A Message of Mercy

Summary: “I won’t go … I will go; I’m here … I shouldn’t have come.”  God demonstrated his power and mercy to, through and to Jonah.  If we love God, will we trust and obey him enough to let him lead us where we wouldn’t have otherwise gone, to show us things we wouldn’t have otherwise seen?

Scripture focus: Matthew 12:38-42; Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Date: Sunday, 30 May and 6 June 2010 (St. John’s Sutherland, 7 PM and 9:45 AM)

Listen: 2010-05-30 A Message of Mercy

On The Prophecy of Jonah

I have to admit that even at the ripe old age of 40, I still enjoy a good cartoon every now and then.  It’s the only reason I had kids! ☺  I do enjoy the Veggie Tales episodes, but I’m particularly a fan of the Pixar movies: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and the other movies and animated shorts they’ve produced.  My most favourite cartoon of all time has to be Curious George.

Cartoons take children and adults to another world, where the rules of this world don’t always apply.  Being taken out of the conventions of normal society enables us, at least indirectly, to imagine other ways of living and acting in our own society, among our own friends and family.  This can be good when the cartoons are encouraging us, like Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber do, to be honest, to play fair, to respect other’s differences, and to love God; however, cartoons can also be poor examples when they demonstrate acting inappropriately (like Sponge Bob Squarepants), being self-centred (like Ben 10) and being violent (like Looney Tunes).

It’s hard enough living day by day without also being discouraged away from purity and holiness and righteousness before God.  Jesus had his own favourite characters, who acted as examples for him in life, to a degree anyway — I don’t mean cartoon examples, as they weren’t invented yet, duh! ☺  The prophet Jonah was one such example for him (Mt 12:38-42).

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

We’re all at least a little familiar with the story of Jonah and the Whale — or was it a “big fish”?  Yet the popular treatments of this story only seem to revolve around the miraculous element of Jonah surviving three days in the belly of a sea creature.  While interesting and all, there’s so much more to this story that is neglected.  Far be it from me to skim over the challenging bits; so, let me draw you all in very close and tell you once again the story of the prophet Jonah.

“I Won’t Go … I Will Go”

“The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai” (Jon 1:1).¹ For such a popular prophet among the Fisher-Price set, the Bible actually tells us very little about this man.  There is one other reference to him in the Bible and that can be found in 2 Kings 14:25, where it tells us that Jonah served as a prophet during the reign of King Jeroboam II of Israel (ca. 760 BC).  We also learn the name of Jonah’s hometown, Gath-Hepher, which, it turns out, is a town located in the region of Galilee.  That Jonah grew up in the region of Galilee is not the first connection to Jesus that we will discover.

One commentary I consulted drew attention to the fact that since Jonah was a Galilean, that proves the Pharisees wrong who said to Nicodemus, “Look into it and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee” (Jn 7:52).  Also, interestingly, one Jewish tradition says that Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath, whom Elijah raised from the dead (see 1 Kgs 17:8–24).²

Enough of the background already!  If we needed to know anything else about Jonah, those details would have been provided.  What is important for us today is that Jonah was told, by God, “Go to the great city Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me” (Jon 1:2).  To this Jonah said, “I will go”; but, did he?  No.

Instead, Jonah tried to run away from God and from the responsibility he willingly accepted (Jon 1:3).³ As if that were possible!

God could have treated Jonah as this sin deserved — that is, turned his back on him and simply called another, more worthy prophet — instead, God chose to love Jonah by sending a violent storm to sink the ship he was travelling on and a sea creature to swallow him whole, so that he wouldn’t drown when the sailors threw him into the sea (Jon 1:7-17).  Doesn’t that kind of treatment just make you want to be a follower of Jesus?  This may not seem much like love, but this was the exact kind of ‘tough love’ that Jonah needed to make him right with God once again:

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God.  He said: “In my distress I called to the LORD and he answered me.

“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit God’s love for them.  But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice To you.  What I have vowed I will make good.  I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.’ ” (Jon 2:1–2, 8–9)

God was merciful to Jonah and Jonah received God’s mercy with thankfulness and praise.

“I’m Here … I Shouldn’t Have Come”

“Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’ ” (Jon 3:1–2)  How wonderful it is that, “if we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9).  Even more so, in Jonah’s case, God went so far as to recommission Jonah and sent him to prophesy against the city of Nineveh.

Surprisingly, for all of Jonah’s fuss, all he had to say to the people of Nineveh was, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jon 3:4).  It is a good thing that the message was so short because the city itself was quite large.  It took a lot of time and a lot of walking, to proclaim that message throughout the whole city (Jon 3:3-4).  Nevertheless, those simple but challenging words were enough to capture the people’s attention and, it is written, “the Ninevites believed God” (Jon 3:5).

