In the Biblical context, especially in the gospels, miracles are mostly termed as signs, for a miracle foreshadows the sign of divine intervention in the economy of masses. Jesus started his public ministry by turning water into wine, the first of his ‘signs……..’ (John 2:11). A sign could be viewed as a holistic process whereby the ripple effect of it electrifies not only the focal subject but all those in the vicinity. For example, when the crowd witnessed Jesus healing a paralytic, they were awestruck and glorified God (Matthew 9:8). In this case, we see the sign not only affected the paralytic but the community present at the scene. Almost every day, we get to see divine signs in various forms of blessings, through the lives of people around us, in our families, among our friends, neighbours and communities. We ought to reflect as to how, as true children God, do we respond to these signs. As a true follower of Christ, we should ideally be praising and glorifying God for the blessings showered on my neighbour, friends and so on; and thank Lord for showing yet another sign of divine presence to us. Over and above, such signs should help us to repent and transform towards God’s glory.
A sign could either be just a visual treat or an intensively transforming experience. Sign, as a mere visual treat, are materialistic and have little spiritual value. Such signs could be termed as mere magic and hence are demonic in nature. For example, the signs performed by the magicians at the court of Pharaoh to imitate the signs of Moses (Exodus 7-12). Moses was sent by God and the signs he performed were divine whereas the miracles performed by Pharaoh’s magicians were demon inspired. Visual treats are short-term and so are signs performed for visual treats. The magicians did succeed in imitating Moses but the signs performed by Moses had an overpowering effect on the former.
Divine signs, as we see in the Bible, are meant for the transformation of individual to either effect or further the faith of individuals. They are in no way meant for mere visual treat. For instance, in John 6:2 it is reported that a great multitude of people followed Jesus because they saw the signs He had performed, by healing the sick. Now, one may try to draw support for the stage performances as we see today, drawing this instance as an example. However, it needs to be understood that this performance of sign, of healing the sick, was not just a visual treat for those who witnessed it, rather an empathetic and intensive realisation of the members of the community. It should be discerned that the whole community felt the pain and suffering of the sick, and when Jesus walked into, the whole community embraced Him with a true and pure heart. As a result, whilst the sick were physically healed, the entire community got spiritually transformed. Remember what Jesus instructed His disciples, ‘if the house or the city does not receive you……….go out……..shake the dust off your feet’ (Matthew 10:14). We also read that Jesus could not do any miracles as Nazareth did not accept Him (Mark 6:5). In short, it could be stated that signs/miracles are meant for internalisation, a process by which the divine intervention is felt deep within the spirit of the people who witnesses them and gets spiritually transformed. This transformation is evident in the statement of Saint Paul when he said, ‘and it is not I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20). This audacious statement by Saint Paul is the external sign of an internal reaction stirred up as a result of his realisation that Christ was crucified for his sins.
Performance of miracles to satisfy the mere visual needs of the audience has a dubious intention towards personal glory, popularity and of course material wealth. When Simon the sorcerer saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the Apostle’s hands, he offered them money to buy this power (Acts 8:18), so that he could make more money out of it. Similarly, in Acts 16:16 we read that there was a girl who used to earn a great deal of fortune for her owners by fortune-telling. Even in this so-called ‘modern age’ it is not rare to see people, including believers of Christ, chasing for, and running from pillar to post seeking such visual treats. It appears lately that the spiritual world has sunken to a level where only performers of such visual treats can survive in the ecosystem of Christian spirituality.
The Pharisees and Sadducees approached Jesus asking to show them a sign from heaven. Jesus’ explicit exposure of them as an evil and adulterous generation (Matthew 16:4) draws parallel to the situation many of us are in today, full of evil deeds and adultery. And the sign for such a corrupt age is apparently the sign of Jonah- the one and only sign, as stated by Jesus.
There are two significance of the sign of Jonah.
Jesus said, ‘For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth’ (Matthew 12:40).
- Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster:
At the outset, Jonah was a prophet. A prophet is a chosen person of God who acts as His mouth (Deuteronomy 18:18), passing on the messages to the people. Easy said than done is to be the mouth of God, for being the mouth means the prophet is supposed to speak out whatever God wants to communicate. In other words, being the mouth means speaking out without thinking because it is not the prophet who is speaking but God using the prophet’s mouth. To analyse this phenomenon in a secular context could mean speech by a non-sensible person or by somebody who is out of mind. This is the reason why we see that almost all the Old Testament prophets were rejected by the people. Jesus also is seen blaming the Jews for denying and destroying the mouths of God in His statement, ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it….’ (Luke 13:34). The pain and agony of God is clearly articulated through the words of Jesus Christ here.
The making of a prophet is an intensive process involving a lot of planning and preparation. When people are in bondage or trouble God plans to send a prophet. For example, centuries before, God promised to send a prophet (Deuteronomy 18:18), a promise about messiah. A prophet needs to be prepared even before s/he is formed in the womb of his mother (Jeremiah 1:5). Prior to be formed in full as a prophet, the person needs to be further purified so as to see God and His throne (Isaiah 6:1). The mouth of the person is to be purified so as to become the mouth of God (Isaiah 6:6-7). Most importantly (and could be discerned as an oath), the prophet is expected to commit himself impartially to God (Isaiah 6:8).
