Mark 8:11-12 — Can I See Some Photo ID?

Mark 8:11-12

Real Warning Sign in Australia. Take it or leave it.

v.11-12 Then the Pharisees came out and began to dispute with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him. But He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation."

Comments:

I hear the Pharisees crying for a sign like the voices of the greedy seagulls from Finding Nemo fighting over potential food, “Mine! Mine! Mine!”. Can you hear them?

To use another cultural reference, Jesus wasn’t being a “soup Nazi” to the Pharisees with his answer, “No sign for you!” For later we see him weeping over Jerusalem. We need to ask how many signs someone is entitled to receive. How many signs had already been given and would still be given during the ministry of Jesus? Perhaps we need to ask what a “sign” actually is. Sign (semeion) as the Pharisees used the term “meant a great spectacular display of heavenly power such as they expected the Messiah to give and such that the devil suggested to Jesus on the pinnacle of the temple.” (Robertson, WPNT 2/161) A sign was not just another miracle. St. John structures his gospel account around seven signs (miracles that had a meaning that pointed beyond themselves to the truth about Jesus) revealing Jesus as the Messiah and then capped off with one more sign…that of Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. Pharisee didn't want a sign so that they could believe, they wanted a sign so that they could argue against its validity.

There was an exception, to the "no sign" clause, mentioned in both the longer parallel passages in Matthew 12:38-40 and Luke 11:29-30, the sign of Jonah. Jonah went to Nineveh, arguable the most violent and wicked city on the planet at that time, to warn them of the coming judgment and shockingly they repented. Jesus speaks of “this generation,” the generation of his hardened religious hearers. Why did he do this? Because though they had great advantages they did not repent. The religious leaders didn’t repent of their sins and didn’t put their trust in Jesus as their Messiah. So maybe the problem is with the phrase, "shall be given to"...if receptivity is required for the act of giving to be completed.

So what was “the Sign of Jonah” mentioned in this current context in Matthew and Luke? Jonah was the Old Testament prophet who spent an extended time (three days and nights) in the whale (great fish) that was a type of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. How would the Pharisees, and the nation as a whole, respond to this sign? But wait there’s more…the other shoe that drops in Jesus' invoking the legacy of Jonah, is that Jonah’s ministry was to the Gentiles. Jesus was giving an example of Gentiles who repented at the words of a bleached-out prophet with no promise of mercy to cling to. Would they not respond to the words and miraculous ministry of the good news of the arrival of God's Kingdom in the person of Jesus of Nazareth? Kent Hughes captures the heart of this idea,

“The great and grand sign that Jesus gives to all, and especially those who think they need miraculous signs in order to believe, is the miracle of his atoning death, burial, and triumphant resurrection…the ultimate sign is ‘the sign of Jonah,’ because it makes Christ everything. Jesus was not interested in giving signs abstracted from his person. He is the sign. He is the gospel.” [R. Kent Hughes, Luke, Vol. 2, Crossway, 15]

No powerful sign from Heaven could be given— deep sigh (v.12)— to the generation of those who had hardened their hearts because they wouldn't receive it when it did come. Like Hughes points out, Jesus himself was the sign.

Take it or leave it. It has been given, will we receive it?