The Sign of Jonah – 4/20/25 (Easter)

Over the past year and a half, our church family has been on a journey through the Gospel of Matthew. And on this day, we have providentially reached Matthew 12:38-42. If you would open in your Bible, if you don’t have one, there are Bibles under the seats in front of you, to Matthew 12:38.

“Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, ‘Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.’ But he answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.’”

Let’s pray. Father, we don’t want to have an attitude of demanding signs, but we also don’t want to miss the ones you’ve given. So we need your help. Spirit of God, give us tender hearts, give us open eyes, as we look into your Word now, in Jesus’s name, amen.

The scribes and Pharisees basically want indisputable evidence that Jesus is who he says he is. Do something. Do a magic trick that makes it really clear that you are who you say you are. But Jesus isn’t into magic tricks. Have you noticed that? He does a lot of miracles, not into magic tricks. His miracles actually help people — eyes opened, and demonic oppression, gone. He transforms lives. He doesn’t do tricks.

And so he says to the scribes and Pharisees who have seen many of his miracles, and all that does is merely increase their desire to discredit and destroy him. So he says, one sign, one ultimate sign will be given to you. The sign of the prophet Jonah.

Who is Jonah? Jonah was a prophet in the northern part of Israel almost 800 years before Jesus. Jonah was called by God to go to the Assyrian city of Nineveh, and he actually went the opposite way, went to Joppa, boarded a ship, encountered a storm.

Seasoned sailors realized, we’re going down. Jonah notified them, I’m the reason you’re going down. You need to throw me overboard. I’m a disobedient prophet. And the sailors illustrate such character and kindness. They do everything they can do to try to save Jonah’s life and their lives. But reluctantly, they throw Jonah overboard. And Jonah is in trouble.

Pagan sailors are worshiping on the boat while Jonah is drowning until, verse 17,

“the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.”

Appointed. It’s an interesting word. Assigned is a good translation of that word. God, who rules and reigns over all fish, said to one particular fish, I need you to do something for me. And he called that fish like we would call an Uber. And the fish went to work.

By the way, did you see the kayaker who was gobbled up by a whale a few months ago? This is 23-year-old Adrian Simancas. He was kayaking with his father off the coast of Chile when a humpback whale ate him and then immediately spit him back out. My interpretation is he was supposed to get baptized but hadn’t yet, so God just said, let’s do an involuntary. That would be quite the baptism.

Adrian said that he felt the slimy texture on his face and knew he was in the whale’s mouth, and then he was spit out, and he is fine. But Jonah’s not fine. In Jonah 1:17,

“Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

That’s the same expression that Jesus focuses in on back in Matthew 12:40.

“For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

By the way, for the Rabbis, a day and a night was called an “onah.” It was a whole. So if they’re talking about a part of the “onah,” they would talk about it as a whole. So that’s one of the reasons why Jesus dying on Friday and rising on Sunday morning would still be considered, from a Jewish perspective, three days and three nights, three “onah.”

In many ways, Jonah and Jesus are opposites. Jonah, the rebel preacher, wouldn’t do what God said to do, and tried to flee from the presence of God. Jesus, the obedient Son, is Emmanuel, God with us. He is the presence of God.

But Jesus here links himself to Jonah and promises the scribes and Pharisees the sign of Jonah. What is the sign of Jonah? I want to answer that question with three parts.

1. Jonah is a sign of Jesus’s rejection.

During the storm, when Jonah told the sailors to throw him overboard, that they would be saved, Jonah representing Israel is rejected, or sacrificed, to save pagan sailors. Jesus is also rejected. But unlike Jonah, who is rejected for his own sin, Jesus is rejected for our sin. Isaiah 53:3.

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief… All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Just as Jonah was rejected to save people, Jesus is rejected to save people. Look what he says in verse 41.

“The men of [Nineveh] will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

He gives another example, verse 42,

“The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.”

What is Jesus saying? If a pagan city like Nineveh will repent when they hear Jonah preach, and if a pagan queen — like the queen of Sheba — will travel from Arabia, which is Yemen, over a thousand miles to hear Solomon, a king who has wisdom from God. These who have heard so little yet respond so well. You who have heard, Jesus’s saying, so much, and seen so much, and yet you still demand more. Give us a sign. Something greater than Jonah is here. John 1:11,

“He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”

Jonah is a sign of Jesus’s rejection.

2. Jonah is a sign of Jesus’s resurrection.

And this is the big one. Skeptics love to go after the story of Jonah. It’s often called “The First Big Fish Story” or “pure fiction.” Scientists love to explain how impossible it is, first of all, to get into the stomach of a fish, but then secondly, to survive in the stomach of a fish because of the stomach enzymes and lack of air. You’ll die quickly of asphyxiation, we are told.

However, often when these lethal elements are described, they’re described as if no one had thought of that before. Back then in the old world, you know, people just assumed you could call a fish as an Uber. But we know better now. No, actually, it was impossible then and it’s impossible now. Unless the God who made Jonah, and the fish, and stomach enzymes, and oxygen, and capillaries decided to preserve his life or not.

