for thought!

This Reading is very disturbing. Jesus is misunderstood! In his life Jesus was misunderstood almost on a daily basis. Right from the beginning Jesus was misunderstood. Although he made the world, the world did not recognize him when he came. Even in his own land and among his own people, the Jews, he was not accepted. Only a few would welcome and receive him. (John 1:10-12). Jesus was the most misunderstood man that ever lived. Many things he said  were misunderstood; also many of his deeds, the miracles, were also misunderstood. 

Jesus was misunderstood by his inner family; by his disciples; by his wider family; by the romans; and by the world. Today's gospel reading is about one of those moments when Jesus was misunderstood. He was taken to be mad, to be out of himself, that is, to be crazy and deranged! The matter becomes even worse, when we notice that it is not strangers considering Jesus to be crazy; it is his own people, his friends. As we know, everything in the life of Jesus happened for a purpose: our edification.

So, what is the lesson behind this incident? Well, often it is our dear ones like mother, father, husband, wife, brother, sister and friends, or even those people we know and who know us, that misunderstand us. It is not uncommon for people to misunderstand us and even to label us as they wish. They labelled Jesus as being out of himself. If they called this to Jesus, why will they not call you and me? So, next time people call you names for doing what you believe to be the work and will of the Father, remember Jesus. Don’t get angry because the people have misunderstood or misrepresented you. 

The reason they called Jesus looks to be his busyness; Jesus was just too busy with the Father’s work that he had no time for his family. Jesus is teaching us that our duty, our obedience is first and foremost to the Father in heaven. The rest is rest. 

  

Jesus wants us all!

Mark 3:13-19

Jesus went up into the hills and summoned those he wanted. So they came to him and he appointed twelve; they were to be his companions and to be sent out to preach, with power to cast out devils. And so he appointed the Twelve: Simon to whom he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges or ‘Sons of Thunder’; then Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the man who was to betray him.

Food for thought!

Jesus has come to a very important moment in his life and work. He has made a very considerable impact on the public mind. But also his critics are growing in their opposition. Indeed, they have already decided to destroy him. If he dies, as he will, what will happen to his message? He had to find some way for his message not die when he dies. As a solution to this practical problem, he has to choose certain people on whose hearts and lives he will write his message and who will continue the message. The messengers die, messengers come and go; however, the message is forever, is eternal. 

Jesus chose a very mixed group of his messengers. In it the two extremes met. Matthew was a tax-collector and, therefore, an outcast; he was a renegade and a traitor to his fellow countrymen. Simon the Cananaean was Zealot; and the Zealots were a band of fiery, violent nationalists who were pledged even to murder and assassination to clear their country of the foreign rulers; today we call such as terrorists. Between Matthew and Simon there were all kinds of backgrounds and opinions, there are all of us. Jesus continues to mix us. 

Judging them by worldly standards the men Jesus chose had no special qualifications at all. They were not wealthy; they had no special social position; they had no special education, they were not trained theologians; they were not high-ranking churchmen and ecclesiastics; they were twelve ordinary men. But they had two special qualifications. First, they were loyal to Jesus. And second, they had the courage to show that they were loyal to Jesus.

Yes, to be with Jesus did require courage. We can all be loyal to celebrities, but not to someone labelled a sinner and a heretic; someone accused of violating all religious rules and regulations; someone heading for an inevitable death. These twelve men had all kinds of faults, but whatever else could be said about them, they loved Jesus and they were not afraid to show it. Do you have in your life loyal people like these disciples of Jesus, who can stand by you, come what may?

Jesus called the disciples to him for two purposes. First, he called them to be with him. He called them to be his steady and consistent companions. Others might come and go; the crowd might be there one day and away the next; others might be fluctuating and spasmodic in their attachment to him, but these twelve were to live with him all the time, day after day; they never go away, never come, because there're always there. They're Jesus' companions. Happy the man or woman with a companion like these.

Second, he called them to send them out. He wanted them to be his representatives. He wanted them to tell others about him. They themselves had been won in order to win others.

For their task Jesus equipped them with a message. The Gospel message, the good news, the word of Jesus is our weapon, it is our stronghold, it is our strength and power.

Be Good & Do Good!

Mark 3:7-12

7 Jesus went off with his disciples to the sea to get away. But a huge crowd from Galilee trailed after them-- 8 also from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, across the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon-- swarms of people who had heard the reports and had come to see for themselves. 9 He told his disciples to get a boat ready so he wouldn't be trampled by the crowd. 10 He had healed many people, and now everyone who had something wrong was pushing and shoving to get near and touch him. 11 Evil spirits, when they recognized him, fell down and cried out, "You are the Son of God!" 12 But Jesus would have none of it. He shut them up, forbidding them to identify him in public.

