Deuteronomy 4: 14-49, Deuteronomy 5, Luke 11: 1-32, Psalm 59: 1-8
Luke 11: 29-30 (ESV)
“When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This
generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be
given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people
of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”
In verses 29 through 30 from Luke 11, Jesus lamented over
the crowd asking for a sign. Christ then referenced Jonah and said that Jonah
will be the only sign that will be given. Christ tells the crowd “the Son on Man”
will be like Jonah, since he became a sign to the people of Nineveh. I wonder
if the crowd listening got the reference that Jesus was making. Jonah was
swallowed by a big fish for three (3) days and nights, but after he prayed to
God, the big fish vomited Jonah out and he survived. Jesus was trying to tell
the crowd that he would die and be resurrected after three (3) days and nights
like Jonah. Did the disciples get the reference? If they did, I’m not sure they
even knew what it meant because they seemed to be having a hard time coming to
terms that Jesus was going to die. And I don’t blame the disciples either. They
had seen Jesus perform so many miracles, so it didn’t make sense that he would
allow himself to die. What I also love about these verses is that they show how
Christ knew the Old Testament. Jesus gave out so many hints of what was going
to happen to him, but the gospels state that so few people understood what God’s
ultimate plan was for his son. They couldn’t conceive that God would make the
ultimate sacrifice of his son, the way God had once asked Abraham to sacrifice
his own son. These verses also show us why it’s so hard to know the mind of
God, but that God’s plan always works out for the best and that we need to
trust God even if we might never ever understand his actions.