Matthew 12:38-41
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” 39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; 40 for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 “The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Here we see a glimpse of the error of the Jews and their expectations of the Messiah. They were asking Him to perform a sign or miracle and He told them that there will certainly be one, but they will probably miss it. Try to imagine asking someone to show you a sign of their power and in return you get a riddle! This must have been disappointing to those asking Him for a sign. How often do we ask God for something and miss the wonder of His response because we expected Him to do it a certain way?
Jesus alludes to a judgment by the men of Nineveh in the last day. This doesn’t mean that the Ninevites will judge the generation that Jesus was speaking to; He was telling them that their example will reveal the wickedness of the scribes and Pharisees. When Jonah walked the streets of Nineveh, he called them to repentance and they repented immediately. The king ordered everyone in the land to repent and return their hearts to the Lord. Jesus based His ministry on the very same exhortation, yet they did not repent. The scribes and Pharisees will be judged in that day according to their lack of repentance, which will be revealed by Nineveh’s repentance. Where will you stand on judgment day?
Have we stopped looking for signs and wonders because we haven’t seen what we expected? When we stand next to the Ninevites, will their light shine and reveal our wickedness? Will we still be looking for a sign from God or will we have finally seen it? We have clouded our own vision by having expectations of God that are fueled by society and our upbringing instead of His character. The Pharisees and scribes knew very well the story of Jonah, but did they recognize that it was a foreshadowing of the Savior? Our ignorance to God’s wonders in our lives is a result of expecting Him to perform magic tricks for us instead of understanding the depth of His salvation and our resulting relationship with Him. Instead of looking for signs and wonders, we should be focusing on the sign: the gospel of the Kingdom of God.