Food for thought!

Yesterday, we ended the Gospel with these words: “The Pharisees got out as fast as they could, sputtering about how they would join forces with Herod's followers and ruin him.” Today’s Gospel is a follow up. Unless Jesus wished to be involved in a head-on collision with those religious authorities wanting to ruin him, he had to leave their synagogues. Now, for the first time, Jesus is preaching not from inside a synagogue but from outside, from the open, in a boat. Jesus has left the synagogues and has gone out to the lakeside and the open sky; He who once preached on a pulpit is now preaching from a boat! And he who was preaching to a few hundreds of people in the synagogue, is now preaching to thousands. Irony of things.

A lesson for us. When you hate someone, you turn that person into a hero. This is what has happened with Jesus; the more the religious authorities hate and hunt Jesus, the more Jesus is turning a hero, a superstar, a celebrity. The gospel says that people came from all over the neighbouring districts to touch him and listen to him: “a huge crowd from Galilee trailed after them,  also from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, across the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon  swarms of people who had heard the reports and had come to see for themselves.”

They can take synagogues away from Jesus, but they cannot take goodness away from him; Jesus goes with his goodness and his people skills wherever he goes. As a result people are seeking him from all over. So large were the crowds that it became dangerous and a boat had to be kept ready, just off the shore, in case he might be overwhelmed with the crushing of the mob. His cures brought him into even greater danger; for the sick people did not even wait for him to touch them; they rushed to touch him.

Another lesson. Good is always good; and doing good is always good. Jesus did good in the synagogue (healed a man with a crippled hand), he did good all the time, even on a Sabbath, on a beach, at the wedding, on the sea, on the cross. As a dedicated follower of Jesus, seek to do good to all people, all day and all days and all the time, and in all places where you happen to be. This is what Jesus expects from you and me. Be good and do good.

Act 10:38

Then Jesus arrived from Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, ready for action. He went through the country doing good, helping people and healing everyone who was beaten down by the Devil. He was able to do all this because God was with him.

Being and doing what you condemn in others!

Mark 3:1-6

While in Capernaum Jesus went over to the synagogue again, and noticed a man there with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. Would he heal the man’s hand? If he did, they planned to arrest him! Jesus asked the man to come and stand in front of the congregation. Then turning to his enemies he asked, “Is it all right to do kind deeds on Sabbath days? Or is this a day for doing harm? Is it a day to save lives or to destroy them?” But they wouldn’t answer him. Looking around at them angrily, for he was deeply disturbed by their indifference to human need, he said to the man,“Reach out your hand.” He did, and instantly his hand was healed!

At once the Pharisees went away and met with the Herodians to discuss plans for killing Jesus.

Food for thought!

We're back in the synagogue. The setting is like this: there's Jesus, there's his critics the Pharisees, there's a man in need, and there's a Sabbath. What would you do if you were in that synagogue that Saturday? With whom do you identify yourself, with Jesus being watched, with the Pharisees on the watch, with the sick man in need of help, or with the Sabbath to keep? 

Jesus knows what is going on. He knows that he's being watched. He knows that this whole thing is designed as a trap to ensnare Him. But, Jesus also knows that this man needs healing, which only him can give, and Jesus is determined to do the right thing, come what may. You see, it is always risky doing the right thing; many people are only interested in doing, not the right thing, but doing things right. Doing things right means following the rules and laws and people's expectations. Doing the right thing means doing what is good and right even when it goes against the law or against people’s expectations.

Jesus told the man to come and stand in front of the congregation. What Jesus is about to do will not be done in a corner. And then Jesus confronted the obvious hypocrisy of the Pharisees by asking them simple, straightforward questions: “Is it all right to do kind deeds on Sabbath days? Or is this a day for doing harm? Is it a day to save lives or to destroy them?” By calling the man to the front of the crowd and asking these questions was all an effort to awaken sympathy in the hearts of the Pharisees. Jesus was using this moment to try and touch their hearts. His efforts failed! They had hard hearts. No one said a word. 

The Pharisees suffered from “hardness of heart”. These men had been confronted with truth many times and they continually rejected that truth. As a result, their hearts became hard. They were outraged when Jesus healed the man on a Sabbath; they were only concerned in doing things right and not in doing the right thing; they were interested in keeping the rules and not saving life. Are we any different? 

