Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.
They claimed to want a sign, but signs had been given and it had only caused them to harden their hearts:
And the crowds marveled, saying, “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.” (see Matthew 9:33-34).
They were thus called an "evil and unfaithful generation" like the one led by Moses through the wilderness that time and again saw God's faithfulness and power and yet consistently gave in to grumbling, doubt, and idolatry. They might have actually convinced themselves that the right sign at the right place and time in the right circumstances would have been persuasive. But Jesus knew better. He knew that such a sign would only result in a further hardening of heart, in them finding more desperate and clever ways of insulating themselves from the truth of who Jesus was.
At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah;
and there is something greater than Jonah here.
The call of Jonah to the Ninevites was powerfully persuasive, and that in spite of the fact that Jonah's heart wasn't in it. How much more could the preaching of Jesus, which issued from his genuine mercy and compassion, have captivated and converted the scribes and the Pharisees, those who ought to have been in a better position to hear and accept it than those of Nineveh.
At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon;
and there is something greater than Solomon here.
The wisdom of Solomon was such a draw that even the queen of the south "came from the ends of the earth" to heart it. Jesus not only spoke with wisdom but was himself "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (see First Corinthians 1:24). Yet it was as though the scribes and the Pharisees were actually at a disadvantage because they weren't from these further distances. They were loaded down from expectations and preconceptions, ones which were in fact of their own devising although they knew it not. The signs of Jesus were unable to penetrate their dense self-protective world views. Only those able to experience Jesus with relatively fresh and unencumbered vision, those who became like children, were able to recognize him. But Jesus was not speaking to the Pharisees and scribes only to condemn them. It was rather as though he were inviting them to step back and take another look. He invited them to let go of their need for a sign with certain specific parameters and to instead see the compassion and wisdom with which he spoke, which were self-evidently divine.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights,
so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth
three days and three nights.
There was also, we might say, a contingency plan, for those whose hearts remained hardened and failed to recognize the one who was both greater than Jonah and Solomon. That plan was to absorb all of their animosity upon himself on the cross, to forgive them, and allow himself to be killed by them, and yet return alive as a great invitation to receive the peace and the new life of which he now became the source. If the signs he performed and the wisdom he spoke were not enough, this was the maximum he could do to woo and to persuade hearts as hardened as theirs.
Yet are we not in some measure like the scribes and Pharisees? Don't we too persist in doubt, like an evil and unfaithful generation, in spite of God's constant faithfulness to us? Don't we define the signs by which he might prove himself to us, once and for all? And isn't this to miss all the while his immense wisdom and compassion? Let us stop with this struggle against him and return to his cross, to his sign of Jonah, and learn to be still. When we stop fighting against him we will instead experience the truth of the fact that he never ceases to fight for us.
These Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again.
The LORD himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still.
No comments:
Post a Comment