The sign of Jonah

October 12, 2015
Monday
28th Week in Ordinary Time
1st reading: Romans 1.1-7
Gospel: Luke 11:29-32
As the crowd increased, Jesus began to speak in this way, “People of the present time are evil people. They ask for a sign, but no sign will be given to them except the sign of Jonah. As Jonah became a sign for the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be a sign for this generation. The Queen of the South will rise up on Judgment Day with the people of these times and accuse them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and here there is greater than Solomon. The people of Nineveh will rise up on Judgment Day with the people of these times and accuse them, for Jonah’s preaching made them turn from their sins, and here there is greater than Jonah.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
In the absence of faith people need ample spectacular signs to sustain belief. This statement couldn’t be truer to a situation of complete absence of faith. This explains why an evil generation always demands for signs. But God hardly gives in to such demand without requiring prior repentance. That is why in today’s Gospel Jesus said that no sign will be given to an evil generation except the sign of Jonah.
Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites that the time to repent had come. When Jonah appeared people responded positively by fasting as a community. When Jesus said that no sign will be given to an evil generation except the sign of Jonah, he was saying that no sign no matter how spectacular will be effective on unrepentant hearts. Repentance bestows wisdom upon us – wisdom to discern signs from above. Without repentance, another sign from God will be like flogging a dead horse.

This justified Jesus’ refusal to perform more signs. The Jews clung to their lineage but drifted far from the values of their ancestors. Their ancestors readily recognized and acknowledged the wisdom of Solomon. Yet they had Jesus in their midst – a Rabbi far wiser than Solomon. Jesus called them “evil people” (verse 29). The parallel in Matthew adds the word “unfaithful” (Matthew 13:38). They were an unfaithful, evil people. No sign from heaven was efficacious enough to touch their unrepentant hearts.
We too live in an evil generation that panics over claims of miracles. Will God give us extraordinary signs? He will not, because he knows that when faith is anchored on the spectacular, it will be one that needs endless priming up with sensational experiences. If we want God to perform more signs, we must show him the greater sign – the sign of Jonah, that is, the sign of repentance! – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected].
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