Once this commitment is explicitly stated, as Isaiah did, the prophet is sent for combat mission as God sent Isaiah (Isaiah 6:9-10). I call this ‘combat’ for the simple reason that prophecy is one of the nine gifts of Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10) and the Spirit of Lord always work against the evil spirit.
An ideal prophet will only speak and dare not to withhold the word of God. The most ideal of all the prophets that we see in the Bible is Jesus Himself, and He was fully confident that He spoke only what He heard from His Father (John 12:49). Moreover, being an ideal prophet Jesus did according to the will of His Father who sent Him, and not His own (John 6:38). This is the point where Jesus as the true prophet contradicted Jonah, as well as many Pharisees and Sadducees who supported false prophets.
Jonah the prophet was chosen by God for a very important mission. He was assigned to communicate the word of God to the people of Nineveh with an aim to deliver them from complete destruction- a full deliverance from the extreme demonic forces ruling the people and the city (Jonah 1:2). The prophecy against the Nineveh was meant to be a sign of the forthcoming wrath of God.
However, what we see in the book of Jonah is the deviation of a prophet who discarded the assignment and went on his own way. A prophet that rejects God’s call is in fact rejecting the will of God. Such prophets create unrest and imbalance in nature, and are threats to people’s lives, as we see in Jonah’s case (Jonah 1:4-5). Rebellion against God leads to darkness and misery (Psalms 107:10-11), ending up in a place where there is nobody to help. Jonah’s disobedience dragged him down to the stomach of the sea monster.
Jonah was a prophet of God who falsified himself by committing disobedience. Deuteronomy 18:20 says that a prophet who presumes to speak in the name of God that He has not commanded shall die; because they are false prophets who goes to the people in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). Such was the pathetic situation during the time of Jesus that the prophecy of Isaiah literally was fulfilled, ‘…these people draw near with their mouths………while their hearts are far from me’ (Isaiah 29:13). We further read in Jeremiah 23:26 ‘How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back- those who prophecy ‘lies’, and who prophecy the deceit of their own heart?’
To sum up, the prophetic ministry as we see during the time of Christ was a corrupted version, apparently by the custodians of faith, the Pharisees and Sadducees. This is the reason why Jesus responded negatively to their demand to perform a sign. In other words, Jesus’s reply is judgmental, that the hypocrites and false prophets will meet the fate of Jonah, or even worse, that they will be thrown deep down, an indication of hell which is termed as a ‘bottomless pit’ (Revelations 9:1), and the destiny of Satan (Revelations 20:2). In short, all those who collude with Satan to perform signs, and prophecy lies will be dealt with as is destined for Satan. In fact Jesus has cautioned that false prophets will come and perform great signs and omen (Matthew 24:24).
2. Jesus said that He will remain in the same way as Jonah remained underneath, three days and three nights.
When the people in the ship realised that Jonah was the reason of the turmoil, they threw Jonah into the sea (Jonah 1:15). Therefore, Jonah went down for his sin, as well as for the sake of the lives of the people in the ship. On the contrary, Jesus was sinless, and He went down for the sake of the sins of this world, from Adam to the end of generation until His second coming. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that God made Jesus who was sinless to be sin for our sake. When Jonah went down he was forced to carry the sins of Nineveh with him because he did not enable the opportunity for them to repent. The prophet who was expected to facilitate repentance for the people of Nineveh acted as a stumbling block for them. Jesus blamed the scribes and Pharisees for locking the people out of the kingdom of heaven into which neither they enter nor allow others to enter (Matthew 23:13). Unfortunately, Jonah’s act was similar to the nature of the Scribes and Pharisees.
The religious and spiritual institution of Jews were so corrupted during the time of Jesus that the leaders and the followers were materially bound and commercially oriented. Signs and wonders were manipulated or artificially created for fame, personal glory and above all was money minting business. Jesus prophesied that this will happen again in the course of history (Matthew 24:24) which apparently we get to see at least in some cases around us. As a result of this selfish spirituality, people would less understand about the sacrificial nature of one person bearing the sins of others, let alone the entire humanity. But Jesus is determined to show them that this is possible, and moreover, is the best sign a prophet can perform. Thus, Jesus by going down underneath through death shows the entire humanity the sign of God’s love. Therefore, the death of Jesus could be termed as the ‘sign of all the signs’.
So what does the world need today? Mere performance of signs and wonders and stage shows for personal glory? Signs have become derivatives, in the sense that they are conducted for personal well-being and material prosperity. It is quite common to see people chasing signs for mere material benefits, and asking for more and more just for the sake of visual treats. However, Jesus said, I have no other sign to perform except my own death for your sins. This is what the disciples did- they portrayed Jesus Christ as crucified for the sins of mankind (Galatians 3:1). People during the time of the disciples were also after signs and wonders, but the disciples denied such demands as is evident in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23: ‘For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified…’.
As the prophecy of Jonah as a sign of the forthcoming wrath of God led Nineveh to repentance, the sign of the cross can lead to true repentance and real transformation of lives. May this Nineveh lent held us to see and experience the sign of the cross of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Fr Dr Saji K Mathew 