Jonah

Jonah 1-4

For those of us bearing some memory of Sunday School from our childhoods, if the topic of Jonah were brought up, it would likely begin and end with the first chapter of the book of Jonah. How God used a large fish to catch and humble His fleeing messenger to do what He wanted him to do. This is just the beginning of the story, however, as God was pursuing Jonah to open up deeper conversations of entitlement which had been lending itself to racism toward Israel’s threatening neighbor, the Assyrians.

The first chapter actually provides some essential questions for us readers to answer as we continue the rest of the story. Why is Jonah’s immediate response to flee (literally at all costs) from God’s command? Furthermore, what is God going to do? Beginning with the second of the two initial questions, God has to humble Jonah by providing a near-death experience in the fish so that he might go and do what He asked him to do: preach to the Ninevites. It is this very subject of the Ninevites Jonah despises. And perhaps rightfully so, as many commentators and researchers have identified the Assyrians as being particularly boastful of their brutality towards their foes. For Jonah, this reputation of the Assyrians has seemingly created a deep desire in him for this great nation to be utterly destroyed. Perhaps he was delighted to preach the coming of God’s wrath to such a people.

What is God up to if He knew His request would elicit such a response from Jonah? Looking more closely at God throughout this book, there is an interesting tension between His dealings with the Ninevites and His relationship with Jonah. In Jonah 1:2, God says, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me.” We find out later in Jonah 3 that the Ninevites were actually a repentant people who would beg God for mercy and cause Him to relent from His anger. With Jonah, in the fish, as he believes himself to be a dead man, he declares, “In my distress, I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry” (Jonah 2:2). An evil nation's deeds rise to the Lord, in which their repentance is received as well by a compassionate God (Jonah 3:10). Jonah sinfully runs away only to have his cry for help go up to God who gives him a second chance. God’s righteous and just character is clearly displayed in these dealings and is a beautiful picture of the fruit of humility before Him.

Yet for Jonah, these attributes of God we, and himself alike, praise Him for is the very thing he hates about this situation. Jonah desires to control who experiences God’s compassion and graciousness and who doesn’t. Yet just as we can not control the creation we take pleasure in, God asks the question of Jonah, who are we to control who God’s grace extends out to? There are likely people, cliques, organizations, and so forth we would rather not let into the kingdom if left up to us. Don’t get me wrong; those people still must repent and believe. But if they did, how easy would it be for you to welcome them into the family as we ought to? What if you were one of the few God is asking to preach the Gospel to them specifically? Praise God for His mercy on us and for the sanctifying work He does in our hearts.