Today’s theme is very much at the core of what we are trying to do during Lent: repent and follow the Gospel. Luke tells us that the crowds were growing even bigger. They weren’t there to listen to Jesus. They wanted to see some magic. Maybe they had heard how he fed people with just some bread or healed the sick. Whatever story they had heard, they were there to see a “sign”. Something miraculous, exciting!
Jesus responds by calling them an evil generation. The only sign He offers them is the sign of Jonah. Jonah was a sign of repentance and conversion, radical belief. Change. When Jonah went into the city, the entire city converted. Even the sheep and cattle were fasting!
Then he says that on Judgement Day, the queen of the south will stand up against them because she journeyed to the kingdom of Solomon to meet him and learn about his God. Both the Ninevites and the Queen of the South represent the outsiders, the gentiles, the other.
Jesus is reminding us not to get comfortable in our faith, not to be complacent. The queen had traveled a great distance to find God, and she believed. The Ninevites heard the truth about who God was and immediately reformed their lives. Lent is an opportunity for us to turn to God and listen, to radically return to Him.
Jesus gives us the same sign today. The Gospel comes to us and says, “Repent.” Turn our lives around, get to confession, meet Jesus in the Sacraments. Today is when we give our response, not tomorrow, not next week—this moment. The King of Nineveh didn’t wait or spend time in preparation. When he heard the message from God, it says, “he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes.” So we should do as well.
The queen went to Solomon, the Ninevites heeded Jonah, but there is something far greater than Jonah here. In the Eucharist, Jesus Christ is right here, calling out to us to turn our lives over to Him. Lent is an opportunity to arise, throw aside the robes that we bind ourselves within Confession, and sit at the foot of the Cross. We shouldn’t waste this opportunity, we are not guaranteed tomorrow. Let us say today from the depths of our soul: “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness, in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.” As the Sacred Scriptures remind us today, “If we approach him with a Humble and contrite heart” “God may relent and forgive, […] so that we shall not perish.”
Wednesday of the First Week of Lent: February 24th, 2021