38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 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. 41 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 something greater than Jonah is here. 42 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 something greater than Solomon is here. (Matthew 12:38-42)
When Jesus Christ started His ministry, He had to deal with the serious question of confidence, not of His own, but that of the people. You know the saying “to see it is to believe it.” Today's Scripture is a good example of this.
When Jesus preached in Capernaum, several Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Him to show them a miracle before they could accept Jesus' teachings. They asked to see miracles because they did not believe in what Jesus said, and would only believe Him if they saw these miracles with their own eyes. The need to personally see a miracle is in fact a vote of non-confidence in what Jesus preached, because when we ask the Lord to show evidence, it means that without it, we will not accept what He said. We choose to disbelieve. This is a question of confidence.
We often assume that this problem of non-confidence only arises in the unbelievers (they require evidence to show them that God exists or that Jesus is really alive). In fact, this vote of non-confidence can happen amongst believers too. Our short-sightedness causes us to only accept what we can see, and to believe what our limited wisdom allows us to understand. When God acts, our own ideology sometimes makes it difficult for us to accept His action, as it contradicts our own logic. Doubt of God surfaces. We may not voice this doubt out loud, but we may be thinking “let me see a miracle Lord!”
Today, the world is hit hard by Covid-19. More than 2.56 million people have been infected and more than 170,000 have lost their lives to the virus. Shops have closed, unemployment has soared, businesses have gone bankrupt; the virus has not only killed, it has also paralysed the global market so that the economy is on the verge of collapse.
We may ask: Why does God allow the world to experience this disaster? We may be absolutely willing to accept God's discipline of His rebellious children (Hebrews 12:7-11), but what we cannot accept is how God's discipline victimises innocent people. Like the story of Noah's Ark, we may question how the loving God can be so unreasonable, treating the good people and bad people the same way, punishing all! We cannot believe that Noah’s family is the only “good” people worth saving! There must be others worth saving! And what about the children (and babies), and innocent animals? Why did our supposedly merciful God drown them all? We cannot help but ask "why"? We try to find a way to defend God, to preserve His good reputation. Our reaction stems from the fact that we cannot accept God's "strange" behavior. We cannot believe that the God we believe in is so brutal. We want God to give us a reasonable explanation. We desire God to show us evidence of love in His harsh discipline so that we can continue to trust Him.
In the face of the demands of the Pharisees and teachers of the law to show them miracles, Jesus responded with a “No"! He said, “But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” (v.39) The Lord also mentioned that the men of Nineveh “repented at the preaching of Jonah.” (v. 41) The Lord Jesus Christ was actually saying that He himself was the greatest miracle, as in order to save the wicked and adulterous generation, He would be crucified and, miraculously, would resurrect on the third day. Why would the people of Israel need more miracles to believe in Him! Today, the Lord also says to us: We have seen the greatest miracle already. The miracle of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ shows God’s love and righteousness. Why are we asking God for more confirmation before we would believe? Is not enough that God showed His love for us when He sent Jesus to die for our sins? Why can't we, like the people of Nineveh, simply believe that “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness” (v.11)? Can we not trust that He is a holy God, filled with mercy, grace, compassion and righteousness even when He acts in a way we do not understand? This lack of confidence in Him does not only exist among the teachers of law and the Pharisees, but also in us. Let us ask God to forgive our little faith in Him. Let us also ask Him to give us an unwavering faith to follow Him. Amen.