No more sign shall be given!

Luke 11:29-32

Now as the crowds were [increasingly] thronging Him, He began to say, This present generation is a wicked one; it seeks and demands a sign (miracle), but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah [the prophet]. 30For [just] as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will also the Son of Man be [a sign] to this age and generation. 31The queen of the South will arise in the judgment with the people of this age and generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the [inhabited] earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and notice, here is more than Solomon. 32The men of Nineveh will appear as witnesses at the judgment with this generation and will condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, here is more than Jonah.

Food for thought!

Great number of people kept coming to Jesus, not to get Jesus but his miracles. Sounds familiar? Many people today go to Jesus not because of Jesus himself but in search of the miracles of Jesus. This is what Jesus is condemning in the Gospel reading.

People always want what is sensational; what is emotional; what is entertaining; what is extraordinary. This
is what Jesus is condemning. "This present generation is a wicked one; it seeks and demands a sign (miracle), but no sign shall be given to it." Why will no more sign be given? Because the ultimate sign has already been given, in Jesus Christ.

God came to us in Jesus. This is what St. Paul tells us in Galatians 4:4, “when the right time came, the time God decided on, he sent his Son, born of a woman, born as a Jew.” God continues to come to us in the ordinary, just as He did in Jesus of Nazareth. God is with us (Matthew 1:23), and is always with us until the end of the world (Matthew 28:20).

If God is with us, let us seek him in the ordinary. If God is with us, let us serve him in the ordinary, by doing well our ordinary and daily duties. If we had the eyes of the queen of Sheba or of the people of Nineveh, we would see God in all the ordinary. Yes, God is not only a God of Sundays, he is also a God of the week; he is not only a God of the churches but also a God of every place including our offices, homes, streets and neighbourhoods.

Long ago, the queen of the South came from the far away just to listen to Solomon because she saw in this man the hand of God; and the people of Nineveh repented because they saw the hand of God in Jonah's preaching. In other words, the Queen of the South and the people of Nineveh saw beyond Solomon and Jonah; they knew how to go beyond the man of God to the God of the man. Let us not miss the message from God to us because of the messengers; there is more in the preaching than the preacher. God still uses the ordinary people and circumstances to speak to us.