Who is Jonah?
Over the past few weeks we have
studied Bible characters. On Father’s Day we listened to the story of David. How he struggled as a father, and
how God was with him all the days of his life. Last week we explored the life
of Job. The story of Job took us
behind the scenes of suffering and showed us that there is an invisible world.
And by this it explained the problem of suffering from a different perspective.
By this time you probably have realized that the Bible is full of people who
faced the same life situations you experience today, such as suffering, anger,
anxiety, doubt, fear, pride, sickness, sorrow, death, etc. As we listen to
their stories, we discover how God enables them to overcome those struggles and
to live worthy of their calling as God’s people. That’s our aim. The aim of
this study is to live a life worthy of
our calling as God’s holy people.
From this week we will explore the
story of Jonah chapter by chapter. Probably many of us have been aware of the
story of Jonah since childhood. On a superficial level Jonah’s story is kind of
fun and attractive to all ages, because it has dramatic twists and miracles. On
a deeper level this story has many layers of meaning. It is about race and nationalism.
It is about God’s call to mission. It is about the struggles believers have to
trust and obey God.
In order to dig deeper into the
Book of Jonah a good starter question to ask would be “Who is Jonah?” Jonah was
an extremely patriotic man. He was a highly partisan nationalist. The story of
Jonah begins in this way: “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai…” (v. 1a). 2 Kings
14:25 tells us the same person Jonah as a prophet ministered during the reign
of Israel’s King Jeroboam II (786–746 BC). In that text we find that Jonah
supported Jeroboam’s aggressive military policy to extend the nation’s power
and influence. Jonah believed that the kingdom of God was a Jewish kingdom. The
providence of God was a Jewish providence. The triumph of God was a Jewish
triumph. And now, God is calling this patriotic, nationalistic Jonah to go to
Nineveh, the pagan city, in order to preach the message of repentance and
forgiveness. Jonah is an unlikely candidate.
To Nineveh
If we knew who were the Ninevites,
it would be even more shocking. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian
kingdom. Assyria was known as one of the cruelest and most violent empires of
ancient times. Assyrian kings often recorded the results of their military
victories, gloating of whole plains littered with corpses and of cities burned
completely to the ground. For instance, the emperor Shalmaneser III is well
known for depicting torture, dismembering, and decapitations of enemies in
grisly detail on large stone relief panels. After capturing enemies, the
Assyrians would typically cut off their legs and one arm, leaving the other arm
and hand so they could shake the victim’s hand in mockery as he was dying. They
forced friends and family members to parade with the decapitated heads of their
loved ones elevated on poles. They pulled out prisoners’ tongues and stretched
their bodies with ropes so they could be flayed alive and their skins displayed
on city walls. They burned adolescents alive. The Assyrians have been called a
“terrorist state.”[1]
They continued to threaten the Jewish northern kingdom throughout the lifetime
of Jonah. And in 722 BC they finally invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom
of Israel.
Now God is sending Jonah to the
very Nineveh, the most feared and hated enemy, to preach forgiveness and
reconciliation, saying, “Go at once to Nineveh that great city, and cry out
against it; for their wickedness has come up before me” (v. 1b).
Why Tarshish?
What was Jonah’s response to this
mission? He went to the exact opposite direction. He went down to Joppa, found
a ship, paid the fare, went aboard, and set sail. He ran away from God. The
question is, “Why did Jonah run?” Jonah
ran because the Ninevites were not Jews.
He thought the pagans did not deserve God’s mercy. Jonah ran because he did not want to be known as a
false prophet. The prophet Nahum had some years before prophesied that God
would destroy Nineveh for its evil. For Jonah and Israel Nahum’s prophecy made
a perfect sense. Jonah didn’t want to prophesy against it and be found as a
false prophet. Jonah ran because he
feared the wicked Ninevites. His calling was like a suicide mission. It’s
like standing on the streets of Berlin and calling on Nazi Germany to repent in
1941.
