Are we also waiting for signs?

We often witness remarks like, “If there were a God, I would believe! No one has seen God, so prove to me that he exists! Show me a sign, and I’ll be the best believer in the world! …If there were a God, he wouldn’t have allowed it! Yes, many people would like us to introduce God to them as person X.Y., or to tell them through the appearance of a dead man that God exists, or to show us some sign in the sky…

This is what the Lord Jesus Himself experienced when He taught the crowds. Then He said to them: “This generation is an evil generation. It asks for a sign, but it will not receive a sign unless it receives the sign of Jonah” (Luke 11:29).

The Lord Jesus refers to the prophet Jonah, whom the Jews revered. After all, he was their prophet! God sent him to Nineveh to tell them they must repent, be converted, and forsake their wicked way of life if they want to be saved. Jonah was afraid. He was fearful of the inhabitants of this city. He was running away. While fleeing, he experiences a storm, during which the sailors learn from his mouth that the God of Jonah is punishing them for his disobedience. God will not punish Jonah, but He will give a lesson to his future fellow citizens. As Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days from the time he was cast out of the ship to his going ashore at the city of Nineveh, so the Lord Jesus speaks of the particular sign that will be given to this eager multitude for signs, that he to will one day be in the bowels of the earth for three days. He says: “For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of man be to this generation” (Luke 11:30). Three days does not mean three whole days. A day both unfinished and begun is enough to be counted as a whole. By this sign, the Lord Jesus says He will be buried on Friday and rise from the dead on Sunday at dawn. But there is something for us to notice as well.

In response to this preaching of Jonah, the people of Nineveh have forsaken the way of evil and have been converted. The sign that the Lord Jesus had spoken of beforehand is to convince us of His deity and power.
Let this event encourage us that we, too, should be converted. If there is no conversion, the Ninevites will be judges for us, as they were for Jesus’ contemporaries, for to them, it was proof that Jonah was acting at God’s command, and we had not accepted Christ. A faith resting on miracles alone would be a fragile faith. Yet we have been given many plausible proofs, which may be sufficient for any sincere-minded yet reasoning man.

Yes, there have been doubters and unbelievers, but we know that the Lord Jesus does not force His teachings on anyone. Similarly, the Church does not force anyone to be a member of it, as other ideologies do. On the other hand, we have ample evidence of the deep faith of artists, scientists, and athletes, i.e., personalities who not only believed and believed but who became an example and an impulse to have confidence in others.

We have been given a reason as a gift from the Creator. Therefore, let us reflect on why we live and our purpose. Even today, God shows signs, even though we often take them for granted, and yet they will help many to change their lives. The death of a loved one. For some, it is a cause for murmuring, blasphemy, and falling away from the faith. For another, it is a time for serious reflection and the beginning of a new life. A defeat, a failure in work and in the venture in which one puts most of one’s hopes and efforts – and suddenly, the end! How often, after the quieting of thoughts and the review of events, a change of life towards God follows. But even here, we must not expect something extraterrestrial, some phenomenon, or other.

There is no shame in realizing that I am the prodigal son who must return; that I am the lost sheep whom Jesus, in strange and to us, incomprehensible events and circumstances, wanders to or takes on his shoulders; that we are like the woman to whom Jesus speaks: “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and sin no more!” (Jn 8:11). And it may be that, like a repentant robber in the last moment of life, he says: “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43).

No, we do not, and it would not be suitable if we had such evidence of God’s existence that we could convince all men of his existence. But we have a reason, we are free men, and these are the givens that determine our salvation.