While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them,
As the crowds gathered, someone who was seeking fame and adulation would have likely to give signs if signs were in his power to give them, or otherwise to present the most comforting and affirming of his teachings. But Jesus did neither of these.
This generation is an evil generation;
Instead of affirming, Jesus immediately did what a true prophet would do, critiquing and calling to repentance. He was not out to win a popularity contest, and knew that the favor of the crowd was fickle and unreliable. One day they would shout, "Hosanna!" and then the next, "Crucify him!". Jesus refused to build on the shifting sands of human popularity or fame.
it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it,
except the sign of Jonah.
Signs were given to individuals who were potentially open to them, whose potential faith would enable them to respond. But to the crowd en masse signs had the potential to harden hearts rather than open them, just as the raising of Lazarus seemed to harden the hearts of the chief priests (see John 12:9-11), and many other miracles done in their midst remained unrecognized, ignored, or denied.
Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites,
so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
Jesus did offer something to these crowds, to that evil generation. Just as Jonah's preaching converting Nineveh and brought the Ninevites to repent so too Jesus's preaching was enough in itself that those who heard it ought to have been able to respond. They heard the voice of truth, who spoke as no one else ever spoke, with an authority unlike that of the scribes and the Pharisees, and were therefore responsible and accountable for their response.
At the judgment
the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation
and she will condemn them,
because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and there is something greater than Solomon here.
Jesus himself was the power of God and the wisdom of God (see First Corinthians 1:24). If the queen of the south was able to recognize the wisdom of Solomon in his teaching then the crowd ought to have been able to recognize the one who was himself greater than Solomon. To do so didn't require a sign. All it required was a heart sincere enough to recognize the mystery that was before it.
We are surrounded by an evil generation, to be sure. More pressingly, we are in fact implicated as part of such a generation insofar as we have not yet made a complete break with it to follow Christ. We have an evil generation mentality when we tell Jesus that we will do this or that thing that we know him to be calling us to, that we know to be for our or our neighbor's good, but only if he first gives us a sign. We should understand that it is not impossible to have a sincere desire or a need for a sign in the process of discernment. But often, we insist on signs as an excuse to stagnate in our Christian walk. When the need for signs is genuine we need only look around us and they will be given. If we feel like we're hitting a wall, however, and being denied a sign, perhaps it is because we don't really need one and the wisdom we need is already right in front of us.
For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm
and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
We are meant to walk in the freedom of faith. This means we can't be demanding signs at every new step. Christ's wisdom must become the basis for our lives rather than insisting that he prove himself repeatedly. We are called as the Galatians were called to surrender our own control as the basis of our relationship with Jesus. It must not be that the law comes first, or that our secular ideas come first, and that Jesus as added as additional layer above those things. The freedom of Christ is something in which we stand and by which we walk when we refuse to accept anything other than Christ as the basis of our lives.
Just as Jonah became a sign
Jonah was also a sign by the three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. This indicated beyond doubt the divine origin of his mission. Jesus himself did not rely on his preaching alone to convert the recalcitrant crowds. He also gave to them and to us the sign of his suffering, death, and resurrection, as the best and surest proof, and the most potent medicine in order to convince and heal hearts hardened by sin.
If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.
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