Warning Signs

Gospel: Matthew 12: 38-42

It is an evil thing to look for signs and ask for them.  Why? In creation God gave us the fundamental sign: human beings are created in God's image and likeness.  Human beings are the primary temple of God in the world - not a building, not some man-made structure.  To look for a sign when God has put his very image on every human being is an act of idolatry and a rejection of God's presence found in each human being.

One might well point to all the signs, the miracles, Jesus performed.  But the point of the miracles wasn't to demonstrate baby Jesus powers to the world.  The point of the miracles was to remind us that God's presence is found in every human being - in the sinner, in the leper, in the one possessed by a demon, in our enemy and those who hate us, in the ones who deny us and betray us.  The miracles show the world once again that God's image and likeness are found in human beings.  

It is ironic and sad that in the midst of a war people are weeping more over the destruction of a church than they are the untold lives killed.  The former is a mere building made by human beings; the latter are countless images of God, once living temples of God with an eternal destiny.  If we cannot recognize God's presence, God's image and likeness in every human being, we are not worthy of the Eucharist and we mock God.