According to common sense principles
there are hundreds of reasons why Jonah must not go to Nineveh. But I believe
the true reason why Jonah ran away is because
he cannot reconcile the mercy of God with his justice. In other words,
Jonah asks, “How can God be merciful and forgiving to people who have done such
violence and evil?” He wants God to be consistent: to destroy and punish the
bad people like the Ninevites and to bless and prosper the good people like
Israel. Jonah wants a God of his own making. But when the real God shows up, Jonah is furious and frustrated with God’s way
of dealing with people in the world. Jonah has to die to his own desires, his
own will, and his own conception of God. So God prepares two things to teach
and deliver Jonah from himself: a great
wind and a great fish.
Great Wind, Great Fish
As soon as Jonah sets sail to
Tarshishi, God sends a great wind over the sea, causing a violent storm. In the
storm Jonah encounters the real God. Up to this point he firmly believed that God
was exclusively interested in Israel, but now in the storm he begins to see
that God’s interest in Israel is for the
sake of the world – “You will be a blessing, so that all the people of the earth will be blessed through you”
(Gen 12:2-3). Jonah was trained and taught to believe that the climax of God’s
salvation would be the salvation of Israel, but now in the storms he begins to
see that Israel is a means to an end.
The end is the salvation of all nations.
In the storm Jonah meets pagan
sailors, who do not know God. But ironically, the pagan sailors seem to know
how to have a relationship with God better than Jonah. In the midst of the
storm they stay alert and call on their gods and ask Jonah, who is in deep
sleep, to pray (1:6). When they discover by lots that Jonah is responsible for
the storm, they don’t judge him but instead they are eager to listen to his
story and to learn about his God (1:8). And until the end, they use every means
possible to save Jonah rather than just throwing him into the sea (1:13). For
Jonah, his encounter with the pagan sailors is an eye-opening and transforming
experience. Deep in his heart he always thought that he and Israel were good
people, deserving of God’s favor – “I am better than those pagan sinners.” But
now he begins to see that he too is a sinner. He begins to realize that he too doesn’t
deserve God’s mercy.
Then Jonah is now thrown into the
sea. But God’s mercy pursues Jonah!
The God who prepared a great wind to grow Jonah now provides a great fish to save
him and protect him. Jonah is rescued and now he is in the belly of the fish
three days and three nights. There Jonah is transformed by God’s amazing grace.
Timeless Mission
The Bible is full of stories how
God offers a call to repentance and forgiveness to undeserving, unlikely
people. This call begins with you and me. Like Jonah, we must experience God’s
mercy and forgiveness first and then pass it on.
As I close, let me share the story
of Corrie ten Boom on forgiveness. During the Nazi occupation of Holland Corrie
was arrested for hiding Jews in her home and sent to a concentration camp.
After the World War II, God sent her to Germany to preach repentance
and forgiveness. One day after the service, one man approached her.
Intuitively, she recognized him. He was a guard at the concentration camp. That
man extended his hand and said, “A fine message! How good it is to know that,
as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!” Corrie described her
feelings in this way, “My blood seemed to freeze… It could not have been many
seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I
wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.” She knew what she
had to do. But she couldn’t. So she prayed silently, “Lord, help! I can lift my
hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.” And then mechanically,
Corrie held out her hand. Then an incredible thing happened. Surpassing
forgiving love of God just flooded her whole being, bringing tears to her eyes.
And she cried out, “I forgive you, brother, with all my heart!” Corrie
concludes her story as follows: “For a long moment we grasped each other’s
hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love
so intensely, as I did then.”[2]
Jonah means “dove.” His name
represents God’s mission of peace to all people of the world, even God’s
people’s enemies. Jonah is an unlikely candidate. He struggles, but later he
repents and follows God’s lead. Jonah’s story is a source of hope for us. We too
often run away from God and his mission when we find it difficult to understand
what God is doing. But in his mercy God pursues us with a great wind and a
great fish. God’s storm is a storm of
love. In the storm may we listen.
In the belly of the fish may we repent.
In this divisive world which we live in today may we be bridge builders and
messengers who preach repentance and forgiveness. Amen.
[1] Timothy Keller, The
Prodigal Prophet (pp. 10-11). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[2]
Guideposts Classics: Corrie ten Boom on Forgiveness (July 24, 2014)
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