Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the crowd that they will receive no sign except the sign of Jonah, which was a prophetic code for his death and Resurrection.

Everything Jesus said and did, in one way or another, is an anticipation of his Resurrection. The God of Israel, the God of Jesus Christ, is a God of life, a God of the living. He hates death and the ways of death.

He hates sin, which brings about spiritual death; he hates physical illness, which brings about bodily death; he hates corruption, which brings about societal death. And so he battles all these things all the way. Jesus heals blind eyes and deaf ears and crippled limbs; he illuminates darkened minds; he liberates imprisoned souls.

His ministry is a ministry of life, of the triumph of life over death.