"Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you."
He said to them in reply,
"An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign,
Jesus had already done many signs that they had witnessed but those had only apparently succeeded at hardening their hearts. They were like the desert generation of the exodus in which the people never learned to trust in the miraculous providence of God no matter how many times he revealed himself. That generation was all too ready to serve any idol as an alternative to trusting in the true God, seemingly at the drop of a hat. So too were the scribes and the Pharisees ready to latch on to any excuse to ignore, criticize, or condemn Jesus.
but no sign will be given it
except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
The sort of signs that the Pharisees thought they wanted, the gratuitous displays of otherwise unaccountable power, had in fact already happened. But they were able to find excuses for why what they had witnessed could not have happened or at least should not have happened. The Pharisees wanted to be the ones who set the precise terms for how Jesus must prove himself. Asking for miracles when miracles were needed was one thing. Asking for help to believe when one wanted to believe but found his faith to be weak was in fact admirable. But the scribes and the Pharisees were testing Jesus, and therefore putting God to the test. What they asked presumed their right to stand in judgment over Jesus as arbiters of the claims he made about himself. But there was no way for the weak judgment of mere humans to suffice when God was the one in view.
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.
Although the Pharisees had locked the possibility away inside a maze of their own rationalizations Jesus nevertheless did want them to understand who he truly was and to believe in him. But rather than acquiesce to navigate the maze of proofs they decided to require Jesus thought it better to break down the walls sealing off their hearts from the outside. The resurrection was an earthquake that would leave no human wisdom standing in its wake. After three days Jesus would arise from the heart of the earth demonstrating that his claims had a greater certainty than even death itself.
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.
Those who heard Jesus need not wait for his resurrection to believe. It was not actually the case that the specifically miraculous was necessary for him to prove what he said. Rather, the fact the his was proclaiming a message from God was something that it was possible to recognize, just as the people of Nineveh had recognized and responded to the preaching of Jonah. Just as the queen of the south knew that Solomon possessed such wisdom as to justify coming to him from the ends of the earth so too was it possible to recognize Jesus, who was himself the wisdom and power of God, spoke the truth (1 Corinthians 1:24).
If we ever struggle with doubts the right answer is not to set our own criteria for what would be necessary for us to continue believing. The right answer is to listen to Jesus with an open heart so that his wisdom can convict us. Moreover, in the face of all our doubts we can look to the resurrection as the definitive proof to silence them all. His resurrection is meant to be at the very core of our faith. When it isn't, we quickly forget what we're supposed to be all about. But when it is we have a light that is much greater than the darkness of the world, one which is impossible to extinguish.
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