Reflection for Saturday June 3, Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs (M): Mark 11:27-33

Gospel: Mark 11:27-33

Jesus and his disciples returned once more to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple area, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approached him and said to him “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?

Jesus said to them, “I shall ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me. They discussed this among themselves and said “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 

But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’? they feared the crowd, for they all thought John really was a prophet. So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know. Then Jesus said to them, “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.

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Reflection:

Do you know where the authority of Jesus is coming from? The ruling power during Jesus time wanted to know the origin of His authority. Why were they interested to know? Was it for the reason that their own power base was being threatened by Jesus popularity among the ordinary people? 

When our own survival is threatened we normally would do everything within our capacity to   defeat the incoming power. Even if the incoming power is doing what is right and noble. We would still do something to defeat it by any means possible. 

Such is our flawed self-serving behavior; we don’t want to be upstaged by anyone. We always want to be in front and have the starring role, perhaps this is part of our human insecurity. 

Jesus never had any insecurity for He simply did His mission without questioning anyone’s authority. The priority for Jesus was not authority or power it was first and foremost the well- being and interest of the people.     

How about you? Do you put so much weight on authority? Or you just keep on doing what is good without being conscious with any authority? – Marino J. Dasmarinas