Jesus’s frustration in today’s Gospel moves him to mention the prophet Jonah. What is he getting at?
Altogether uninspired by his God-given mission to preach to Nineveh, Jonah tried his best to avoid it. That whale changed his mind, though, even if he had good reason to avoid the great city. See, Nineveh was big and bad. So big that it took three days to walk across it, and so bad that its people could not even tell right from left. Imagine Jonah’s shock, then, when just a day after his preaching, everyone dusted off their sackcloths and donned them penitentially. Against all odds this mean and ignorant people turned away from their errors and toward the truth in a matter of mere hours.
Well, Jesus has done far more than Jonah. He has healed the sick, given sight to the blind, and raised the dead. If there ever was a sign good enough to gather followers, then he has done it. There should be no question that Jesus, at the very least, speaks a word worth listening to. It really makes no sense why the crowd continues to demand more.
Probably they are like us. Are not the signs of Christ’s goodness—life, creation, joy, peace, love—all around us? Yet we act as if they are obscure, intuiting that if we call these things signs of his love, this demands a response of love from us. We put off that response by feigning ignorance or disbelief, asking him for a “clearer” sign. It is unfortunate that at the heart of this impulse lies a desire to domesticate the Lord, who we know asks for nothing more than everything.
Hopefully our Lenten practice will make us like the Ninevites, that is, willing to embrace the new life of grace.