"Signs don’t create faith in a dead heart. Faith comes by hearing!" Ember Wednesday 2026

25. February 2026
Ember Wednesday
Matthew 12:38–50

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” (Mt 12:38–39).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

They come to Jesus with a demand that sounds pious but isn’t: “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” (Matthew 12:38) They want Him on a leash. Perform. Prove it. Make it obvious. Give us something we can control.

That is not faith. That is the old sin of Eden dressed up in religious clothes. It’s the creature putting the Creator on trial. And Jesus names it without flinching: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign.” (Matthew 12:39) Adulterous, because it’s unfaithful to the Lord—running after other “lovers,” other certainties, other saviors: sight, experience, power, reputation, self-justification. You can be very “churchy” and still be doing this. You can demand signs from God while your heart is already decided.

And here’s the ugly truth: they had already seen signs. They’d seen healings. They’d seen demons cast out. They’d heard the Word of God in human flesh. But signs don’t create faith in a dead heart. Faith comes by hearing. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) When the heart is hardened, even miracles become fuel for unbelief. People will always find a way to explain away the truth they don’t want.

So Jesus refuses to do party tricks for the devil’s children, just as He refused to do them for the devil in the wilderness. But He does give one sign—one sign that judges unbelief and saves sinners at the same time: “No sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” (Matthew 12:39)

And then He says it plainly: “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:40) That’s the sign. Not a spectacle, but a death and a resurrection. Not “look what I can do,” but “look what I have done for you.”

Jonah is an embarrassment to human pride because the story is impossible—unless God is God. Jonah should be dead. Three days in a fish is not survivable. That’s the point. God saves in a way that kills your pride. God delivers in a way that leaves you with nothing to boast in except mercy. Jonah comes out alive, like a man returned from the dead. And Jesus says, “That’s where this is going. You will get your sign. My grave will be the place where your demands are answered—though not the way you think you want.”

Because the greater Jonah will not merely almost die. He will actually die. He will be swallowed by death itself. He will go down under the judgment we earned. And then He will rise. The resurrection is not an inspirational symbol. It is God’s public verdict on Jesus and on your sin: paid, finished, done. “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:25)

That is why Jesus says, “Something greater than Jonah is here.” (Matthew 12:41) Greater than Jonah because Jonah went unwillingly; Jesus goes willingly. Jonah preached grudgingly; Jesus preaches as the Word made flesh. Jonah was thrown into the sea because of his own disobedience; Jesus was thrown into death because of ours. Jonah is a sign that exposes how little control we have; Jesus is the sign that gives us what we could never earn: forgiveness, life, salvation.

And Jesus drives the knife a little deeper. He says Nineveh will rise in judgment against His hearers: “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” (Matthew 12:41) Notice what Jesus points to: not the fish, not the drama, but the preaching. Jonah’s “sermon” is almost comically barebones: forty days and you’re done. And still the city repents. “The people of Nineveh believed God.” (Jonah 3:5)

Now look at Jerusalem. They have the Christ. They have the Scriptures. They have miracles. They have the very mouth of God speaking. And they harden. This is what unbelief does: it can sit in the brightest light and call it darkness.

Then Jesus gives another warning—one that is ready-made for Lent, because Lent exposes how easily we confuse “getting cleaned up” with repentance. Jesus says: “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person… it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.” (Matthew 12:43–44) Empty. That is the danger. Clean, but empty. Morally improved, but vacant. Reformed habits, but no Christ.

And then comes the disaster: “It goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself… and the last state of that person is worse than the first.” (Matthew 12:45) Here is the warning: you cannot defeat the devil with a vacuum. You cannot drive out darkness by rearranging the deck furniture. You cannot win a spiritual war with self-improvement. If the house is swept but empty, something else will move in. Sin does not politely stay away because you made resolutions.

So what is repentance? Not merely quitting a few bad habits. Repentance is being turned from yourself to Christ. Repentance is a sinner being filled—not with pride over progress, but with the Word, with the Spirit, with forgiveness. If Lent becomes a project of “I’m going to be better,” you have missed Lent. Lent is the season that teaches you to stop bargaining and start begging. It drives you away from signs and into the only sign that saves: the crucified and risen Christ.

And then Matthew gives us that last scene: Jesus’ mother and brothers standing outside. Someone tells Him. And Jesus answers with a question that sounds harsh until you hear the mercy in it: “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” (Matthew 12:48) Then He stretches out His hand to His disciples: “Here are my mother and my brothers!” (Matthew 12:49) And He seals it: “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:50)

So what is the will of the Father? Not that you impress Him. Not that you bring Him signs of your sincerity. Not that you claim a bloodline, a heritage, a résumé, a record, a feeling. The will of the Father is that you have His Son. Jesus says it elsewhere: “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40)

That means no one has a special standing before God by ethnicity, pedigree, or religious history. Not Jews. Not Gentiles. Not “lifelong Lutherans.” Not “good church families.” Not pastors. Not anyone. The only family that counts here is the family created by Christ’s Word and Spirit. “There is neither Jew nor Greek… for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) And if you want it even sharper: “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.” (Romans 9:6) God is still rescuing sinners from every people—including Jews—by the same way He rescues you: by bringing them to Christ. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

So here's the point tonight. Stop demanding signs. Stop testing God as if He owes you explanations on your timeline. Stop trying to clean the house and leave it empty. Instead, receive the sign you are given: the Son of Man in the heart of the earth, and then out again—alive for you. “Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20). That is the sign. That is the anchor. That is the verdict over your sin.

And then, filled with Him—His Word in your ears, His mercy on your conscience—you are no longer an orphan trying to earn a place. You are given a Father. You are given a family. You are made Christ’s brother, sister, mother—not by blood, but by grace. “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12)

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin