Sign of Jonah

The Pharisees and Saducees asked Jesus to give them a sign from heaven to verify His words. He told them, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. (Matthew 12:39). 

What was the sign of Jonah? The next verse gives us a hint. "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." I always thought the significance of that statement was the "three days and three nights." But that's missing the point.

What happened after the three days and nights? Jonah came out of the fish after three days and nights. He essentially came back from the dead for who ever survived in a whale's belly that long? Jesus was actually saying He would rise again after three days. He was prophesying His resurrection but they didn't get it. And neither did I for a long time. I was hung up on the three days and missed the deeper meaning. Now let's take it to the next level.

The resurrection was the central message of the early church. Peter preached the resurrection on the day of Pentecost and 3000 souls were converted. The apostles preached the resurrection everywhere they went, even to the highly educated on Mars Hill at Athens. 

When persecuted by the Romans in the first centuries after Christ, Christians used the fish symbol to mark meeting places and tombs, or to distinguish friends from foes. According to one ancient story, when a Christian met a stranger in the road, the Christian sometimes drew one arc of the simple fish outline in the dirt. If the stranger drew the other arc, both believers knew they were in good company. The fish is still used as a Christian symbol.

What does a fish have to do with Christianity? Was it because Peter was a fisherman? Because Jesus said Christians should be fishers of men? Because fish swim in water and Christians are baptized with water? All those are weak theories. 

To early Christians, the fish was a symbol of  the central doctrine of the Christian faith, the resurrection. It is the sign of Jonah. The cross is the symbol of Jesus death; the fish is the symbol of His resurrection. Think about that the next time you see a fish on a bumper sticker.