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3rd Sunday of Advent Year A - 11/12/2016 - Gospel: Mt 11:2-11
Question in faith
Children often ask their parents lots of questions about mostly everything they see or hear. Some questions they ask are simple and easy to answer; others are quite hard and some of their questions are nonsense questions. Parents try to answer hard questions children ask and often children are unable to understand simply because of simplicity of mind they have about life. In the adults' world we yearn to know where we come from and where the end is when our earthly finishes. Our faith in Jesus has a definite answer for the problem but people who refuse the answer Jesus gave struggle hard to solve the problem. They ask questions about the origin man. Some of the questions they ask are very much a child like questioning about life. We admire people who have great knowledge of the universe but we also recognize their confession about how little they have discovered about the universe. The vastness of the universe they have not known and any conclusion about the origin of the universe is only a hypothesis.

Without a bit of faith we are unable to ask sensible questions about faith. The basic faith requires humility and with humility we can start to advance in faith. Questions that lead us to accept our limitations of the spiritual world are humble questions.

There are two different kinds of questions: the first one is a question about faith and the second one is a question in faith. The former one is more concerning with knowledge of the faith while the latter is more relating to the faith in Jesus. Questions about knowledge of faith can either lead to have faith in Jesus or it leads to deny the existence of the loving God; while questions in faith are the kind of questions a person asks to know what to do more to improve his/her personal faith in Jesus. They have already had faith in God and seek for direction to know what to do. There are numerous occasions recording questions in faith in the Bible. When John the Baptist preached about repentance the crowd and the tax collectors and some soldiers asked John what they must do to inherit God's kingdom. These questions are questions in faith because they have already believed in God and just want to know what to do (Luke 3,10-16). John the Baptist himself when he was in prison also asked the question in faith when he heard what Jesus was doing, John sent one of his disciples to Jesus asking question: Are you the one who is to come or have we got to wait for someone else? John believed that the Messiah was going to come but he was not sure which one was the true Messiah. Question in faith is what we need to have to explore more about the faith. Without questions in faith we would not have learn much about the faith.

Questioning about the knowledge of God is a kind of question people want to find proof of God while questioning in faith is a kind of question that demonstrates having faith in God. It reveals the inner life of a person who sees with the eyes of faith. Their inner eyes help them to ask question in faith. Before we can ask questions in faith and learn more about the faith we need to have some faith in Jesus.

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