God in the ordinary!

Matthew 12:38-42

38 Later a few religion scholars and Pharisees got on him. "Teacher, we want to see your credentials. Give us some hard evidence that God is in this. How about a miracle?" 39 Jesus said, "You're looking for proof, but you're looking for the wrong kind. All you want is something to titillate your curiosity, satisfy your lust for miracles. The only proof you're going to get is what looks like the absence of proof: Jonah- evidence. 40 Like Jonah, three days and nights in the fish's belly, the Son of Man will be gone three days and nights in a deep grave. 41" On Judgment Day, the Ninevites will stand up and give evidence that will condemn this generation, because when Jonah preached to them they changed their lives. A far greater preacher than Jonah is here, and you squabble about 'proofs.' 42 On Judgment Day, the Queen of Sheba will come forward and bring evidence that will condemn this generation, because she traveled from a far corner of the earth to listen to wise Solomon. Wisdom far greater than Solomon's is right in front of you, and you quibble over 'evidence.'

Food for thought!

The people in today's gospel were guilty of one fundamental mistake. They linked God with the abnormalities; they wanted to see God in the abnormal, in the extraordinary things of life, like the miracles. They forgot that God never shows himself to us so much and so continually as in the ordinary things of every day. This is what Jesus has showed us in the last days through the parables; that there is a close relationship between earth and heaven; that there is a hand of God in the regular and the normal events of life like the rising of the sun and the falling of the rain and the growth of the plant and birth of a new child, etc. For Jesus, this world’s events and happenings are not meaningless; they are all very meaningful. The things that happen in your personal life, your family, your place of work, your church, your world, are all manifestations of God.

Jesus gives the examples of Jonah the prophet. 

The point is that to the Ninevites Jonah himself was God's sign, and Jonah's words were God's message. Jesus is saying, "You are asking for a sign, well and good, I am God's sign. You have failed to recognize me. The Ninevites recognized God's warning in Jonah; the Queen of Sheba recognized God's wisdom in Solomon. In me there has come to you a greater wisdom than Solomon ever had, and a greater message than Jonah ever brought, but you are so blind that you cannot see the truth and so deaf that you cannot hear the warning. And for that very reason the day will come when these people of old, who recognized God when they saw him in the prophets, will be witnesses against you, who had so much better a chance, and failed to recognize God because you refused to do so."

Here is a tremendous truth, Jesus is God's sign, just as Jonah was God's message to the Ninevites and Solomon God's wisdom to the Queen of Sheba. Seeing Jesus is seeing the Father. This is why Jesus made such bold statements as these: “I and My Father are one.”, John 10:30. “...he that has see Me has seen the Father...”, John 14:9. “...I am the way, the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father, but by Me”, John 14:6. “…I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes in me shall never thirst,” John 6:35.