Indeed, that simple message travelled straight to the king and he declared a time of fasting and repentance for the city’s inhabitants (Jon 3:6-9).  Given such an ultimatum from God, should we be surprised at the level of response from the inhabitants of Nineveh?  Unfortunately, the text doesn’t really help us to appreciate that the people of Nineveh just might have been both emotionally and spiritually ready for such a word from God.  What the historians tell us is that,

During these years, Assyria [the nation of which Ninevah was its capital] was in a period of mild decline.  Weak rulers had ascended the throne, but Assyria remained a threat [to others].  By the time of Jonah, Assyrian cruelty had become legendary.  Graphic accounts of their cruel treatment of captives have been found in ancient Assyrian records, especially from the ninth and seventh centuries bc.  The repentance of Nineveh probably occurred in the reign of Ashurdan III (773–755).  Two plagues (765 and 759) and a solar eclipse (763) may have prepared the people for Jonah’s message of judgment.⁴

Thus, the people of Nineveh supported and participated in an aggressive culture that treated others harshly.  Yet, natural disasters shook the confidence of such a people.  As with Jonah, God knew exactly what needed to be said and done to draw the people’s hearts to him (Jon 3:10).  Jonah delivered; the people responded; and, God was merciful to them through Jonah and did not treat them as their sins deserved.  Praise be to God for his loving kindness!

Unfortunately, not everyone would agree with such a statement.  In fact, Jonah was particularly displeased with God that he showed mercy to the Ninevites: “That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing [...] I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jon 4:1-2).  Now let the absurdity of that statement sink in for just a moment … Jonah was mad at God for showing mercy to the Ninevites by not sending down the fire and brimstone, like God did at Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24).  Jonah was so mad at God for not destroying the Ninevites that he asked God to kill him right then and there  (Jon 4:3).

Now Jonah is very lucky that I am not God — even though, I admit, the resemblance is striking — because I would have probably just shrugged my shoulders and said, “okay” and zapped the man.  Instead, the God who is, “gracious and compassionate [...] slow to anger and abounding in love”, chose to not treat Jonah as this sin deserved, but took advantage of the opportunity to show further mercy to Jonah by teaching him another lesson (Jon 4:4).

Jonah left that conversation and set himself up outside the city where he could, “wait to see what would happen to the city” (Jon 4:5).  While there, God caused a plant to grow beside Jonah that shielded him from the sun; the next day, a worm ate the plant and destroyed it; the day after that, a hot dry wind made Jonah so uncomfortable that, again, he wanted to die (Jon 4:6-8).

God challenged Jonah on this infantile attitude because Jonah was really only concerned after his own comfort, but was more than happy to see all of the residents of Nineveh, numbering over 100,000 people, to perish under fire and rot in hell (Jon 4:9-11).  As a prophet, Jonah should have known that it is written, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Ex 33:19).  God was merciful to Jonah; and through Jonah, merciful to the Ninevites; and, then merciful to Jonah again.  Jonah should have remained as thankful as his earlier prayer, made from within the belly of the great fish and continued to give God the praise for which he was due.

Something to Think About

While it’s easier and more pleasurable — and more profitable when making plush toys and lunch boxes — to focus on the action-packed part of the story, where Jonah fraternizes with the big fish, but that really is the least interesting part of the story for those trying to appreciate what the Holy Spirit intends to teach us through Jonah’s story.

Could it be the case that it was precisely Jonah’s disregard for the consequences of the Ninevites’ sinfulness that made him the ideal prophet for Nineveh?  We learned already from the historians that the Ninevites were probably a ‘hard’ people.  What kind of prophet would be best suited for such as they?

Jonah was an elitist and a racist and fearful of the Assyrians and probably would have had a hard time hiding these attitudes.  Would that have made him an ideal candidate for Nineveh?⁵ I guess we’ll never know.  However, let us keep in mind that Jonah was in an attitude of gratitude upon being expelled from the great fish.  It wasn’t until God declared that he would be merciful to the Ninevites that Jonah’s prayer of thankfulness was forgotten.  That being the case, Jonah probably was in an unusually good mood when he finally consented to deliver God’s message to the Ninevites.

