Lent Midweek 1 – March 12, 2025Psalm 91; 1 Kings 19:3b-8St. Matthew 12:38-50
In the Name of the Father, and of the +
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hezekiah was the greatest king of Judah
during the time of the divided kingdom. He did what was right in the eyes of
the Lord, tore down the places of false worship, destroyed the false idol
Nehushtan, and walked in the commandments of the Lord.[1]
During his reign, Assyria laid siege to Jerusalem and the Lord delivered
Hezekiah and his people from their evil oppression. Then came the time when
Hezekiah fell gravely ill, and the prophet Isaiah told him that this sickness
would be his death. Hezekiah wept bitterly and prayed that God would extend his
life. The Lord heard his prayer, saw his tears of repentance, and granted him
fifteen more years of life. At that time, Hezekiah asked the prophet Isaiah for
a sign that his life would be extended. The Lord gave him a sign by turning
back the shadow on a sundial by 10 degrees.[2]
When Hezekiah asked for a sign, he was
asking for a small symbol to embolden his confidence in the promise of the
greater miracle of his extended life. In a sense, he was asking for a small
token, a promissory note, that he could cling to should his faith waver in the
Lord’s word of promise. This was granted to Hezekiah.
The scribes and Pharisees of our
reading this evening were not asking for a sign the same way that Hezekiah did.
They had already seen Christ perform great miracles, fulfilling the words of
the prophets when they described the coming of the Christ. They had both His
words of promise and many signs by which they could be confident that this
carpenter from Nazareth was God in the flesh. Yet they demanded more signs.
They were not content with the signs given by God, they demanded more. They
wanted signs on their own terms to satisfy their own definition of God.
That is why Christ is severe with them. He calls them an “evil and adulterous generation.”[3] They want a god who acts according to their laws, not the Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, who has ordered the universe according to His will. Christ tells them they will receive no sign but the sign of Jonah and instructs them with three illustrations. He is teaching them concerning repentance, wisdom, and perseverance in the faith once delivered.[4]
When considering the sign of Jonah, we
shouldn’t get distracted by the number of days. It is true, Jonah was in the
belly of the fish for three days and Christ rested in the tomb for three days.
This is a historical fact. But the sign of Jonah is that he was in the
belly of the fish only for three days. After that time, he rose again.
He came back to life. The sign of Jonah is the resurrection. Christ will spend
three days in the belly of the earth, resting in the tomb, but then He will
rise again. There is no point in stating how long Jonah was in the fish if he
didn’t come out of the fish. So too, there is no point to Christ being in the
tomb for three days unless He comes out of the tomb at the end of those three
days.
This fact does not escape the
Pharisees. They petition Pilate to set a guard at the tomb because they fear
that the Christ will rise again on the third day. If He does rise from the
dead, their doctrine is proved false. They are shown to be false teachers and
are liable to the judgment of God.
This sign of Jonah is followed by three
illustrations of judgment against the evil and adulterous generation. First are
the Ninevites. The Ninevites were a wicked and perverse generation. Nineveh was
an important city of the Assyrian Empire, at various times serving as its
capital. We are not told of the specific evils committed by the Ninevites at
the time of Jonah, only that “their wickedness had come up before” the Lord.[5]
Idolatry and sexual immorality were certainly among their sins. Human
sacrifice, specifically the murder of children, was also likely among their transgressions.
For their wickedness, the Lord resolved to destroy the city, but before
executing His judgment, the Lord sent Jonah to preach repentance to the
Ninevites.
And they listened. From the king down
to the cows, every citizen of Nineveh sat in sackcloth and ashes, repenting of
their sins and crying out to the true God of heaven and earth for mercy. They
heard the word of God and saw their own sinful condition. The Word of God
entered deeply into their souls and brought about such repentance that has
rarely been seen on that scale. They did not seek to avoid the Lord. They did
not hide behind a law of their own creation. They did not excuse their sin.
They repented and cried out to God for mercy and forgiveness. The Lord heard
their cries and forgave the city. He relented of His destruction of Nineveh. By
the preaching of His Word, the Lord brought the entire city of Nineveh into the
fold of the faithful.
It
is these repentant sinners that Christ says will judge the scribes and
Pharisees. These repentant saints of God will sit in judgment over those who
would have God bow to their own wills and act according to the will of man.
Then Christ speaks of the queen of the South. This is the Queen of Sheba, who came to Solomon because she had heard of his great wisdom and wanted to learn of this wisdom for herself.[6] Sheba was a kingdom on the southwest tip of the Arabian Peninsula. It was a rich and powerful kingdom but was committed to the worship of false gods. Her journey to Jerusalem was likely as much for economic and military reasons as for curiosity about this wise king to her north.
But once she heard the teachings of
Solomon, she couldn’t help but sing the praises of the True God of Solomon. “Blessed
be the Lord your God, who delighted in you!”[7]
He spoke to her concerning wisdom in this world but certainly told her of the
True God who would save this sinful world from damnation. Through the preaching
of Solomon, the Queen of Sheba brought the true faith back to her people.
Again, a nation of people was saved by the preaching of God’s Word. The Queen
repented of her belief in demons and turned toward the True God, who would be
born in Bethlehem and save her from her sins.
Christ says that this queen will also
sit in judgement over this evil and adulterous generation. She who sought the
wisdom of God through Solomon will sit among all the faithful in the day of
judgment and pronounce condemnation on scribes and Pharisees, who prefer their
own wisdom to the Word of God.
After these historic examples, our Lord
provides a sort of parable of a man who has been freed from the possession of a
demon.[8]
But once he has been freed, the man does not make way for the Holy Spirit. He
prefers to remain an empty house, open to all the possibilities of the world. If
he is not with Christ, then he is against Him, as the parable shows. The demon
returns with seven more powerful demons, who then possess the man, leaving him
in a state worse than the first.
This man is the personification of the
scribes and the Pharisees, the wicked generation. He has been delivered from
the oppression of Satan by the Word of God but does not care about what comes
next. He has heard the Word of God but no longer clings to it.
Christ is highlighting the importance
of perseverance in the faith. Not long ago we heard the parable of the sower,
or more accurately, the parable of the soils.[9]
Every field will eventually turn up stones and weeds, becoming unfit for
growing crops. It is necessary that the good soil receiving the seed of the
Word be tended. When it comes to tending to your soul, it shouldn’t sound like
a burden. It is a joy! To be in God’s house, to hear and read His Word, to
meditate on His Word, to foster a faithful family and faithful community is the
very air the saints of God breathe. It is our lifeblood. Does it involve
effort? Can it be difficult? Of course. Anything worth doing involves effort
and can be difficult. But the reward is eternal life. In the struggle is the
joy of life in Christ! The man in the parable goes to the effort of sweeping
his soul clean and putting it in order but he fails to fill it with the Holy
Spirit. In the end, he achieves nothing more than creating an ideal home for
eight demons.
So then, our Lord’s mother and brothers arrive, wanting to speak with Him. But Christ says that these are His mother, brothers, and sisters, those who do the will of the Father. In this context, the will of the Father is everything our Lord has been speaking about. He is referring to those who repent like the Ninevites; those who seek the wisdom of God like the queen of the South; and those who cling to the faith once delivered, who diligently invite the Holy Spirit into their souls and tirelessly strive to maintain the salvation given to them freely. These are His disciples, His mother, brothers, and sisters.
In T Jesus’ name. Amen.
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