“Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?”
God used the Persian emperor, Cyrus, to liberate His people from Babylonian captivity and bring them back from exile. But Cyrus never knew who God was. Even so, God said about Cyrus, “For the sake of Jacob, my servant, I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not…It is I who arm you, though you know me not” (Is. 45:4-5).
If God can do such great things through a pagan king who does not know Him, imagine the great things that God can do through us, His beloved sons and daughters, if we truly know Him and love Him. Imagine what we can endure and overcome for God’s glory if we have intimate knowledge of God.
This is why the Pharisees and Herodians in Matthew 22:15-21 are most pitiable. They had a chance to come to Jesus in good faith and learn about God. Jesus always reveals God to us at each moment of our lives, for He teaches that “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9). We come to living communion with God only through Jesus Christ: “To all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God” (Jn. 1:12).
But the Pharisees and their Herodian counterparts did not care about knowing God better through Jesus. Rather, they came to test Him and to try and trick Him: “The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.” They tried to bait Him with their question, “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” They failed woefully in their malicious pretense.
Jesus clearly saw their malice and bad faith towards Him, as Scripture records, “Knowing their malice, Jesus said, ‘Why are you testing me, you hypocrites!’” He exhorted them to have good faith towards Caesar and towards God, instructing, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” In other words, let Caesar be Caesar and let God be God in our lives.
How about us? Do we come to Jesus with good faith to know God better, or do we rather put Him to the test with our habits? Do we play God, or do we allow God to be God in our lives? We have to make a choice because we cannot both know Him and put Him to the test at the same time.
There are five ways that we might be testing Jesus instead of knowing God through Him.
1. By Our Ingratitude
Firstly, we put Jesus to the test by our ingratitude for all His gifts to us. We can take God’s gifts for granted and waste them. We can also abuse these gifts by using them in a way contrary to the will of God for us. When we lack true gratitude to God for His gifts, we test Jesus, and we can never know God better.
2. By Choosing to Remain in Sin
Secondly, we put Jesus to the test by choosing to sin and remaining in a state of sin. Jesus died and rose from the dead so that we can have forgiveness of sin and a new beginning. He has also given us the amazing Sacrament of Reconciliation in which all our sins are completely cleansed, and we are strengthened for a new and better life with Him. There is just no tangible reason to remain in a state of sin. We are testing Jesus by choosing to remain in sin, and we get nothing from Him.
3. By Failing to Bring Our Needs to Him
Thirdly, we put Jesus to the test by not praying to Him for all our needs. Jesus Himself guaranteed us the efficacy of our prayers, saying, “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you” (Mt. 7:7). We put Him to the test when we do not bring our needs confidently before Him but choose to trust in ourselves and our resources and abilities. We gain nothing by abandoning our trusting prayer to Jesus.
4. By Rejecting or Doubting His Loving Dominion
Fourthly, we put Jesus to the test by rejecting or doubting His love, power, and wisdom. We can easily doubt His love for us or His power to do what He has promised in our lives. We can question His presence in our lives and forget that He is “Emmanuel—God with us” (Mt. 7:23). We even doubt if He knows how to solve our problems and meet our many needs. We cannot know Him when we are skeptical about His power, wisdom, and love.
5. By Not Believing in His Words
Fifthly, we put Jesus to the test when we do not believe in His words. We have the comfortable lies that make us feel good about ourselves and prevent us from true ongoing conversion. We can pretend to be ignorant about God’s words on morality. We can pretend we are searching for the truth through endless dialogues and synods in the Church. We hold on to our lies and think we can also know Him at the same time. All we are doing is putting Jesus to the test, and we gain nothing by doing so.
St. Paul affirmed the Christians in Thessalonica for their true knowledge of Jesus Christ, writing, “We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Notice the blessings they have from their strong faith, lively hope, and ardent charity: “For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in the power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction” (1 Thess. 1:2-5). The Thessalonian Christians can overcome all things by knowing Jesus Christ through their faith, hope, and charity. The risen Christ can act in and through them because they know Him and don’t put Him to the test.
Most of the evils that we face in our lives, in the Church, and in our world today are due to this poor knowledge of Jesus Christ. Our prayer lives are more focused on getting our needs met than on actually cultivating an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Even when we come to Him, we are knowingly or unknowingly putting Him to the test. If He is going to use us in bringing about victories over all these evils, we must purify our motives and come to Him with good faith to know Him better—not to test Him.
Jesus is present to us in each Eucharist, and He is always revealing the true God to us. If we get to know Him better and not try to test Him, He will surely make us victorious over all the evils that we face.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Image from Wikimedia Commons
