The sign of Jonah

July 18, 2016 Monday, 16th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Mi 6:1-8
Gospel: Mt 12:38–42
Some teachers of the Law and some Pharisees spoke up, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” Jesus answered them, “An evil and unfaithful people want a sign, but no sign will be given them except the sign of the prophet Jonah. In the same way that Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the monster fish, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the depths of the earth.“At the judgment, the people of Nineveh will rise with this generation and condemn it, because they reformed their lives at the preaching of Jonah, and here there is greater than Jonah. At the judgment, the Queen of the South will stand up and condemn you. She came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and here there is greater than Solomon.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel inthe Assimilated Life  Experience)

Today’s Gospel reading taken from chapter 12 of Matthew’s Gospel appears again in chapter 16 but with more details. The malice of Jesus’ malefactors are more pronounced in chapter 16 because it tells us that the Sadducees and the Pharisees asked Jesus to show some signs from heaven “in order to test him”.

Weren’t the signs Jesus had performed enough? No Rabbi matched him in the performance of signs. None but Jesus brought dead people back to life. Only Jesus freed demoniacs from evil possession. Him alone healed prolonged sicknesses. Their demand exposed their malicious intentions. They were out to test Jesus.

Haven’t we also asked him several times for heavenly signs? We even bribe God with promise of loyalty just so he’d perform miracles. But God has greater concerns. Were God to give in to our manipulations, still we wouldn’t grow spiritually because we’d be clinging to God as our milking cow, not as a Master to whose Will we bow.

To the demands for heavenly signs, Jesus’ answer was the sign of Jonah whose story parallels that of Jesus. Jesus stayed in the tomb for three days as Jonah was “buried” inside the belly of a whale for three days. Jonah’s experience also culminated in the salvation of the people of Nineveh as Jesus’ story ended in the salvation of humanity.

In citing the sign of Jonah as the only sign he could offer Jesus was reminding them that salvation was his priority and not entertainment. In the Book of Numbers God said to Moses: “How long will you refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?” (Numbers 14:11-12). God had already sent his Son. Still the people were looking for spectacular things. -(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM., MAPM., MMExM., REB., Email: [email protected].
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