It is natural to seek signs to bolster and strengthen our faith. Sometimes the signs are not what we expect and can be difficult and challenging to accept. St. Paul reflects on the challenge and even the scandal of the sigh of the cross.
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block (scandal) to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-25).
Paul himself struggled with the scandal of a crucified Messiah and at first could not accept Jesus as the Messiah until Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus.
In today’s Gospel Jesus challenges the people who are seeking a sign and tells them they were receive no sign except one:
“This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.”
This sign of Jonah in Luke’s Gospel is Jonah preaching of repentance to the Ninevites. He preached the Word of God, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” The people heard God’s word and repented: “the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.” (Jonah 3:4-6). The surprising thing in the book of Jonah was that the Ninevites were pagans even enemies of the Jews. God showed them mercy when they repented even as he showed mercy to Jonah who at times is disobedient and narrow minded. Jonah at first disobeys God’s command to go and preach to the Ninevites. He is narrow minded since he resents that God shows the same mercy to these Ninevites that he has already shown to him.
With this sign of Jonah Jesus challenges us when we are disobedient and narrow minded. God is rich in mercy, and we are called to rejoice not only when he shows us his mercy but also when he shows mercy to others, even to our “enemies.”
Image: “DSC_0028” by bobosh_t is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.