[ Today's Readings ]
An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign,
but no sign will be given it
except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
We say we seek a sign. What we actually want is a distraction. We don't want to hear the plea of the LORD against his people. We don't want to answer his reproaches. He reminds us that he brought us up from the land of Egypt. He released us from the place of slavery. He teaches us his statutes. We know them. Yet we still hate discipline and cast his words behind us.
He does not abandon us. He wants to draw these things up before our eyes so that we can see them and repent. He shows us the sign of Jonah to awaken our hearts from their slumber of complacency. He spends three days in the heart of the earth. This is a sign which refuses to be a distraction. It shows an act of love that is hard to ignore. We hear him asking:
O my people, what have I done to you,
or how have I wearied you? Answer me!
Hopefully, we are cut to the heart. By grace we look on him whom we have pierced and are moved to change the parts of our lives where we have not yet allowed his grace to work. We now expose the parts of our hearts that have grown stale and need the water of life. It is a sign. But it is more than a sign. It is a sign of both how desperate is our need and how strong is his love for us.
When we see this sign we realize that there is something greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon, and greater than any other, here before us. His claim on us is absolute. But it is not merely a claim of power. It is not merely because of his great wisdom or knowledge that we are called to offer him our lives. It is because of the love he shows us. He asks it of us precisely so that he can show us his saving power in our lives.
When we want to offer all that we are to Jesus the stark simplicity of the law no longer bores us. We genuinely want to become as loving and joyful as Jesus wants to make us.
You have been told, O man, what is good,
and what the LORD requires of you:
Only to do the right and to love goodness,
and to walk humbly with your God.
Previously these simple requirements were also frustrating. Now, even if we don't achieve them all at once, they are worth it. They are what Jesus wants for us so that he can walk with us on our journey.
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