NOTES for Luk 11:29-32
It is no accident that Jesus compares Himself to the prophet Jonah, the central figure of the book bearing his name: He became for the people living at the time of His earthly ministry the same kind of Witness that Jonah had been for the people of Nineveh. Here Jesus does not ask His listeners to acknowledge His divine-human nature, or even His messiahship: both were impossible for them; they simply could not have grasped them. They were, however, ready to recognise Him as the Messiah—but not the Messiah He actually was, rather the one their own imagination portrayed. Hence their demand for a sign, a miracle confirming His messiahship. Jesus replies by speaking of the sign of the prophet Jonah: people might have thought he had perished when swallowed by a whale, but he proved to be alive and fulfilled his mission, which was an evident miracle. The Saviour hints at the same kind of miracle when speaking of Himself: death will be no obstacle to Him either, and resurrection from the dead will be the clearest proof of His true messiahship. Jesus has no intention of displaying any other signs to anyone.
If His listeners had truly wanted to see the Kingdom, or at least those manifestations of God's power that accompanied Jesus' earthly journey, they would have seen them. There were so many miracles and healings that there was only one way to overlook them: stubbornly refusing to notice anything. This is understandable: what was happening fitted none of their schemes. If only He would demonstrate some ‘proper’ sign, confirming His messiahship in the way those around Him expected... But precisely such a ‘proper’ sign was what He had no intention of showing anyone.
He had no intention of fitting within any framework or meeting anyone's expectations. Not as a matter of principle, but simply because the Kingdom He brought into the world, and in whose fullness He lives, likewise fits within no framework and usually fails to meet the expectations of those who speak and even preach about it. During His earthly journey, He needed to be true to the Kingdom, not to what people thought about the Kingdom.