Have you ever wondered if Jonah died in the fish? Maybe the skeptics are right. Maybe he didn’t make it. There’s actually a rabbinic tradition as recorded in the mystical text Zohar — I’m sure you read that for your devotions this morning — that says that Jonah died in the belly of the fish. And some of the prayers that are written could be making that a possibility. Let me give you a couple examples. The Bible records Jonah’s dying prayers, Jonah 2:1.

“Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, ‘I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol, [What’s that? The grave, could be metaphorical, but] I cried, and you heard my voice.’”

Jonah 2:5, “The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head…”

That seaweed wrapping around the head might be a vivid picture of the Jewish funeral practice of wrapping a body before burial. The expression three days and three nights in the ancient world among pagans was often believed to be the time it takes to travel from the land of the living to the land of the dead. From a Jewish perspective, three days and three nights is an idiom for really dead, not mostly dead. Dead dead.

Old Testament scholar Douglas Stuart compares this expression to the expression we use, “six feet under.” You know, that’s not primarily talking about the depth of the burial, although it may refer to that, but it’s a euphemism, for we’re all eventually going to be six feet under.

So, if Jonah died, he wasn’t dead for long — three days, three nights. The God who assigned a fish to function as his hearse, prompted the sea creature to spew him forth onto the beach. And Jonah arose to preach at Nineveh.

Jesus is saying to the religious leaders, when you reject me, and when you have me killed, and when I die, start counting. That’s the sign — day one, day two, day three — and the grave, like the fish, will spew forth Jesus into life.

The sign of Jonah is a sign of Jesus’s rejection, is a sign of Jesus’s resurrection, and thirdly is a sign of Jesus’s reconciliation. And specifically his reconciling Jews and Gentiles.

3. Jonah is a sign of Jesus’s reconciliation.

Jonah and Jesus both brought salvation to the Gentiles. One was reluctant. Jonah preached to the Ninevites, and God brought revival. And Jonah was ticked. Why would God forgive those kinds of people? Jesus willingly gave his life, died, and rose in order to give the Good News to all kinds of people, even those kinds of people, to the end of the earth.

He called a man named Peter, whom he named in Matthew 16:17, Simon Bar-Jonah. Simon Bar-Jonah, Simon son of Jonah, was called in Joppa, on the coast where Jonah went as well, Peter was, when God had Peter proclaim the gospel of reconciliation to the Gentiles, which is why we’re here today.

Ephesians 2:13, “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace… that he might… reconcile us both [Jews and Gentiles] to God in one body through the cross.”

What is the sign of Jonah? Jesus’s rejection, resurrection, and reconciliation. Obviously this morning we’re focusing on the middle one, the main part, his resurrection.

His resurrection has been described as the greatest sign or the greatest miracle the world has ever seen. And even today, there is compelling evidence to see this sign. Let me give you just a couple quick examples.

1. The empty tomb

Russell Cowburn, a professor of experimental physics at Cambridge University said this past week,

“It was in the political interest of the leaders of the day to produce the dead body.”

In other words, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, it would have been quite easy and very important for the political and religious leaders of the day to present his body to undermine the reality of the resurrection. But they couldn’t.

2. The eye witness testimony

Or we could talk about the eyewitness testimony. Jesus appeared to over 500 people after he rose from the dead. And many of them were his friends, but many of the were his enemies. Some were skeptics. Some like Paul, a Pharisee, were the kinds of people Jesus is addressing in Matthew 12.

3. The Christian Church

Or we could talk about the Christian Church. How did a fearful, skeptical band of deconstructing disciples become a joyful, courageous, unstoppable family? When considering the resurrection, Tyler Staten wonders,

“What if this God can fill your life and heal your resentments, fears, and loneliness in such a profound way that you’d actually want to live forever because you’d finally be whole?”

He continues.

“Everyone deals with the terminal and internal problems,”

And by terminal and internal, he means terminal, we’re all going to die. Internal, we all experience sin and sorrow. Everyone deals with the terminal and the internal problems.

“And the solution for every other belief system is a philosophy — an enlightened state to transcend human problems. Jesus stands out because he didn’t teach a solution; he became a solution. The word for that is resurrection.”

And that is the sign of Jonah.

“Something greater than Jonah is here.”

And this One is still making dead things come alive, transforming lives. And all morning this morning, in all three services, we have 42 of our brothers and sisters getting baptized. We have, let’s see, 14 in this service, getting baptized in a few minutes.

Let me explain real quick why we get baptized. Baptism — this water is not holy water, it doesn’t save anyone — but it pictures three realities.

Reality number one, when we are baptized, we are picturing the fact that we are no longer guilty but washed.

Reality number two, we’re no longer dead in sin, but alive in Christ.

And reality number three, we’re no longer identified with the world, we are part of God’s family, new in him.

We baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In a moment we’re going to have the first group join me up front, and some of our brothers and sisters are going to share how the risen Lord transformed their lives, and then they will be baptized. And then we will do that with two groups.

Let’s pray. Jesus, thank you that you are here, you are still calling us out of the grave of sin and death and into the new life you provide. Magnify your name now. Pour out your Spirit, we pray, in Jesus’s name, amen.