Nevertheless, for a prophet, Jonah was not a particularly good one, by my reckoning.  So, once again, we are reminded that God can and will use just about anybody to fulfill his purposes.  It is written, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).  In other words,

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?  And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?  As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:13–15)

God both allows that good news to be shared with anyone and seemingly uses anyone to do the sharing.  If you don’t believe me, consider that

Moses stuttered.
David’s armour didn’t fit.
John Mark was rejected by Paul.
Hosea’s wife was a prostitute.
Amos’s only training was in the school of fig-tree pruning.
Jacob was a liar.
David had an affair.
Solomon was too rich.
Abraham was too old.
David was too young.
Timothy had ulcers.
Peter was afraid of death.
Lazarus was dead.
John was self-righteous. Jesus was too poor.
Naomi was a widow.
Paul was a murderer. So was Moses.
Jonah ran from God.
Miriam was a gossip.
Gideon and Thomas both doubted.
Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal.
Elijah was burnt out.
John the Baptist was a loudmouth.
Martha was a worry-wart.
Samson had long hair.
Noah got drunk.

Did I mention that Moses had a short fuse?  So did Peter as did Paul.⁶ (Author unknown)

Be prepared, therefore, that God just may even use you.  Banish from your mind and from your heart any thought or disposition that would lead you to believe that God couldn’t and wouldn’t possibly use you, for even you and I and the joker who lives next door, can be used by God to share such wonderful and beautiful news as that Jesus has lived and died and lived again that we might be reconciled to God.  Hallelujah and amen!

That point begs further questions, particularly after the nature of faith.  Indeed, Jesus promised us life that is free, abundant and eternal.⁷ Yet we have such a difficult time experiencing that life for ourselves.  Like the man of Jesus’ parable, who was freed from one oppressive spirit only to have it and seven more return later (Mt 12:43-45), unless we allow the Spirit of God to ‘open our eyes’ and show us a new way to live, we may end up worse off from dissatisfaction with the life of faith.

Jonah, a blessed prophet of God, could not let go of his elitism and racism and fear to allow the people of Nineveh to be saved.  He wished death for himself rather than have his enemy be shown mercy.  I think that we can say quite confidently that Jonah was not really experiencing a life free, abundant and eternal, by faith.  Even as God intervened in Jonah’s life to teach him a better way, through his being swallowed by a great fish and having his comfort thwarted by a worm, Jonah’s horizon of God’s grace seemed to have remained limited even at the very end of his story.

It is written, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight” (Pr 3:5–6).⁸ That final phrase can also be translated as, “direct your paths”.  Whether our paths are straight or not, knowing by faith that God will guide us through life is comforting indeed.

But what if those paths take us through “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps 23)?  In fact, Jesus himself admitted that his way —while leading us to a life that is free, abundant and eternal — is a “narrow” way with a “narrow door” that opens onto it, which few find because it is hard to enter that way (Mt 7:13-14; Lk 13:24).  Doesn’t seem particularly attractive now, does it?

Nevertheless, if we concede that our lives of selfcentredness and individualism, caused by the Fall and our sin, mark us only for despair and death, then we would want to “choose life” (Deut 30:19), wouldn’t we? … given the chance?

The problem is that the Fall has rendered this world incapable of glorifying God or of enabling its people to glimpse God’s presence in the world.  We are neither encouraged to live pure and holy nor equipped in righteousness through the relationships and institutions of this world.  God needs to intervene in our lives to open up our horizons, so that we might capture a glimpse of new possibilities.  The life of faith, lived in and with the Holy Spirit, will look and feel radically different from all that we have experienced previously.

Which begs the question: Can you love and trust God enough to obey him?  Will you let God direct your paths, even when you are unsure of what is expected of you and uncertain of the destination?  I allowed God to lead me to the other side of the world, when I had never flown on a plane anywhere further than the next province of Canada … yet, here I am enjoying beautiful fellowship and ministry with you all.  The missionaries who have visited us, over the past two months, have shared remarkable stories of God working in and through them to learn new languages, to live and work in new cultures, to see the Gospel shared even with witch doctors.  Our PlayTime director, Nicole, has recently shared her story of how God has expanded her horizons through her playgroup ministry.  One teen in our church, Athena, is being used by God to raise funds for an orphanage in Cambodia.  I am pretty sure that each of these persons will recount that, at one time in their life, they could not have imagined God using them and, especially, using them in those ways, to bless those people.  What has God got in store for you?

Conclusion

Jonah’s trials were the consequence of his own choices, and God loved him towards wholeness again. Yet, even the apostle Paul faced similar situations during his missionary journeys, and he was serving God faithfully.  So, I’m not promising you that life will be beautiful and nothing will ever hurt, nor is God.  Yet, consider these promises:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”. (Jer 29:11)

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Rom 8:28)

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:37–39)

Submit yourself to God, therefore.  Learn to love, trust and obey him, and prepare for the wonder and glory of a live lived by and with our Creator-God.

Endnotes