People saw Jesus driving out devils and healing people, and were rightfully amazed. But their reactions were incredible - thinking evil of the exorcist and healer! Furthermore, they asked for a sign.

We may be amazed and puzzled by behaviour like this. But isn't it true that we, too, often fall into such a trap as asking God to answer us by giving us signs that are made to our orders? Like the crowd we don't know what we are asking. We fail to see that God is working in me, in us: God is among us, in the world.

Instead of wasting his energy on the crowd's idle requests, Jesus appeals to their imagination to get his message across. He uses people in the legends that people know well - Jonah as a sign to the Ninevites, the wisdom of Solomon as a sign to the Queen of the South. This perverse generation will be judged and condemned by the converted and the convinced. "And, look, there is something greater than Jonah here." Jesus is referring to himself. He is the sign.