The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 101: Signs and Wonders (2023)

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Fr. Mike explains how the signs and wonders Jesus demonstrates in the Gospel point to the truth of his identity. He also touches on Proverbs 5, especially the last verse touching on discipline. Today's readings are John 7-9 and Proverbs 5:15-23. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. We'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 101. We are reading from John chapter 7,

8, and 9, as well as we're concluding the fifth chapter of the book of Proverbs, chapter 5, verses 15 through 23. As always, the translation of the Bible that I'm reading is from the revised standard version, the second Catholic edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a year. And you can also subscribe to this podcast or whatever podcast you want to download your own Bible in a year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a year. And you can also subscribe to this podcast or whatever podcast you want. I guess just click subscribe. That's the secret hack. That's the cheat code. Just click on the subscribe button. All of a sudden, what happens? You're subscribed. Today, as I said, we're reading John chapter 7, 8 and 9, Proverbs chapter 5, verses 15 through 23. The gospel of John, chapter 7. The Unbelief of Jesus' Brethren. After this, Jesus went about

in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand, so his brethren said to him, Leave here, and go to Judea, that your disciples may see the works you are doing. For no man works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe in him. Jesus said to them, My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me,

because I testify of it that its works are evil. Go to the feast yourselves. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come. So saying, he remained in Galilee. Jesus at the feast of tabernacles. But after his brethren had gone up to the feast, he also went up, not publicly, but in private. The Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, Where is he? And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, He is a good man, others said, No, he is leading the people astray. Yet for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him. About the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. The Jews marveled at it, saying, How is it that

this man has learning when he has never studied? So Jesus answered them, My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If any man's will is to do his will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me? The people answered, You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill you? Jesus answered them, I did one deed, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcise

a man upon the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. Is this the Christ? Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?

Yet we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from. So Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple, You know me, and you know where I come from? But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me. So they sought to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? Officers are sent to arrest Jesus.

The Pharisees heard the crowd thus muttering about him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. Jesus then said, I shall be with you a little longer, and then I go to him who sent me. You will seek me, and you will not find me. Where I am, you cannot come. The Jews said to one another, Where does this man intend to go that we shall not find him? Does he intend to go that we shall not find him? Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, You will seek me and you will not find me, and where I am you cannot come? Rivers of Living Water

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Division Among the People When they heard these words, some of the people said, This is really the prophet.

Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The authorities and the woman caught in adultery.

The officers then went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, Why did you not bring him? The officers said, No man ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them, Are you led astray, you also? Have any of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, who do not know the law, are accursed. Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? They replied, Are you from Galilee too? Search, and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee.

They went each to his own house. Chapter 8 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in their midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her? This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said

to them, let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest. And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus looked up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you. Go, and do not sin again.

Jesus and the Light of the World Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The Pharisees then said to him, You are bearing witness to yourself. Your testimony is not true. Jesus answered, Even if I do bear witness to myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true. I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me. They said to him, Therefore, where is your father? Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my father.

If you knew me, you would know my father also. These words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. Jesus alludes to his death. Again he said to them, I go away, and you will seek me, and die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself, since he says, Where I am going, you cannot come? He said to them, You are from below.

I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he. They said to him, Who are you? Jesus said to them, Even what I have told you from the beginning, I have much to say about you and much to them, True disciples of Jesus. Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. They answered him, We are descendants of Abraham and have never been in bondage to anyone.

How is it that you say you will be made free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. Jesus answered them, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father. Jesus and Abraham. They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did,

but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You do the works of your father. They said to him, We were not born of fornication. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded and came forth from God.

I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you

are not of God. The Jews answered him, Are we not right in is that you are not of God. The Jews answered him, Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? Jesus answered, I have not a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it, and he will be the judge. Truly, truly I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. The Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon.

Abraham died as did the prophets. And you say, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham who died and the prophets who died? Who do you claim to be? Jesus answered, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God. But you have not known him. I know him. If I said I do not know him, I should be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day. He saw it and was glad. The Jews then said to him, You are not yet fifty years old and have seen Abraham?

Jesus said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. Chapter 9 Healing of the Blind Man As he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth, and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night comes when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. As he said this,

he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the man's eyes with the clay, saying to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent. So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar said, Is not this the man who used to sit and beg? Some said, It is he. Others said, No, but he is like him. He said, I am the man. They said to him, Then how were your eyes opened? He answered, The man called Jesus, made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and received my sight. They said to him, where is he? He said, I do not know. The Pharisees investigate the healing. They brought to the Pharisees, the man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight, and he said to them, He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? There was a division among them. So they again said to the blind man, What do you say about him, since he opened your eyes? He said, He is a prophet.

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered, We know that this is our son and that he was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age, he will speak for himself. His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess him to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, He is of age, ask him. So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him,

Give God the praise. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered, Whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see. They said to him, What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you too want to become his disciples? And they reviled him, saying, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from. The man answered, Why, this is a marvel. You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.

Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered him, you were born in utter sin, and you would teach us? And they cast him out. Spiritual blindness. Jesus heard that they had cast him out and having found him, he said, do you believe in the son of man? He answered, and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, you have seen him and it is he who speaks to you. He said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. Jesus said, for judgment I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, are we also blind? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say, We see, your guilt remains.