The Pharisees and the Herodians were bitter enemies. They were on the opposite sides of every issue. But, they found common ground in their common hatred of the Lord Jesus. So, they formed a plot to find a way to “kill” Him. They wanted Jesus dead and they set out to accomplish that end. 

There is a bit of irony in this story, as well as a lot of hypocrisy. These men are upset because Jesus gave life back to the man on the Sabbath, but they have no problem plotting to take life from Jesus on a Sabbath day. Many times we do those very things we condemn in other people.

Are you serving human need or human laws?

Mark 2:23-28

Another time, on a Sabbath day as Jesus and his disciples were walking through the fields, the disciples were breaking off heads of wheat and eating the grain. Some of the Jewish religious leaders said to Jesus, “They shouldn’t be doing that! It’s against our laws to work by harvesting grain on the Sabbath.” But Jesus replied, “Didn’t you ever hear about the time King David and his companions were hungry, and he went into the house of God—Abiathar was high priest then—and they ate the special bread only priests were allowed to eat? That was against the law too. But the Sabbath was made to benefit man, and not man to benefit the Sabbath. And I, the Messiah, have authority even to decide what men can do on Sabbath days!”

Food for thought!

Have you ever counted Jesus' "religious scandals"? Jesus is in the business of stirring up trouble! From the time He appeared and began His earthly ministry, to the moment He ascended back into Heaven, Jesus was busy upsetting tradition and tipping sacred cows. Where the Jews were concerned, Jesus was involved in one religious scandal after another.

Jesus' first scandal was when He publically forgave a man’s sins, in Mark 2:5. The second scandal was when He attended a feast with sinners at Matthew’s house, in Mark 2:16. The third scandal was when Jesus and his disciples refused to fast as everybody did, in Mark 2: 18. The fourth scandal is of course today's gospel reading.

The verses we have read today open up another scandal between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. This time it involves their traditions. Jesus dared to ignore their rituals and they are offended once again. However, this is no ordinary scandal. For this scandal would create such anger and hatred toward Jesus that the Jews would actually seek to kill the Lord because of it, Mark 3:6.

There are people whose primary job is to criticize others; people whose primary goal in life is to set themselves up as judge and jury on the lives of others; people who are critical of every body except of themselves; people who claim to know all the rules but no knowledge of Jesus. These are the Pharisees.

These people are upset by everything and by nothing! They cannot believe what they see the disciples of Jesus doing. Many people are critical of you, of me, of everyone that's different. Consider what Jesus did to his critics; this is what we should do when people want to argue religion with us, or when they criticize you. He pointed them to the Word of God. He pointed them to the truth. Jesus did not argue with these men; He merely pointed them back to the Word of God. He says, “Have you not read…?”

Many times our problem is the same problem the Pharisees had, we haven’t taken the time to read and understand the Bible, and we criticize others based on nothing. The bread mentioned in the text was not to be eaten by non-priests, according to the Law, but because they were hungry, it was given to David and His men to eat. The clear teaching here is that human needs are more important than a legalistic keeping of the Law; that persons are far more important than rituals; that the best way to worship God is to help man; that the best way to use sacred things is to use them to help men. That, in fact, is the only way to give them to God; the sacred things are only truly sacred when they are used for man. The showbread was never so sacred as when it was used to feed a starving man. The Sabbath was never so sacred as when it was used to help those who needed help. The final arbiter in the use of all things is man and not law.

New wine needs fresh wineskins!

Mark 2:18-22

John’s disciples and the Jewish leaders sometimes fasted, that is, went without food as part of their religion. One day some people came to Jesus and asked why his disciples didn’t do this too. Jesus replied, “Do friends of the bridegroom refuse to eat at the wedding feast? Should they be sad while he is with them? But some day he will be taken away from them, and then they will mourn. Besides, going without food is part of the old way of doing things. It is like patching an old garment with unshrunk cloth! What happens? The patch pulls away and leaves the hole worse than before. You know better than to put new wine into old wineskins. They would burst. The wine would be spilled out and the wineskins ruined. New wine needs fresh wineskins.”

Food for thought!

The man who walks with Christ walks in radiance of joy. This is what Jesus is trying to teach us on innumerable occasions. This time round, he compares this joy to a wedding joy. At the wedding the bride enjoys the company of the bridegroom, and the bridegroom enjoys the company of the bride. All this means that it is good for our souls to be with Jesus, and that Jesus too enjoys our company. Think about it, Jesus enjoys to be with you. Do you enjoy Jesus moment? Do you have in your day any JESUS MOMENT?

