I Saw the Sign

This past Friday, I took a walk around the Viera Wetlands with my friend Laura.  It was a warm day, the warmest we had had in a few days and it seemed every dozen feet or so, Laura and I were pointing out to each other another sleeping, lounging gator, sitting by the road.

I had never seen so many gators.

But it wasn’t until we were almost done with our walk that I saw something brand new.

Right up near the water were two moorhens.  Now, moorhens are everywhere—there’s really nothing spectacular about seeing one, but I wasn’t looking at them, I was looking at what appeared to be a small, gray-brown, lump of mud between them—a lump that was moving.

I quickly zoomed in on the lump and discovered a bird I had never seen before with a long, needle-like beak and yellowish-white rings around its eyes that stretched out into yellowish-white lines across its head.

“New bird!” I shouted to Laura.  “I found a new bird.”  I’m like a little kid when I see a new bird.  It’s embarrassing. 

“Where?” Laura asked.

“Right there,” I said, pointing to the lump.

Laura searched the shoreline.  “I don’t see it.”

“It’s right by that patch of grass, where the moorhens were.”

Laura pointed at something three feet to the right of the bird.  “There?”

“No,” I said, frustrated, not so much that she couldn’t see it—it was hard to spot, but that I couldn’t do a better job of explaining it to her.  “See those shoots of grass sticking up out of the water.  It’s right in front of that.”

Still she couldn’t see it.

“To your left,” I told her.

She pointed.  “There?”

“Further left.”

Now I was really frustrated.  I didn’t want her to miss out on this moment, but I couldn’t get her to see.  She had moved even closer to the water, which honestly was not the best move given all the alligators around.

Finally, the bird moved.

“There!” I shouted.  “See it?”

And she did.

Now take my frustration at not being able to get Laura to see this new bird and multiply it by … well, a zillion, and you will understand Jesus’ frustration level in today’s Gospel reading.

In today’s Gospel reading, Luke 11:29-32, we hear Jesus refer to something called “the sign of Jonah.”  Now last week, I spoke a little about Jonah, how God had called him to go to Ninevah and instead Jonah hightailed it out of there and headed in the exact opposite direction.

Ninevah was a scary place.  It was the capital of the Assyrian empire, located in what is now present-day Iraq, near Mosul.  And, to state the obvious, the Assyrians were not Hebrews.  They did not worship the same God, Jonah did.  They were pagans and they were violent and I can totally appreciate Jonah’s fear.

But spending three days in the belly of a giant fish can humble a person and so once the fish vomited Jonah back on the shore, Jonah did as he was told and headed to Ninevah where he preached to them a singular message.

You’re horrible people; be prepared to face God’s wrath.

And how do the Ninevites respond to this?  Pretty much with an “oh crap.”  And guess what happens next?  They repent!  They don’t convert.  They don’t suddenly start worshipping the Hebrew God, but they repent.  They acknowledge a) that Jonah’s god is real and b) they’ve probably made him angry and c) they should probably repent.

This is the “sign of Jonah” that Jesus was referring to.  That Jonah’s prophecy to the Ninevites was so obvious and so clearly sent by God even the dreaded Assyrians couldn’t ignore it.

And who is Jesus?

Greater than Jonah.

So woe to anyone who does not listen to Jesus.  You want a sign?  There is no greater sign than Jesus.

Jesus’ message in today’s Gospel reading can seem a bit harsh.  This is “tough love” Jesus.  This is “smack you upside the head” Jesus.  This Jesus is not playing around.

But here’s the beautiful thing.  Jesus referenced Jonah.  And Jonah’s story is more than just a man getting swallowed by a fish.  It is more than just a man warning a city that they were about to be destroyed because they were all horrible sinners.  Jonah’s story is so much more.

The people of Ninevah repent, and unlike Sodom and Gomorrah which God wipes off the face of the earth, Ninevah is spared.

God shows mercy to Ninevah—these horrible, awful people are given a second chance.

Jonah boils—he stews in self-righteous anger over this.  These people don’t deserve God’s mercy.  They deserve God’s wrath.  They don’t even worship God.  How could God show mercy to them?

God is surprisingly gentle with Jonah, basically asking Jonah, “Why are you so angry?”

The story of Jonah is a story of mercy.

What a shame that so many only know the story as a story of a man who is swallowed by a fish.

The story of Jonah is the story of God showing mercy not just to believers like Jonah, but to unbelievers like the Ninevites. 

It is a story that ends with God telling Jonah in chapter 4, verse 11 that the Ninevites, “don’t know their right hand from their left.”  In other words, why should he judge them harshly when they don’t even know what they’re doing?

It is a line that is echoed by Jesus, himself, on the cross when he says in Luke 23:32, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

The story of Jonah is the story of God’s patience with us.  It is the story of His love for us.

There isn’t a person in this world who is beyond God’s reach.

There isn’t a person in this world who is too lost to be found.

There isn’t a person in this world who is too sinful to be saved.

God loves us all.

God’s mercy extends to all.

Jesus was a sign to the people that was greater than the sign of Jonah.  He was not a sign of God’s wrath, but a sign of God’s saving grace.  Woe to any of us who don’t see it.

As to the mysterious bird at the Wetlands the other day.

It was a snipe, a Wilson’ Snipe to be more specific.

It’s funny.  I didn’t think snipe were real.  You say snipe to me and I think immediately, “snipe hunt.”

But it was there.

It is real.

It’s not a farce.  It’s not a joke.

Watch carefully for the signs.

Or else you might miss something beautiful.

Amen.

For more on God’s mercy and the story of Jonah, read Timothy Keller’s book, “The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy.”