The book of Proverbs chapter 5 verses 15 through 23. Drink water from your own cisterns, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe. Let her affection fill you at all times with delight, be infatuated always with her love.

Why should you be infatuated, my son, with a loose woman and embrace the bosom of an adventurous? For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he watches all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is caught in the toils of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is caught in the toils of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline and because of his great folly, he is lost. Father in heaven, we thank you. We give you praise today and every day. My goodness, Lord.

Father, you have given us your son and you have given us a share in your nature. You've given us the Holy Spirit, the promised Holy Spirit that your son promised to those who would follow him. Please pour out your Holy Spirit upon us once again in the name of Jesus, so that our hearts may be opened to the fire of your love

and our minds may be opened to your truth of who you are and who you're calling us to be. Lord God, help us to not ever, ever be blind. The spiritual blindness that can affect every single one of us where we refuse to see or we choose not to see, where we get to the place where we just would rather not look and see the truth, to acknowledge the truth, and therefore be convicted by the truth. But Lord God, help us always. Give us the strength.

Give us the strength to have the courage to have open eyes in this world. Give us the strength to be able to be convicted by what we see. Convicted to act. Convicted to repent. Convicted to love those who are not, and to fulfill the promises that we have made. We make this prayer in Jesus's name. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So in Proverbs, just a quick little note, chapter five, it says the title, you know, is warning against loose women. And so for the last three days, you might have been

thinking, okay, so it doesn't really apply maybe in your life or, or, or the lives of the people that you are listening to this with. Of course, it's about, really about character and really, you know, ultimately, I mean, initially here it is about, you know, advice to a son about here, here's the kind of woman you want to marry essentially. But for all of us, this is advice about the people we want to associate with. And that recognition is, okay, regardless of whether this is a romantic relationship or a not romantic relationship, we want to associate with people who have character that goes deeper than their skin. And the last little piece here, the last line of the book of Proverbs chapter five is he dies for lack of discipline. So it has nothing

necessarily or nothing automatically to do with relationships, but that recognition of he dies for lack of discipline. There's so many of us, right? That there's so much shipwreck of our lives that can happen because of a lack of discipline, a lack of a willingness to do the hard things, a lack of willingness to simply do what Jesus said his disciples will do, which is to take up their cross and follow him. Proverbs chapter 5, verse 23, he dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly, he's lost. And so he asks the Lord to, of course, help us to never be lost, to never be far from him, and to really hear his word. Because in that is the gospel today, right? Gospel of John 7, 8, and 9 is here is Jesus revealing himself. And there's some people who are open to it, and some people are not open

to this, the reality of him. Now, keep this in mind. In John's gospel, whenever Jesus does a miracle, it's called a sign and wonder. And so the miracle of the wedding feast at Cana with water becoming wine, the miracle of the, here in the gospel here in chapter nine, the man born blind who gets his sight back, not gets the sight back he never had in the first place. He was born blind. This is remarkable. One of the reasons why John calls this sign and wonder is because the sign points to something. The sign points to Jesus is who he says he is. You heard it just a second ago in John chapter eight, where the Pharisees come to Jesus and he says, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

And in saying that word, I am, Jesus is making it absolutely clear that he's not simply claiming to be a prophet. He's not simply claiming to be the Messiah, the anointed one who's been waited for. He is saying, he's claiming to be equal to God himself. That he's saying, and he's saying this in so many ways.

If you've seen me, you've seen the father. If you know the father, you would know me because he is not just saying, yeah, we're similar. You know, if you're a holy person, you'd kind of recognize who I am. He is saying his deepest identity is to be one with the father. His deepest identity is that he shares the same being as the father. Now, this is a massively important claim that Jesus isn't just a teacher. He's not just a prophet.

He's not just the anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ, that he actually is co-equal and co-eternal with the father. And this is massive. But it also demands that Jesus does these miracles. Why? Because anyone can come along and say, oh, hey, this is who I am. Jesus, as he says, this is who I am. He then demonstrates it. He proves it. He has these miracles, which are called signs and wonders that point to the fact that you can, if you don't believe me, trust the works. You see the works I do. You don't want't believe me, trust the works. You see the works I do. You don't want to believe me.

That's fine. But believe the works themselves. And so we just ask the Lord to help us to see, to help us have eyes that don't turn away, that we are people willing to walk in the light and not in the darkness. As we continue to journey through John's gospel, my invitation for all of us is to keep our eyes open. But also, how about this? It's, we're, you know, a couple, 20 minutes into this. It's a little bit longer than

maybe we're accustomed to. So one of the things my invitation is, it might be a lot of information. Let this kind of wash over you. This is one of the things that when we get to listen to scripture, we get to let it just be spoken to us. And by listening to it, by being open to it, even if we don't get every single word, it's shaping us. And that is the entire point that God's word does not return to him void or empty, but it always accomplishes the will for which he sent it. So, oh man, let's keep praying for each other as we have the next four days in John's gospel and the book of Proverbs. Then we're going to get it back to 1 Samuel. But right now we get to live in the New Testament for a while, which is such an incredible gift. I am praying for you. Please

pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.