What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?

5 AUGUST (Jn 6,24-35)

A seal is membership, exclusive propriety, and certificate of guarantee and authenticity it is also a sign of sanctity. That is how truth is expressed in the Song of Songs.

Oh, that you were my brother, nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I met you out of doors, I would kiss you and none would taunt me. I would lead you, bring you in to the home of my mother. There you would teach me to give you spiced wine to drink and pomegranate juice. His left hand is under my head and his right arm embraces me. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and hinds of the field, Do not arouse, do not stir up love, before its own time. Who is this coming up from the desert, leaning upon her lover? Under the apple tree I awakened you; it was there that your mother conceived you, it was there that your parent conceived. Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; For stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away. Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would be roundly mocked. (Song of Songs 8,1-7).

In the Book of the Prophet Zechariah is God himself that places his servant as a seal. The servant of God, is declared as his seal, his manifestation of truth and authenticity, its instrument of thought and action, his trustee, his voice, his heart, and his everything.

The message of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month: Tell this to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah: I will shake the heavens and the earth; I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms, destroy the power of the kingdoms of the nations. I will overthrow the chariots and their riders, and the riders with their horses shall go down by one another’s sword. On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, my servant, says the Lord, And I will set you as a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts. (Hag 2,20-23).

To the Jews who still asked for bread to be fed, Jesus says with firm clarity that the Father has put all in his hands; and that therefore, they no longer had to think themselves according to the ancient history, ancient events, and the actions of the past; but on a new history, a new event, a new fact that Christ himself would have worked for them. The Father has made him his seal, his truth, word, mediator, and his everything.

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

If the Jews do not go to Christ Jesus, do not update their faith on the Word of Jesus, which is the new Word of God, their lives will soon become without true faith. They will live a past, faded, and worn faith, no longer able to transform history; for, today, man’s journey is no longer made with the old bread that comes down from heaven, but with the new bread; and it is Jesus that must give this new bread to them. Either they will make this step or they will be overwhelmed by the desert. Never might without this new bread the new desert be overcome. New desert, new bread, and new life.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels, and Saints update our faith.