"The Sign of Jonah"

“The Sign of Jonah” – By Aaron Cope

morning I invite you to open your Bibles

with me to the Book of Matthew chapter

12.

in Matthew 12 and verse 38

we read that a group of Pharisees

approached Jesus

and asked him to perform a sign for them

and in verse 39 Jesus replies in evil

adulterous generation

seeks for a sign

this might strike us at first reading as

a bit curious

since Jesus performed many signs signs

played an important role in confirming

the truth of the word that

spoke that his Apostles spoke

I think a look at

the context in which Jesus made this

statement well

explain why Jesus responded to them so

severely

if we look

in Matthew chapter 12 and verse 13. for

example we find that Jesus had healed a

man with a withered hand

and on that occasion

instead of believing in Jesus

or at least reflecting soberly on the

significance of this miracle

the Pharisees had gone out and conspired

together against Jesus as to how they

might describe

in verse 15 we read that Jesus had

healed all of the many people who were

following him

on that occasion

and then in verse 22 we read that Jesus

healed a man who was possessed by a

demon and as a result was both blind

and mute

and on this occasion in response the

Pharisees

accused Jesus of casting out demons by

the power of the Lord of Demons by Satan

himself

and Jesus responded

explaining that the ill logic of their

assertion only revealed their hearts

that they simply refused to believe

the evidence that Jesus piled up before

them the repeated signs that he had

provided as to who he was

and what he was doing I think this

explains then why Jesus rebukes them so

sharply in verse 39.

and this context their requests were

signed obviously is disingenuous and

perhaps even part of that plot against

Jesus to destroy him and that is why he

calls them out as evil and adulterous

they were not faithful to their God they

were not seeking to understand God’s

will much less

to do it

so instead of

playing along with Jesus requests for a

sign

with their request for Jesus to perform

a sign Jesus

tells them the only sign They will

receive is the sign of the prophet Jonah

as Jonah was three days in the heart of

the sea so Jesus would be three days in

the heart of the Earth

probable that

the people who heard Jesus speak these

words on this occasion did not fully

understand what he meant by that

but

after his

Ascension

the disciples would surely be able to

look back on this Exchange

every reader of Matthew’s gospel would

be able to see this change in

he readily recognized three days in the

heart of the Earth as a reference to

Jesus death and burial and Resurrection

building on his reference to Jonah Jesus

then goes on to explain that he was in

fact greater than Jonah and even King

Solomon he says beginning in verse 41

the man of Nineveh will rise up at the

Judgment with this generation and

condemn it

for they repented at the preaching of

Jonah and behold

something greater than Jonah is here

the queen of the South will rise up at

the Judgment with this generation and

condemn it

for she came from the ends of the Earth

hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold

something greater than Solomon

is here

the Pharisees recognized Jonah and

Solomon as prophets of Jehovah so when

Jesus

declared himself to be greater than

Jonah and Solomon he was proclaiming

that he was not just a prophet he was

greater than a prophet

it brings my mind to the passage in

Hebrews chapter 1 that Jason just

referred to in our lesson in the past

God spoke in many portions in many ways

through the prophets but in these last

days you’ve spoken to us in his son

Jesus also points out that these

gentiles

the ninevites the Queen of Sheba

paid e to the words of these prophets

and yet these so-called religious

leaders of Jesus day refused to pay he

to one who was even more than

a prophet

and so we think about the parallels

between Jonah and

Jesus I think we can see there are other

ways in which Jesus was greater

than Jonah and thinking about

those ways I think can help us to

appreciate

what it is that Jesus accomplished for

us

on the cross

first

Jesus

willingly submitted himself

to the father’s plan for his life

Jonah of course famously resisted

God’s

commands

when God told Jonah go to Nineveh

instead of starting to travel Eastward

to the capital of the Syrian Empire he

jumped on a boat headed westward in a

vain attempt to flee the presence of God

and the ordeal that he experienced with

the storm with the great fish was all

direct consequence of Jonah’s

Disobedience of God’s commands

Jesus by contrast

suffered precisely because he submitted

himself

to the father’s will for his life and

for his ministry to include dying on the

cross

for our sins

Jonah had no power over the waves he had

no power over the fish he was entirely

at the mercy of those forces

and of God

Jesus by contrast could have stopped

his suffering at any moment

the sources of his suffering were

entirely subject to his authority to his

power but he was willing to

experience that suffering

for the joy set before him

as the author of Hebrews says in

reference to accomplishing our

salvation

Jesus

was greater than Jonah because

he came

willingly carried out God’s will for him

and his ministry

in a spirit of compassion

Jonah’s

initial resistance to God’s

instruction to him unfortunately was not

his only

downfall

when the fish finally spit Jonah up onto

the shore and he finally yielded to

God’s commands he went to Nineveh he

proclaimed this message of warning of

God’s impending judgment

much to Jonah’s surprise and it turns

out

it’s May the nunavites listened

and when they repented

Jonah was upset

he

turned to God and said this is exactly

why I didn’t want to come to Nineveh in

the first place I knew he would be

gracious to them

Jonah had preached God’s message not out

of a spirit of compassion but out of

spirit of Vengeance

he wanted to see God act in judgment on

these Sinners not save them

Jesus by contrast

seeks our salvation

not our condemnation as we read in John

chapter 3 verse 17 God did not send his

son into the world to condemn the world

but in order that the world

might be saved through him

perhaps nowhere more clearly do we see

this idea that Jesus came in a spirit of

compassion then in his words from the

cross

when Jesus

appealed to the father to forgive the

people who are in the act of

murdering him

Jesus wanted our Salvation so much he

was willing to suffer and die to achieve

it

and that brings us to a third contrast

that Jesus valued our well-being

above his own

at the end of the book that bears his

name we read the Jonah goes out of

Nineveh he goes up on a hill and he sits

and he looks down on the city and he

watches

and he waits

he waits for God to come and destroy

Nineveh

and while he’s waiting God causes a

plant to grow up

to offer him shade from the hot sun

and then God sends a worm

or a caterpillar or some little critter

to eat that plant

and the plant dies this thereby

depriving Jonah of his shade

and Jonah’s angry response to that turn

of events showed

that he was far more concerned about the

plant

and more accurately about the comfort

that that plant provided him than he was

about the hundreds of thousands of

people who would have perished

if God had destroyed Nineveh as Jonah

urged him

to do

in the last words of the book God

confronts Jonah about his selfish

indifference to the lives of the

nineveites

Jesus

in contrast was more concerned about our

well-being

than his own he was willing to suffer

so that we would not as we read in

Isaiah chapter 53

in verse 5 he was pierced for our

transgressions he was crushed for our

iniquities

upon him was the chastisement that

brought us

peace

with his wounds

we are healed

after this Exchange in Matthew chapter

12 Jesus would go on to perform

many other signs

when there were people present who would

see

and reflect on the meaning

and believe

ultimately however the greatest sign

that Jesus ever provided as to who he

was and what he was doing in this world

was the sign of the prophet Jonah his

death

and burial

and Resurrection Proclaim his deity and

his triumph over sin on our behalf

in the Lord’s Supper we remember that

Jesus

willingly submitted himself

to the will of the father in order to

save us

from our sins

because his love for us his compassion

for us

so great that he was willing to die

bearing our sins

so that we would not so that we could be

forgiven

so we could be safe so that we could be

reconciled to him

for eternity

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