Jesus, Jonah and the state of our hearts
And how the miracle of the ‘whale’ isn’t the point of the story
When I read the story of Jonah, I tend to focus on the miracle of the big fish - the fact that a) there’s a fish big enough to swallow a human, that b) he managed to survive for 3 days without getting digested alive, and c) that the fish spat him out again. Of course, at Easter, we talk about how Jonah in the big fish is a foreshadowing of Jesus - buried for 3 days, followed by the redemption of all humanity (instead of just the people of Nineveh).
But this Easter weekend, I’ve seen something else in this story. Often when we read the Old Testament, we interpret the stories as God being vengeful or violent. We don’t see that God is the same yesterday, today and forever - and that He has always been a God of GRACE.
Jonah is a prophet whom God sends to Nineveh to preach a message of repentance. But Jonah “ran away from the Lord”. I have to ask what Jonah was thinking. How does one run away from the Lord? Ps 139:7-12 tells us there is nowhere we can hide from God.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
So what exactly was Jonah thinking? How did he think this was going to go? Did he think he could outrun God? Or that if he ran away, God would just sigh and let it go?
Secondly, when God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, why did he decide to run? The answer comes only in Jonah 4:1 - when the people of Nineveh repent, and God spares them, we’re told that Jonah gets really angry because, to him, this seems so unfair.
Aren’t we the same though? Don’t we look at those who are ‘evil’ and think to ourselves: “They deserve judgement. They deserve to die. There’s nothing redeeming about them.” I’ve caught myself in self-righteousness when someone wrongs me, and I think to myself that it’s fine - I can forgive them because God will make them face judgement. At some point, I reassure myself, they’ll pay for their crime against me, and (as I metaphorically rub my hands in glee) it’ll be far worse than any punishment I could come up with because it’ll be the God of all creation punishing them! When I’m faced with the God of grace wanting to extend grace to ALL people, even the people I dislike, even the people I think are beyond redemption, even the people I really, really, really don’t want to see in the Kingdom, I understand Jonah’s anger. It’s horribly unfair that people can be so utterly despicable and yet be offered grace and forgiveness. Right?
Interestingly, Jonah came from a village about 5km from Nazareth, in Galilee. As the crow flies, it’s about 900km to Ninevah (which is in modern-day northern Iraq), which was an Assyrian city. If Jonah had followed the existing trade routes and roads, the journey would have taken about 1200km though, which would have taken 1-2 months on foot. I find it fascinating that a) Jonah comes from a village next door to where Jesus grew up, and that God wasn’t sending Jonah to the Israelites, but to the Assyrians, who were the swore enemies of Israel. In Jesus’ day, the sworn enemies (other than Rome) were the Samaritans - from whom the first evangelist came. There is definitely some symmetry at work here.
So Jonah ran away. He catches a boat headed for (most scholars agree) southern Spain - as far from Israel as he can get in the shortest period of time. But God sends a storm. While the storm is raging, Jonah is asleep below decks. That sounds familiar…. Hmm… didn’t Jesus sleep in a boat while a storm raged around him? In Jesus’ case, when the others in the boat woke him, he calmed the storm with a word, and those in the boat were terrified of him because of his power. In Jonah’s case, when the others in the boat woke him, he “calmed” the storm (eventually) by having them throw him off the boat. We’re told that when the storm calmed, the others on Jonah’s boat were terrified and offered a sacrifice to God.
Something else to consider - Jonah probably did not know how to swim. His village was an inland one where there was no need to be able to swim. Yet, he put himself on a boat at sea where storms were common events. He must have been pretty desperate to do that, when he could just have walked to Spain (granted, over many months). More astonishingly, when he’s woken by the others in the boat, he admits that he’s the reason for the storm and that they should throw him overboard, knowing full well that he couldn’t swim and that doing so would, in all probability, mean his death. He’d rather DIE than be obedient to God.
So overboard he goes, and God shows him mercy - he sends a big fish to swallow him. Of course, at the time, I’m sure it didn’t feel like mercy to Jonah! Being eaten by a big fish wouldn’t feel like mercy - it would feel like just desserts; a longer death than drowning, to be sure, but death never the less.
