Luke 11:29-32

     This is going up a day early, due to a District Meeting tomorrow.  Scroll down for last week's study.


     This could have been at the same time Jesus talked of the evil spirits, or could refer to another time. We hear that when the crowds were increasing he began to say that this generation is evil, it seeks for a sign. In Matthew, he is asked specifically for a sign. The answer is the same. The only sign that will be given is the sign of Jonah. In the way Jonah became a sign to the people of Ninevah, the son of Man will be a sign to this generation.
     Today, some people interpret the reference to Jonah as referring to Jonah’s three days inside the fish. That is, Jonah spent three days inside a fish and Jesus will spend three days inside a tomb.
     Yet these aspects of the stories do not otherwise relate to each other.
     Jonah was inside a fish because he was reluctant to do the will of God and preach repentance to his enemy (for fear that his enemy might repent and God would forgive them). So he tried to run away from God and the days inside the fish were to teach him obedience. After being spit up on shore, he reluctantly goes to Ninevah, gives a brief message and hopes for fire and brimstone. Instead, the people repent and God relents.
     Jesus would spend three days inside a tomb after he was crucified. While he would have preferred not facing the cross, and prayed that he might not, he nonetheless said he’d do whatever God willed. So it is hard in this context, to connect Jonah and the resurrection. Jesus himself did not do so. He said that the Son of Man will be to this generation as Jonah was to the people of Ninevah (who hadn’t known about the fish at all.)
     Jesus would more appear to be saying that repentance is the key. That is a less popular concept for some religious people, especially today, and the non-religious folks of today might regard it as archaic concept. Yet even psychiatry has recognized the need of people to deal with their past, what others have done with them and what they have chosen to do themselves.
     Repentance is not simply feeling bad over what we’ve done (and all respect to the movies, love doesn’t erase the need to say we’re sorry). To repent means being sorry and choosing to do things differently. There’s a story of a brother and sister and the brother kept hitting his little sister. She’d cry and he’d quickly say ‘I’m sorry, don’t cry.” But he’d do it again and again. Finally, when she was crying, and their mother was coming, he frantically said he was sorry and didn’t she believe he was sorry. Her answer? “When are you going to be sorry enough to stop hitting me?” Her answer could apply to situations of domestic violence, but to all situations requiring repentance. That is, repentance means being sorry enough to stop doing it. But, to apply the earlier parable (last week’s study) about the evil spirit, perhaps we should add that repentance could mean stopping, but then putting a positive action and attitude in place so that the impulse to do something bad will have no welcome.
     Jesus combined his imagery about Jonah with a reference to the Queen of the South. This would be Sheba, generally identified as having come from Ethiopia to hear the wisdom of Solomon. While many in Jesus generation are not listening to someone in their midst, the Queen came many miles to hear someone who was even less wise than Jesus. If the people of Ninevah where on the jury, they’d hardly be impressed. They’d repented at the preaching of Jonah and many were ignoring something far greater than Jonah.


How have you heard or understood the word, repentance in the past?
What do you think people in today’s world would think of it?
It’s been said that one goal of psychiatry is to free people from the tyranny of the past. Regarding some aspects of a person’s life, could repentance do the same?
In a world in which many people are ignoring Jesus, or treating his truth in a trivial manner, how can committed Christians share the message in a way that people can understand his relevance?