It also tells us that no human joy lasts for ever. John's disciples were at this time sad because John was already in prison. For Jesus' disciples that time of sorrow would come when Jesus is imprisoned. It is one of the great inevitabilities of life that the dearest joy must come to an end. All humans and their joys pass away. Jesus alone is the same yesterday, today and for ever; God alone abides amidst all the chances and the changes of life. The dearest human relationships must some day come to an end; it is only the joy of heaven which lasts for ever, and if we have it in our hearts, nothing can take it away.

This also means that days will come, days of challenges, of hardships, of suffering. It means that life was not meant to be easy. Life is a challenge. Even for Jesus there was a moment of agony; he could not and did not escape it. Jesus was never under any illusions; clearly at the end of the road he saw the Cross awaiting him. He knew that for him the way of life was the way of the Cross, and yet he did not swerve one step aside from it. Here is the courage of the man who knows what God's way costs, and who yet goes on. o, seize the moment, seize the present joy, seize the week and all its opportunities. Don't shut your mind for new ideas. We should never be afraid of adventurous thought.

Many people are afraid of new methods, new innovations, new ideas. They forget that in the foundation of every achievement, there were thoughts at work. You may realize the existence of thoughts and their significance, by naming them as a vision, an aim, or a goal, and so on. All these concepts are, one way or the other, different names given to the same thing— thoughts— which give birth to words, and trigger actions, initiating the phenomenon of big achievements in life. You’ll find that almost every single achievement, whether in science, technology, or arts, had thoughts in its foundation.

If you aim to achieve something exceptional in life, your journey has to start off with thoughts. Ao don't be afraid to think. Jesus' plea to us is to be open minded! At least this week.

Do whatever he tells you!

John 2:1-11

Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples were guests also. 3 When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus' mother told him, "They're just about out of wine." 4 Jesus said, "Is that any of our business, Mother--yours or mine? This isn't my time. Don't push me." 5 She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, "Whatever he tells you, do it." 6 Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty 7 Jesus ordered the servants, "Fill the pots with water." And they filled them to the brim. 8 "Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host," Jesus said, and they did. 9 When the host tasted the water that had become wine (he didn't know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew), he called out to the bridegroom, 10 "Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you've saved the best till now!" 11 This act in Cana of Galilee was the first sign / miracle Jesus gave, the first glimpse of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

Food for thought!

St John in his gospel mentions Mary, the mother of Jesus only two times: at the marriage feast at Cana, the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus and at the crucifixion, the end of it. That could be a way of telling us that Mary was actively involved in the ministry of Jesus; that she did not only give birth to Jesus, she also gave birth to his ministry. Mary is indeed mother of Jesus. 

The birth of Jesus’s ministry was at Cana, on a wedding. It is not a small thing that Jesus should begin his miracles at a beginning family; Jesus’s first miracle was saving a new family from shame and embarrassment.

Something curious: if this was Jesus' very first miracle, how then did Mary know that Jesus could do it, since Jesus had never done a miracle before? Well, good mothers know their children; they know the hidden talents and potentialities of their children. There are many young men and women who have gone on to accomplish great things in life because their mothers believed in them and encouraged them and “pushed” them into doing miracles like Mary did. The gospel says that the hesitating Jesus said to insisting Mary, “This isn't my time. Don't push me.” Mary pushed Jesus into performing the first miracle because nobody knew Jesus as much as her.

Another curious question is, Did Mary know all along that she was living with a miracle maker? If she did, why did she not ask Jesus to multiply her bread, turn the water on the dining table into wine, or double her money to make ends meet? How come that until the wedding at Cana she never asked Jesus to use his miraculous powers to help her out, after all charity begins at home!

The lesson is very clear. For Mary and Jesus the needs of others come first. Take the case of Jesus. He knew he had this power to perform miracles. After his forty days fast in the desert he was hungry and the devil suggested it to him to turn some stones into bread and eat, but he did not do it. Yet he went out and multiplied bread for crowds of his followers.

Both Mary and Jesus are teaching us a lesson that God's gifts to individuals are not meant primarily for them or their families' benefit but for the service of others. That is what St Paul also tells us in today’s second reading. Paul enumerates the many different gifts of the Holy Spirit to different persons and adds that "to each person is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good," (1 Corinthians 12:6) not for personal profit. For this reason, the gifts you have, your potential, your wealth is all given you for others; you are gifted in order to gift others; you are given in order to give to others.

Today, we must ask ourselves what we have done with all our gifts. Have we ever made difference in anyone's life? If you have a gifted child, do like Mary did: push him or her into helping others. Or if Jesus tells you to use your gifts in helping others, don’t hesitate. As Mary said, DO WHATEVER HE TELLS YOU!