Opening Prayer
God, strengthen our faith, and firmly establish it in Your Word. Amen.
Text: Matthew 16:1–4
Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.
Devotion
The Jewish people and their leaders certainly had enough signs. They saw with their own eyes that Jesus healed the lame, the blind, the mute, and the crippled, which is described just before our Bible lesson. But unbelief runs true to form: They did not want to see the truth, so they could not believe. The Pharisees wanted to see “a sign from heaven.” The unbelief of our age says: “Those miracles are so old. Show us miracles now, then we will believe.” Why then didn’t the Pharisees believe? They admitted that Jesus “did many signs” (Joh 11:47), but they still did not believe. If the unbelievers now could see the miracles before their eyes as they did, they would be just as unbelieving and want different signs. They were not lacking what is required for faith, and neither are we. How could they explain that everything that the Scripture predicts about the Messiah was precisely fulfilled in Jesus? The explanation was easy for them: “We do not want Him to rule over us, since He is a blasphemer. Away with Him!” But they didn’t know that in this way the prophecy of Jonah was fulfilled. We are not lacking signs now: there is the historical credibility of the Bible and thus the truthfulness of all its miracles. There is the Church of Christ itself, which could not possibly stand if Christ had not risen. There is the Jewish people, and there is the apostasy of our age whose unbelief fulfills the predictions of God’s Word, just as the unbelieving Jews fulfilled it by crucifying Christ. But how does the world evade the power of the truth? Nowadays, just as before: “Truth is whatever we want. We are wise. We are many. Away with Jesus, crucify Him!”
But there was and there is a Church of God, and there always will be a Church of God that believes the Gospel and sees the signs. By these our faith is strengthened, and our hearts live in the Scriptures, which are fulfilled in us just as in the Lord Himself. Blessed are those who are not offended at His cross!
Closing Prayer
Lord, You still always show the sign of Jonah to the wicked generation of the world. You let Yourself, and thus Your Church, be cast out and overwhelmed, but You raise Yourself again, and with Your Word cause both great and small to repent in sackcloth and ashes. Lord, teach us to understand the times and to flee corruption, when Your judgments break forth. Amen.
Hymn
O dearest Lord, You prayed
For Peter in his trial
That faith might never fade
E’en in his worst denial.
Pray also now for me,
My Advocate divine,
Your glorious saving grace
Makes strength and courage mine.
O hear my prayer, my God,
My God! O hear my pleading!
You note my troubled heart,
Its groans and sighs completing!
The goal of faith is this:
That I may there enjoy
My soul’s salvation free
In peace and endless joy.
Anon.: O høie Herre Gud L 549:5-6 tr. DeGarmeaux;
tune: O Gott, du frommer Gott (ELH 470); alternate hymn: Jesus, I will ponder now ELH 287:5-6