Greater than Jonah

Throughout both Testaments miracles, and unusual events, along with dreams and encounters with the Spirit are identified as signs.  And God’s self-revelation continues in our lives today.

It’s good to remember that even within the conflictual relationship between Hagar and Sarah, God planned good things for their descendants. (Galatians 4:22-31)

Important significance fills the world.  And part of our spiritual growth is to learn to recognize it.  We need companions along the journey, we need communities that can help us discern the signs that lead us toward personal decisions and other signs of the times to interpret for us the significance of what is going on.

“Do you not see?” (Mark 8:18) is a challenging question for our times.  Most of us don’t see.  But we can learn, by reflecting on the encounters, that is, what’s going on around us with an eye for what forces are at work and where grace continues to happen.

In the Gospel (Luke 11:29-32), Jesus says, "This is an evil age. It seeks a sign."  Why is it evil to seek signs?  Because we invent our own signs.  Most of the time, we’re seeking signs that aren’t from God.

Jesus says that He is the sign that we’re given.  And He is enough!  He’s the one who is "greater than Jonah".

The sign of Jonah was his emergence from the belly of the giant fish after three days (Jonah 2:1-11).  Jonah's mission after getting spewed onto the beach (and presumably after cleaning himself up a bit) was to call the Ninevites to repentance.  Jesus emerged from the belly of the earth at the end of His three-day ordeal.  His resurrection calls the whole world to repentance.

This is the sign we’re given, and it's the only sign that really matters: Since God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, of course He’ll also give us the new life that we need.  Of course He’ll provide the right resolution to our problems, the job that's right for us, or the reconciled relationships.  We fail to notice this sign, however, because God's timing is not usually the same as our preferred timing.  While we wait, we take hope from any sign that pops up in our view.  We make ourselves miserable and frustrated by trusting in what we see instead of keeping our eyes on Jesus.

The storms in our lives could be as huge as a hurricane, but if we look for Jesus instead of signs that the storm is abating, we find Him in the eye of the storm.  The moment we pull away from Him, we hit the hurricane's eye wall and it blows us off our feet.  It’s always in our best interest to keep our eyes on Jesus!

And while we’re waiting for relief from the storm, we need to take a break as often as we need to.  We can go on a vacation or retreat, attend an uplifting prayer service, talk to friends who are filled with the Holy Spirit's upbeat inspiration, go to daily Mass (when we feel safe enough to) and let that place be an oasis for us.

God is showing us all the time what we need to know.  But it’s a matter of living with daily expectancy and trust that God is “witnessing” us, and accompanying us and meeting and inviting us to be channels of God’s work for the transformation of the world, always striving with hope and not necessarily knowing from moment to moment what is next.