The Signs of the Kingdom!

Monday, July 20, 2026

Mic 6: 1-4, 6-8; Mt 12: 38-42

Today’s Gospel highlights the pain and disappointment of Jesus. 

The merciful Lord, who was often ‘moved with pity,’ is now forced to chide the religious leaders who demand a sign as ‘evil and unfaithful’ (‘wicked and adulterous’ in some translations) because of their hardness of heart. Their unbelief comes even after witnessing Jesus’ many miracles that changed many hearts and transformed many lives. 

Jesus is angry for at least two reasons. 

By demanding a sign, the Pharisees and teachers of the law discredited the very signs that Jesus had already performed as evidence of the arrival of God’s Kingdom in their midst (Lk 17: 21). Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, cleansed lepers, and cast out demons just so his audience would understand these signs as proof and evidence of God visiting His people. After all, it was the same crowd that exclaimed when Jesus raised the widow’s son, saying, ‘A great prophet has appeared among us…God has come to help his people’ (Lk 7:16). But neglecting the many signs and wonders that Jesus performed, the crowd only grew very skeptical about his identity. 

Hence, what angers Jesus more is not only that they discredited his mission by demanding a sign but also that they disbelieved his proclamation of God’s Kingdom, which was the centrality of his life and mission. Thus, the core problem was not the absence of evidence but the lack of willingness to surrender to the God who Jesus revealed through his mission. 

What is more, in demanding the sign, the religious leaders only manifest their curiosity, which is averse to making any commitment in terms of having faith in Jesus. Indeed, faith is about commitment, and by rejecting Jesus, they show that they do not want to change their lives. Their peripheral question and lame excuse angers Jesus more.

The signs of the Kingdom have already been present among us. Hence, we should not ask if God has ever spoken. Instead, we need to examine if we ever listen to the promptings of God. 

Let us pray that we may open our hearts to the signs of God’s Kingdom around us so that we may have abundant faith. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar