Questions, Questions, Questions

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

It happens often in the Gospels. Jesus says something or does something, and people want to ask questions or press him in some other way, but they don’t. Perhaps it’s because they remember what’s happened in other cases, where he answers a question with another question. Or perhaps there was something about his demeanor that made it less than comfortable to continue the querying.

Or perhaps it’s because we know in our hearts and souls that the Lord has imparted all we need to know in a lesson. Consider today’s Gospel reading, when Jesus has identified the two greatest commandments and which concludes with this from Matthew 12:34: And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

What else would one ask? The third greatest commandments? If there are any exceptions to the two greatest commandments? A “what if” scenario—“What if I try to love my neighbor but my neighbor is a jerk?” We already know the answers… or know we don’t need them.

I’ve heard people say God’s going to have some explaining to do when they get to heaven. They want to know why specific things in their lives or those of people they loved didn’t happen. I suspect when we get there, it won’t be so much that we don’t dare to ask those questions but that rather, we will finally grasp the greatness of God and we will realize such questions are irrelevant. Instead, we will focus on thanks and adoration.