We have Jesus interpreting scripture in the gospel. He is asking the people of his day and ourselves of today to understand the sign of Jonah.
Scholars have agreed to disagree on what is the sign of Jonah. Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, identifies the sign of Jonah in relation to spending three days and nights in the belly of the whale to his own three days and nights in the belly of death. Once Jonah was freed from the belly he preached destruction and the Ninevites repented and found forgiveness and the city was saved; once Jesus destroyed death by his own dying and rising he offered the power of being forgiven in the gift of the Holy Spirit and the world was saved from destruction brought on by sin.
The sign is obvious, yet I believe there is another aspect of the sign that is often overlooked.
At the beginning of the gospel we read the following, "while still more people gathered in the crowd..."
Think about the crowd for a moment.
Jesus came to gather people together to begin a new community to live differently in society. But, he did not come to gather a crowd. A crowd consist of a disorganized group filled with anonymous faces. They all blend together.
It is easy to get lost in the crowd. It is also very convenient to be just another face in the crowd. There is little responsibility and accountability living in the crowd. No one stands out in the crowd and all get lost; it is a safe bet for a while and all do what the crowd does.
Jonah, when he was called by God to preach, initially refused. He wanted to be just another face in the crowd. He did not want to stand out.
Yet, the call itself demanded that he no longer be anonymous, that he no longer be just another face, but rather that his face make known the face of God and to do this he needed to stand out from the crowd and give it direction.
A sign has meaning and value because it stands out and is recognizable. One cannot be a sign unless one stands out and is recognized as different and distinct from all the rest.
Jesus stood out. He was easily identifiable and this is why the crowd gathered. But, also, the disciples stood out. They too are easily identifiable. We know their names and we know their faces. Just as Jesus refused to be just another face in the crowd, so to his disciples refused to be just another face in the crowd because of the choice to follow the one who stood out. In the gospel, whenever someone ventures away from the crowd, they become known to us; they are no longer anonymous.
Think of all those who seek healing or aid. Because they step out of the crowd and come forward, they experience a profound transformation and they no longer remain anonymous. This is why we know the woman with the hemorrhage who touched the hem of Jesus' garment, the blind man named Bartimeus, Nicodemus, Joseph or Arimathea, Mary and Martha who fed Jesus on his journey, Susanna and Johanna who took care of Jesus from their own means, the woman who was caught in adultery, the woman who anoints Jesus with oil, Zaccheus who climbed the tree, Jarius who sought a cure for his child, Lazarus who was raised from the dead, and the list goes on.
It is impossible to remain anonymous in the crowd once you have an experience of Christ. And to seek to go back and be just another face in the crowd is to deny Christ and what he has done.
The disciples and all others who contact Jesus were distinguishable because of their relation to the sign himself. They experienced the sign and was transformed.
We must refuse to be just another face in the crowd. As disciples, we must live differently, we must stand out above the rest. When we take a stand, like Jonah and become a sign of Christ then the face of Christ is seen through us. We truly begin to live our baptismal reality and become the alter Christus, another Christ and the face of God is made known in the world.
We must step out of the crowd and move forward; we must give direction to the crowd; we must make the face of Christ known in the world. This is how we stem the crowd from trampling and stampeding over the world.
The responsibility falls on us to stand out and let our face be known, refusing to be anonymous and thus reveal the face of Christ to all...
Or we remain just another face in the crowd and are condemned by the men of Nineveh and the Queen of the south and everyone else who recognized the sign and choice to follow suit and no longer remain anonymous.
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