Saturday March 21st: What the Experts Miss

“Would the Christ be from Galilee?”

John 7: 40-53

We may not want to admit it, but we all tend to write off people, to dismiss someone’s viewpoint, for one reason or another. He’s too young; she’s too old; they doh have a degree; dem not from around here…

We give more weight to our own knowledge and experiences, valuing our own thoughts and opinions over others, especially strangers. It is this combination of pride and prejudice that can blind us to the presence of the very things we are looking for. We miss the Christ, even when He checks off the boxes.

The lay people in today’s Gospel recognised that there was something special about Jesus saying, ‘He must be a prophet; He is the Christ.’ The Pharisees, the experts of the day, would not even entertain this notion. They were adamant – prophets do not come from Galilee!

Sometimes the unlearned and uneducated can see things that the experts miss. May we never dismiss the everyday Jesus of Bethlehem from David’s line, because he may also come from the unremarkable Galilee.