Day 15 of Lent: Signs

While it is very difficult to write a blog every day, I'm really grateful that I've taken this on for Lent. After reading the entire bible, cover-to-cover last year, I knew I didn't know everything...but I thought I had a pretty good handle on may things. Reading the snippets of scripture in this 40 Days of Growth reading plan have served as a sign that I don't know anything. 

Sign - an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else.

In my case, it's an event (Lent readings) that indicate the probable presence of something else (ignorance). It's shocking, but yet great. I like knowing that I'm never "done" with the Bible. It's a lifetime of CPE (continuing professional education) credits. 

Today's reading is about signs. And I think in general, the idea is that wanting or desiring a sign is bad. But people have wanted signs throughout scripture and God didn't seem upset by it:

• Genesis 15:7-8: God tells Abraham: "I'm giving you this land" and Abraham says: "but how do I know that I can take this land.?" Thunder? Lightning bolts? Nope. In the next verses you see God go out of His way to show Abraham that He means business!
  
• Judges 6:33-40: After God "clothes Gideon with power" he's like: "Lord, if you are for real, I have this fleece..." Thunder? Lightning bolts? Nope. The signs are given.
  
• And my all time (brand new) favorite? Isaiah 7:5-11. Please read it! It's amazing. God is going way out of His way to comfort King Ahaz; God even goes so far as to tell him to ask for a sign! ANY sign, a super hard sign, even! I love the NLT translation of verse 11: “Ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz. Make it as difficult as you want—as high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead.”

So signs, in and of themselves, are not bad. They just aren't. The thing about a sign though...is that it has to be recognized. And it has to be heeded! So now to today's reading: 
 

As the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.“No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on the lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light. The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.”

-Luke 11:29-36

This is a lot of scripture, but I really don't have a ton to say. So I'm going to try to be as brief and concise as possible because this blog is already too long. 

This is Jesus talking and he says, this wicked generation seeks for a sign, but only one sign with be given: the sign of Jonah. And Jesus then compares Himself (the Son of Man) to Jonah.

This is super interesting because prior to today I thought this comparison related to a miracle. Everyone knows Jonah. Even non-Christians, because his is a "whale of a tale." It's so incredible that he is thrown overboard, swallowed by a great fish, lives in the belly of the fish for three days and returns alive. I thought Jonah's tragic fish experience was being likened to how Jesus would die, be in the ground for three days and then return alive. But there is no mention of Jonah in the great fish. There is no mention of three days. The sign of Jonah was...JONAH. 

Jonah, himself, became the sign to the Ninevites. What made him a sign? 

He wasn't supposed to be there!

What do I mean by that? Of course, God ordained Jonah to go and speak to those people. But Jonah was an Israeli-Jewish prophet, and it's his job to proclaim salvation to who? Jews. Ninevites are not Jews. In fact, they are enemies of the Jews. They are enemies of God. They are enemies of Jonah. But Jonah went and delivered to them an 8-word sermon:

"Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown." - Jonah 3:4 

And they saw the sign for what it was. They heard him. They repented, and they were saved. 

But Jesus says, someone is here who is greater than Jonah. Greater than a prophet. Jesus is God incarnate, the Word made flesh. He's not supposed to be here! He's supposed to be on heavenly thrones, clothed in majesty. Of course, God ordained Jesus to come and speak to these people (to the entire world), but we are not good people. We're not friends of God. In fact, we are enemies of God. Enemies of Jesus. But Jesus also had an 8-word message (depending on what translation you use...ha): 

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved - Mark 16:16 (NIV)

Jesus goes on to compare himself to Solomon. First he was greater than a prophet. And now, he's greater than a king*. Such a person is speaking to mere sinners and to unruly subjects in plain language. THAT is a sign. Jesus is the sign. His preached word is an indication that there is something you need to pay attention to. 

Jesus is asking people (now and then) to see the light. He's wants us to recognize that the sign we need isn't more healings. It isn't raising people from the dead. The sign you need isn't speaking in tongues, and it isn't a vision from on high. The only sign you need...is light. 

Jesus is light. 

But can you see it? 




*Random: the fact that Jesus isn't saying "Someone greater than Jonah" or "Someone greater than Solomon" is here...is deep. Jesus is not a someone. But yet He is a someone. It's deep. Deep.