In today's brief reading from Mark's Gospel (Mk 8: 11-13) we see the Pharisees arguing with Jesus, presumably about who He is and what He has been doing.  Ostensibly as a way to resolve the argument, they ask Jesus "for a sign from heaven."  Mark notes that they do that "to test him."
           Do they really want a sign?  Hard to imagine that they do.
           After all, Jesus has already worked all sorts of "signs."  He has cured lots of people, some under very public and spectacular circumstances.  He has cast out demons.  He has fed thousands on essentially nothing.
            The Pharisees have seen some of the signs, and certainly heard about the others.  What could one more sign do in terms of establishing who Jesus is that the other signs hadn't already shown?
           No, the Pharisees have their minds made up.  They are sure Jesus isn't the Messiah, the one sent to save Israel.  He isn't what they had in mind, after all, so He can't possibly be the one. They are just looking for ways to prove their predetermined conclusion.
          Imaging what would have happened if Jesus had indulged their request and given them one more sign.  Perhaps He would have cured another person, or cast out another demon.
           Certainly the Pharisees would have demanded more, or a different sign.  They would have found some fault or omission in what Jesus did.  They would have said something like: "Well, that was pretty good.  And if you only do (fill in the blank), then we will believe you."
           And so it would have gone, perhaps endlessly, with the Pharisees calling the shots and Jesus engaging in an ultimately-fruitless effort to convince them of something that they would never accept.  Jesus wisely refused to play that game.
           The expression "my mind is made up-- don't confuse me with the facts" comes to mind.
           The way the Pharisees are used in the Gospels makes it is easy, and very satisfying, to put them down, to imagine that we would never do or say the things they do or say.  How could they be so dense, so hard-hearted, we ask ourselves.
           But is that fair?  Jesus certainly did not come in the way that was expected, as the great conqueror who would throw out the Romans. The Messiah was supposed to be this great, powerful, magestic figure-- and Jesus was poor and ordinary-looking and lacking in worldly power.  
           We might easily have missed Him too.
           I say that because I think we often do what the Pharisees did.  We have our own conclusions about who Jesus is, and those facts that don't fit with our conclusions we just ignore.  As the lyric from Simon & Gardunkel's song,  The Boxer, goes, "Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
          How often are we guilty of making Jesus fit our preconceived notions? Or of disregarding the difficult parts of His teaching? Sure, that business about loving our neighbor is great, but do we take it just to mean those people we know and like, and not in the way Jesus meant it-- think of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
           Do we truly think we need to "love" God, with all that connotes, as Jesus commands-- namely giving all the we are and all the we do and all that we have to the Lord? Or do we take it to mean that we should think nice thoughts about God from time to time?
           Sure the Pharisees had their minds made up, signs or no signs.
           Do we do the same?