“Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”
John 4:48
Dear members and friends,
Certainty is something we all seek, yet it consistently eludes us. We live in a time when information is abundant, opinions are immediate, and truth itself often feels contested. The more we are exposed to competing voices – through news, social media, and personal experience – the more fragile certainty can become. We long for stability, yet we are carried along by constant change. Part of this tension lies within us. The human mind does not grasp reality directly; it interprets. What we are “sure of” is not the thing itself, but our perception of it, filtered through our memory, emotion, and experience. In that sense, certainty is not something we possess about the world “out there,” but something constructed within us. It emerges when what we perceive feels real enough – existentially and experientially – to trust.
This dynamic is vividly illustrated in the story from the Gospel of John. A father comes to Jesus, desperate for his dying child to be healed. Jesus responds, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” At first glance, this may sound like a rebuke of weak faith. But when we read this more closely—and perhaps more personally—it reveals something deeper about the human condition. As a parent, the story takes on a different weight to me. Faced with a suffering child, belief is no longer abstract or theological; it becomes urgent, visceral. In such moments, we might say, “I will believe anything, if only my child may live.” Yet belief born from desperation is unstable. It is intense, but not necessarily grounded. It seeks certainty, but cannot secure it.
Jesus’ words are not simply a criticism; they are a diagnosis. He is naming a truth about how human beings come to believe. We often require something to become real to us – tangible, experienced, undeniable – before we can trust it. Faith, then, is not merely a command to believe without evidence, but an invitation into a different kind of seeing. The good news is this: the presence of God is not distant or abstract. It can become real, existentially and experientially, within our lives. But this does not always come through dramatic “signs and wonders.” More often, it emerges in quieter ways: in moments of unexpected peace, in acts of compassion, in resilience during hardship, or in a subtle sense of guidance that shapes our decisions.
In a world saturated with noise and uncertainty, faith may begin not by demanding overwhelming proof, but by learning to notice. As we become attentive to the small, often overlooked ways that goodness, truth, and love appear in our lives, our inner perception begins to shift. What once seemed abstract becomes real. What once felt uncertain gains substance. Certainty, then, is not something we grasp all at once. It is something that forms gradually, as our experience of life aligns with a deeper awareness of God’s presence. And perhaps this is what Jesus was pointing toward; not a demand for immediate belief, but an invitation to see more deeply, until belief becomes something lived rather than merely declared.
My bothers and sisters in God, let us take a moment of time for reflection. Let us look into our heart and mind, and see what is true and real. Then, let us ask to our heart and mind, “how did they become true and real?”
Blessings,
Rev. Junchol Lee