This generation… seeks a sign

Time and again, Jesus reminds his listeners to observe what they hear him say. He is here to bring the word of God. Each listener must then treasure whatever comes out of his mouth and put them into action. If we do these, blessed are we! Yet as soon as he has driven his point, some people demand for a sign. They want that Jesus should listen to them instead. Jesus calls these people “an evil generation” (v 29). They are not entitled to witness a sign. They do not seek in good faith. They fail to realize that he is greater than Jonah, a prophet who preached conversion in Nineveh.

This Lenten season demands that we intently listen to the Word of God and incarnate it into our daily lives. Let us give love and justice to our parents and children, to our fellow believers and fellow workers in the community

First Reading • Jon 3:1-10

The word of the

Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it.

Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk

announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes.

Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles: “Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; every man shall turn from his evil way and from the violence he has in hand. Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish.”

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.

Gospel • 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.”