Matthew 12.38-42

Have you ever asked God for a miracle?

I'm not talking about praying for your sick relative to be healed or anything like that. I mean a miracle done just for show. Have you ever asked for one? I know that I have. Sometimes I've thought, "God, it would be so much easier to have faith in you if you showed me a miracle. Make my bowl of cereal suddenly disappear. Suspend the laws of gravity for a bit so that all my stuff floats around the room. Help me get a date. C'mon, just show me a miracle."

In Matthew 12:38-42, some of the Pharisees and scribes come to Jesus with a similar request. Here's what the text says:

38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."

39 He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.

At the beginning of this passage, the Pharisees ask Jesus from a miraculous sign. They're saying, "Alright Jesus, if you are who you say you are, prove it. Give us a show."

But wait a minute....hasn't Jesus already done this? All throughout Matthew, we've been reading about Jesus performing miracles. He's healed lepers. He's given sight to the blind and speech to the mute. He even brought a little girl back from the dead! And right before our text today, Jesus drove out a demon that was keeping a man blind and mute, and the Pharisees accused him of being empowered by Satan! But now they're asking for a miraculous sign? Where have they been all this time?

It becomes pretty evident that the Pharisees don't really care that much about a miracle. They've seen plenty of them already, and they keep trying to find ways to dismiss them or discredit them. The Pharisees have already hardened themselves against Jesus, and nothing he does is going to convince them to believe. They're not looking for a reason to put faith in Jesus. They're just looking for another way to criticize him.

So Jesus doesn't play along with their games. He doesn't perform another miracle on their command. Instead, he uses some pretty harsh words against them. He calls them a "wicked and adulterous generation" and says that the only miracle they would get would be the sign of Jonah. This is obviously a reference to Jesus' own resurrection--he says that just as Jonah was in the fish's belly for three days, he himself would be in the ground for three days before coming out alive. The resurrection is the ultimate validation of Jesus' identity and authority. It proves that all of the claims he made about himself were true. After all, when someone comes back from the dead, he's probably worth listening to.

Sadly, the resurrection wasn't even enough to convince the religious leaders, which shows how hardened they were. When the priests were told that Jesus wasn't in the tomb anymore, they didn't repent and begin to have faith. Instead, they came up with a cover-up story to try to hide the fact of Jesus' resurrection. For them, no miracle Jesus could have done would have convinced them.

Next, Jesus compares the Pharisees to a couple different groups/people in the Old Testament. This follows the common "lesser to greater" comparison that we see a lot in the Bible. First, he says that the people of Nineveh would condemn Jesus' generation. This alludes the book of Jonah, where the prophet Jonah goes to the Assyrian capital Nineveh to preach, and they repent. Now before this, the Ninevites were not good people at all. They were ruthlessly violent. They were engrossed in sin. But even they repented at Jonah's preaching. And Jonah--he didn't do any miracles. The truth is that he didn't even want to go to Nineveh. So if the wicked, Gentile Ninevites repented at the preaching of a reluctant prophet, how much more should the religious leaders of Israel itself be receptive toward Jesus, who had numerous miracles?

Then Jesus compares the Pharisees to the "Queen of the South." This is a reference to the Queen of Sheba, who in 1 Kings 10 comes to the king Solomon to learn from his wisdom. The point is the same. If this queen traveled for miles and miles to listen to the wisdom of Solomon (who was just a man, and one with some major problems at that), how much more should the Pharisees be ready to accept the incarnate Wisdom of God who had been walking among them for months?

So does faith depend on whether or not we see a miracle? Does my couch need to somehow turn from blue to orange for me to believe in Christ?

Jesus' answer is that faith doesn't rest on those things. We shouldn't need a miracle to believe. And yet, we still have the privilege of reading about all the miracles Jesus did do, and we live on this side of the empty tomb so that we can look back and see how Jesus' person and mission were validated by the resurrection.

The issue, then, isn't that there isn't ample evidence in support of Jesus. It comes down to our hearts. Are you hardened toward God? Or are you ready to accept him in faith?

David Heffren