Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Every child in church has sung a song relating to the story we read. Every child knows of how Jonah was swallowed by the big fish. And what most adults know of Jonah, we learned it when we were children. Sometimes I believe that Jonah has become a children’s book. However, this book is not only for children and the story of Jonah being swallowed and then spited up by the great fish is not the biggest miracle in this small book of the Old Testament; it is not even the central message of the story.
The book of Jonah is about God’s Grace and mercy and the greatest miracle and central message of this short book is the change of heart that takes place in the evil city of Nineveh, and God relenting from sending calamity when Jonah finally shares God’s message with the city.
The change that takes place in Nineveh clearly demonstrates that God desires to forgive those who truly repent and turn to him, regardless of who they are and what they have done. Jonah knew God very well, he knew that “The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.” That is why he wanted to avoid his prophetic assignment. He wanted the people of Nineveh to be punish for their sins, and he was afraid that if they heard God’s words they would repent, and God would forgive them.
In order to understand better Jonah’s attitude and God’s grace, and compassion we must know who the people of Nineveh was. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and Assyria was Israel’s enemy. They were constantly at war; the Assyrians were ruthless people. The Assyrians were notoriously cruel. Defeated enemies were impaled, beheaded, or flayed. The Assyrians were the one who introduced the policy of deportations. Whole populations were deported from their native territory and other people were brought in to replace them.
Archaeologies found a tablet describing the actions of the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser. The tablet reads: “I built a wall before the great gates of the city; I peeled the skin off the chief men of the rebels, and I covered the wall with their skins. Some of them were enclosed alive in the bricks of the wall, some of them were crucified on stakes along the wall; I caused a great multitude of them to be flayed in my presence, and I covered the wall with their skins. I gathered together the heads in the form of crowns, and their pierced bodies in the form of garlands.” This can give us a good idea of they were.
In 722 B.C., the northern kingdom of Israel disappeared when they were taken captive by the Assyrians and no doubt many of them ended like those described in king Tiglath-Pileser’s tablet. To the hearers of this story, Nineveh was a threat. Nineveh was the capital city of the evil empire. And even though God told Jonah, “Go to Nineveh and proclaim to them the message I give you.” The message was a warning, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
I can understand why Jonah disobeyed God, and instead he bought a one-way ticket to the other end of the world, Tarshish. Tarshish was located in what today is Spain. Jonah did not want God’s mercy over this kind of people; he wanted God to destroy them. When he was asked to preach the message, he expected his message to be one of destruction not of warning.
What can we learn today from this reluctant prophet who tried to run away from God? A few things.
- That while our love for others fails God’s compassion knows no ends.
One of the great needs of the church in our day is to understand and proclaim the message of grace, mercy, and forgiveness for all regardless of who they are. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he thought Israel’s enemies were also God’s enemies. Jonah knew Nineveh; he knew who de Assyrians were and for him they did not deserve God’ mercy. Jonah even prayed for their destruction. Jonah was preaching God’s message expecting people not to hear and not to obey. He was planting the word of God, expecting no harvest; he wanted God to please him by destroying the city.
Listen to Jonah 4:1-3, This is after God saved the city. “But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” From this we can see that Jonah knew God, but he had not yet learned to say, “may your will be done and not mine.” But not even a reluctant prophet like Jonah can stop God’s work.
I believe the message from Jonah is relevant for our days since we are living in such a polarized society. Now those standing on the other side of the isle are considered enemies. Remember, those who we consider enemies, God sees them as he sees us: people worthy of salvation. The day we learn this, a great change will happen in our world. The spiritual awakening, we are dreaming with will come when we realize that “where sin increases, grace increases more.” As Paul reminds us in Romans 5:20. And this grace applies to every single person of this world regardless of who they are and where they live.
Second lesson from Jonah: God does not show favoritism, we are all equal before God’s eyes.
Reading Jonah, I have concluded that God’s love is like a weapon, when is used do not discriminate. God’s word is a weapon of mass conversion, His love does not discriminate. If God’s love was able to save Nineveh, he can save anyone, all we have to do is preach God’s message of love with John 3:16 in mind, “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.”
The prophet Jonah reveals to us the depths of God’s grace, for those we call “outsiders” and to those we call “insiders.” It shows us God’s compassion for the lost and His patience with His wayward people.
We all here have experienced God’s love and grace. Mindful of the steadfast love and grace God has shown to us in Christ, let us speak to others of the same steadfast love that is available to all the peoples of the world, regardless of class, ethnicity, or any other socially defining marker. This world wants to divide us among blues and reds, liberal and conservatives. But regardless of all these names we call each other, Jonah reminds us that God sees us as equal and we all are women and men in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. For God there are not outsiders or insiders, Ninevites or Israelites. For Him we are simple the reason why Jesus died on the cross.