Reflection On Luke 11: 29-32

Normally, the Pharisees were the ones confronting Jesus and finding fault with His teaching and ministry. However, here, Luke says the crowd was trying to challenge Him. Shortly before this Jesus had cast out a devil and some of the people said He cast out devils by Beelzebul – the prince of devils. Others requested a sign from heaven to verify His authority. Again, the crowd confronts Him by demanding a sign of His authority from God. We would suspect that the Pharisees were encouraging the people to challenge Him. Jesus is caustic in His reply – calling this “an evil age” and saying that the people of this age would be condemned by the queen of the south and the citizens of Nineveh. They wanted to see the powerful and spectacular. His only sign from them would be neither. It would be a sign of defeat. He would be killed and buried in the earth for three days. He would show no sign to them except the sign of Jonah. His three days in the tomb, like Jonah’s legendary three days in the belly of the whale, has become a symbol for all times. The real sign, of course, was not his being in the tomb for three days but his emerging from it on that first Easter morning. Today, whenever we hear or speak of the resurrection, we are reminded of the sign of Jonah which Jesus promised to give.

When Jonah preached conversion of heart to the people of Nineveh, they acted on his preaching and repented even without seeing proofs. But the people of Jesus’ generation demanded signs from Him. Is our present generation really different from the people of Jesus’ time? Our technological world has conditioned us to “see first before believing”, by producing proofs and answers to many unanswered questions of the past. Unconsciously this has affected our attitude towards the sacred. We tend to demand proofs of God’s existence and religion’s relevance in our fast changing world before believing. Let’s seek forgiveness from the Lord for if we have demanded signs from Him.