Wednesday in the First Week of Lent, February 24, 2021

Luke 11:29-32

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 queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here. At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.”

“This generation is an evil generation.”  St. Luke does not provide any special context for this saying of the Lord Jesus.  He has been speaking to a gathering crowd on diverse subjects, and he seems to burst forth here in declaring that this is an “evil generation”.  The generation, or age, of which he speaks began with his Incarnation and will continue until he comes again in judgment.  It is an “evil” generation because of its intransigence in converting.  Instead, “it seeks a sign”, though with the preaching and miracles, and the Death and Resurrection of the Lord, the growth of the Church, and the lives and miracles of the saints, the signs of the past pale in comparison with the reality of the present.  Thus, the demanding of signs is simply a stall to remain impenitent.  

“Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites.”  The Lord reveals that Jonah was “a sign” to the Ninevites.  This is intriguing because the Book of Jonah presents the Prophet as walking through their city, preaching.  In this way he is clearly acting as a prophet or preacher.  But the Lord tells us that it was more than his words that affected the inhabitants of Nineveh: Jonah was “a sign” to them.  He was a foreigner from a distant land who was not awed my the majesty and size of this wondrous capital of a great empire.  He preached to them, beseeching them to repent of their sins before Almighty God destroyed their city.  They had seen nothing like this before.  He sought no payment from them, as prophets and preachers usually did in those times and places, nor did he seek any advantage or other reward.  He preached for forty days and then departed.  He sought no friends, slept out-of-doors, and ate what was offered to him or what he was able to buy.  He would have featured a rough appearance after his time on the boat and then inside the fish.

“So will the Son of Man be to this generation.”  The Lord declares that as Jonah preached repentance and was himself a sign to the Ninevites, so he would be the reality to which that sign pointed, to “this generation”.  But the Ninevites repented at the word of a man, Jonah, whereas this generation remains intransigent to the word of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus.  And, in fact, the Lord declares that “at the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it.”  This speaks to the hardness of the world in which we live today, the difficulty of making converts, and the power of the grace which fills sinners so that they do repent and conversions are made.  We ought not to wonder that there is so much wickedness in the world but that there is some good in it.  We ought to recognize the miraculous nature of conversions of life, of true repentance for sin, and to pray very much for this.