The Sign of Jonah

Gospel Reflection for Wednesday, February 21st, 2024

Courtesy of St. Paul’s Icons

While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation…At the judgment, the men of Ninevah will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.’” Luke 11:29, 32.

Something greater than Jonah is here. The people of 1^st century Judea experienced the long-awaited Messiah in the flesh. Many of them missed what was before them. Many in the Jewish community at the time were awaiting a political messiah, one that would lead a revolt against the Romans and free the Jewish people from their grasp. Since Jesus did not fit this preconceived idea, many did not see what was right in front of them. But something greater than Jonah was there.

In today’s Gospel, Our Lord addresses the sinful generation who do not recognize who and what is before them. He recalls the prophet Jonah who was sent to the Ninevites, a gentile people, to preach repentance. We hear of this in the first reading today. The people of Ninevah, from the lowest up to the King, put on sackcloth and ashes and repent for their sins. Because of this, God withholds His condemnation.¹ Christ proclaims that the Ninevites will pass judgment on the people of His time precisely because the Ninevites have repented and recognized the prophet Jonah in their midst while the people of Christ’s time have not. They ask for signs and wonders to be performed so that they can believe in Christ, and yet, even with all of the miracles, healings, and exorcisms, they still do not believe. And so, instead of the sign they want, Christ will show them the sign of Jonah.

To understand the sign of Jonah, we need to return to the beginning of the Book of Jonah. God commands Jonah to go to Ninevah to preach repentance to the people. Jonah, scared of the message he would be bringing, flees God and attempts to get as far away from Ninevah as he can. While running, in the midst of a storm at sea, he is cast overboard and swallowed by a large fish or whale:

“So they took up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” Jonah 1:15-17

Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly of the fish and during this time, he prays to God for deliverance. This deliverance finally comes, and God commands the fish to spit him out on dry land.²

This is the sign of Jonah that is referenced by Our Lord in today’s Gospel. Jonah foreshadows the coming of Christ. The swallowing of Jonah by the whale and the subsequent three days in its belly foreshadow the death of Christ and His spending three days in the tomb. After those three days, as Jonah was spit up from the whale so too does Christ rise from the tomb in the resurrection. The sign that is given to Christ’s generation is the cross and resurrection.

St. Basil the Great comments on this passage:

“A sign is a thing brought openly to view, containing in itself the manifestation of something hidden, as the sign of Jonas represents the descent to hell, the ascension of Christ, and His resurrection from the dead. Hence it is added, For as Jonas was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. He gives them a sign, not from heaven, because they were unworthy to see it, but from the lowest depths of hell; a sign, namely, of His incarnation, not of His divinity; of His passion, not of His glorification.”³

St. Basil draws the parallels between Jonah being in the belly of the whale and Christ being in the belly of the earth. The sign, as Basil says, is not a sign from heaven like a healing or other miracle that Christ had been doing, instead, it is one from the depths of hell.⁴ The death of the Messiah becomes the sign that is given to the people just as the time in the belly of the whale becomes a sign for the people of Ninevah.

The difference though, is that while the people of Ninevah convert and do penance, Jonah does not have the power to redeem them. But something greater than Jonah is here. Christ, through His death and resurrection, has the power to redeem the people of the earth. We have a choice to either be like the Ninevites or to be like the people of Christ’s generation. We have seen the sign of Jonah, the banner of the cross, and are redeemed by it. Will we take these 40 days of Lent in sackcloth and ashes and do penance for our sins, or will we find ourselves condemned by the Ninevites? Something greater than Jonah is here and He has come to offer us eternal life.

1. Cf. Jonah 3:1-10.

2. Cf. Jonah 2.

3. St. Basil the Great, Catena Aurea, Compiled by St. Thomas Aquinas

4. Here, hell should not be interpreted as Gehenna, the hell of the damned. But, instead, it is a reference to the realm of the dead. Basil is simply saying that the sign that is given is the death of the Messiah.