Jonah then prays a beautiful prayer:
“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit. “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from 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.’ ”
Jonah 2:2-9 NIV
He sank to the bottom of the sea, out of breath, and a big fish swallowed him up. Granted, it takes him some time (probably 3 days) but in his moment of deepest distress he turns to God and repents. He acknowledges that salvation comes from God. When his heart and attitude are right with God, that’s when God gets the big fish to spit him out.
God repeats his call on Jonah’s life, and this time, Jonah obeys. He goes to Nineveh. The city is so big it takes him 3 full days to walk through it. If you estimate a walking pace as about 30km per day, that’s a total length of roughly the 2 Oceans marathon - from the city centre to Simon’s Town and then back to the city. Except that Nineveh wasn’t built around a peninsula - that distance was from one end of the city to the other. Maybe that was a circular distance, walking around the perimeter, but it was probably the length of the city, as we’re told that Jonah’s first stop was about a day’s walk into the city.
So Jonah preaches to the city that unless they repent, they will be destroyed. And the city responds - from the lowest of the low right through to the king and the royal household. Everyone fasts, prays, and covers themselves with sackcloth - the universal symbol of repentance - and God relents and forgives their sin. As the capital city of Assyria, Nineveh set the tone for the entire nation. It was a city full of corruption, arrogance and cruelty. The prophet Nahum describes Nineveh as “a city of blood” - cruelty in the extreme. Because their sin was so extremes, they were about to be destroyed, but when they repent, their future destruction is commuted. Grace is shown to them.
Naturally, Jonah looks at this and feels it’s completely unfair. He gets angry with God. How could God just wipe out their sin and not punish them? In fact, he gets so angry he would rather God took his life than see God’s compassion extended to his enemies. God’s response to Jonah is to ask why He should not care for the (120 000) people in this city. Certainly, why should He not care more about them than Jonah did about a vine that miraculously grows big enough in one day to shade him. God even mentions the animals in the city that were saved - God cares for the whole of his creation!
And there we have it - the biggest difference between Jonah and Jesus. Jonah didn’t want the people of Nineveh to be saved. God wants ALL people to be saved. Jonah wanted the people of Nineveh to be destroyed, while God wanted them rescued. Jonah was offered the opportunity to be God’s messenger of hope to the people of Nineveh, and while he did (eventually) bring them that message, his heart was still turned against them. He still hoped against hope that they wouldn’t listen, that they would continue in their sin and that God would smite them. He was disingenuous. Jesus willingly brought us a message of hope, and His heart was always turned towards us, even though it would cost His life.
The book of Jonah ends leaving us hanging. We never hear Jonah’s answer to God’s question. That leads me to think that this is a question God wants us to ponder. Are there people we come across in our daily life that God wants us to bring a message of hope to, but we are unwilling? Are there people we believe are too far from the truth? Too sinful? Too arrogant? Too violent? Too crude? Too cruel? Too hateful? Too racist? Too sexist? Are we unwilling to share the message of hope with them because we want to see them suffer, or receive a punishment that fits their crime (against us)? Or are we willing to give them the message, but secretly believe (or even hope) they won’t receive it, so that we’ll feel justified in our despising of them?
This Easter, Jesus reminds us that He came to die - not just for you, or me, but for ALL humanity. That ‘all’ includes everyone, from the lowest of the low, to the rulers of our society. No-one is so far from God that if they hear and respond, He won’t act to save them. No-one is unforgivable. No-one is beyond the reach of God’s mighty grace.
Instead, like Jonah, it’s we who really need God’s grace to soften our hearts. It’s we who need a fresh perspective. It’s we who need forgiveness. This Easter, let’s take a moment to reframe our attitudes towards others so that our hearts would be for people, for ALL people, and would be the same as Jesus’ -
that we would leave the 99 to run after the 1,
that we would be willing to have our lives and agendas interrupted by others,
that our expectations of who could (or should) be reached can be upended and extended,
that we would be willing to reach out to the outcasts, socially excluded, down and outs, and the minorities
that we would love people as God Himself loves - sacrificially, without strings attached.