Runaway Bride - Jonah 1

Introduction

Maggie Carpenter was the most eligible bachelorette in Hale, Maryland. She was charming, attractive, and intelligent. One day, she met Mr. Right, Brian. He’s calm and settled while she’s vibrant and spontaneous. A perfect match. Things seem to be going perfectly well all the way until their wedding day. Just before the wedding, with all of their families and friends gathered, she runs, and Brian is left there holding the bag. He’s so scarred by the incident that he vows himself to celibacy and becomes a priest. Now, that’s a dramatic story as it were, but Maggie goes on to jilt four more fiances at the altar. And, of course, she becomes known by the title, Runaway Bride. (Show pic.)

So, it’s a story of a bride whose always on the run, searching for herself, searching for her freedom, and searching for her joy. And, that’s how the Bible describes us, too. We’re his Bride, but we’re always on the run. He keeps pursuing, and yet we keep running.

God’s Word

This morning, as the Big Story turns to Jonah, we find a prophet on the run, and we find, as always, God in pursuit. And, as we open chapter one, we get a pretty clear picture from Jonah as to Why We Run Away: (Headline)

We have “conflicting interests”.

In premarital counseling, one of my goals is to make sure that a couple shares a common vision for their life together. Competing visions are the surest way to conflict. They work to pull apart from the very beginning what is meant to be woven together.

That’s where we start with Jonah. That’s why he’s a runaway bride. He’s chasing down his own vision for his life and world and Israel. So...

He goes his own “way.”

Jonah 1:1-3 “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.”

Notice that there’s two imperatives given at the start of verse 2. God commands him: “Arise, go.” They’re given together as way of saying, “Go right now. Urgently. Immediately. Yesterday.” Jonah does respond immediately. Without deliberation, prayer, or reflection, he goes in the exact opposite direction. Literally, God says “Get up, and go northeast (toward Nineveh), and Jonah goes southwest to Joppa. It even notes that he goes “down”, “down”, “down (v.5)”. In fact, it says twice in verse three that he wants to “flee..the presence of the LORD.” Now, Jonah was a good enough theologian to understand that a person can’t leave God’s presence in a real sense. In fact, the very reality that God called him to Nineveh showed that God was that God of every location, not just Israel. So, to leave the presence of the Lord in this context means to abandon the calling that’s come from God, to abandon the “word of the Lord” that came to him.

We’re prone to run from our callings, aren’t we? And, by callings, I mean any godward step that God has placed in your heart to take. God nudges us forward toward a great work in his name, and we’ll go in the opposite direction almost just as fast. We’ll find anything to do except what he’s called us to do. It’s like when you have a paper to write, and you organize your closet instead. He’ll call us to adopt, and we’ll just serve in the nursery. He’ll call us to pray with our families and teach our kids the Bibles, and we’ll take them bowling instead. He’ll call you to teach in your church and to preach his word or to missions, and you find every excuse possible to go down to Joppa.

Why? We’re allergic to the thought of someone else establishing the priorities of our lives, even if that somebody is God. We want to be the ruler of our domain. We want to be God. You see, Jonah, like us,...

He has his own “priorities.”

There’s a unique feature to Jonah’s call that help us to understand better what’s happening here. He’s the only prophet that’s actually called to “go” to a foreign land to pronounce judgement. So, Jonah, pairing this with the urgency with which he’s sent, deduces that God isn’t sending him because He’s determined to destroy them, but because He’s determined to call them to repentance. It’s a trip of mercy. And, Jonah hates it. He hates his call because he hates Nineveh. Nineveh is the “great city” of Assyria, who will soon enough take Israel captive. Assyria represents the very opposite of everything that Jonah loved. After September 11, thousands of Americans courageously signed up to go to war against Alqaeda because they attacked our way of life and represented the very opposite of our values. Imagine if God called you to go as a missionary, and not a soldier. You’re getting to part of what would make this so difficult for Jonah. For the mercy of God to reign upon Nineveh would be for Jonah’s entire worldview of national superiority and separatism and the condemnation of the enemies of Israel to come crashing down.

Jonah has conflicting interests with the Lord, you see. They wanted different things. Jonah loved his worldview more than he loved his God. You see, you don’t have to love your calling. More than one Bible character loathes the responsibility heaped upon their shoulders. Jonah joins Moses, Balaam, Jeremiah, and others. You don’t have to love your calling, but you do have to love God enough to go anyway. But, Jonah loved his culture, worldview, even his hatred of the Assyrians more than he loved God. He had his own priorities. I wonder how many of us are forsaking our calling to love our neighbor because we love our political system more than them. I wonder how many of us are forsaking our calling to adopt because we love our way of life so much. I wonder how many of us refuse to honor our government or love our harsh boss as Jesus has called us to because we prefer to hate them instead.

Are you running from your call this morning? Are you running?

We have an “identity crisis”.

One of the most telling moments of the movie is when Ike, played by Richard Gere, asks all of Maggie’s ex-fiances what type of eggs she likes, and they each said something different. She just became whoever she thought other people wanted her to be. So, one order of eggs at a time it becomes clear she’s suffering an identity crisis.

Jonah is suffering from an identity crisis of sorts. The sailors practice the old tradition of casting lots, like throwing dice, to determine who the cause of the trouble is, and the hand of the Lord guides them to Jonah. And, they begin to interrogate him. And, the questions they ask are identity questions, aren’t they? Who is he? Where did he come from? Who’s his family? Jonah’s answer is striking.

He knew “who” he “was.”

Jonah 1:8-9 “Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.””

We’ve been waiting for Jonah to speak since the first verse. Until this point, his actions had done all of the talking. So, when he answers, he has startling clarity about who he is. He says, “I am a Hebrew”, and then Jonah gets down to their defining characteristic — which is what the sailors are really interested in — that he has a covenant, a special relationship with the Most High God, who rains over the sea and the dry land --- and, of course, the storm too. So, Jonah presents himself as being distinct because he has a special relationship with the greatest of all God, which is exactly what they’re looking for. So, he knows exactly who he is.

And, that’s startling because he sure doesn’t live like it.

He didn’t “live” like “it.”

He was a walking (running!) contradiction. He said that he “feared the Lord” yet he lived as though the Lord was powerless. He uses the covenant name of God while, at the very same time, he tramples upon the covenant. He has a message about God’s holy wrath but lives as though God will overlook his sin. It’s hard to imagine hypocrisy any more stark. Jonah had not just forsaken his calling; he had forsaken his very identity. He lived like a person that didn’t know God, and He was one of God’s very children!

And, he didn’t want to face it. It’s no wonder he left the first question blank. He doesn’t tell them his job title or that he’s a prophet. Because they already know that he’s trying to escape his God. He’s doing everything he can to keep from looking his hypocrisy in the eye. In the Runaway Bride, Maggie finally confesses why she’s run from all of her weddings. Because she’d always just been whoever she thought they wanted her to be, she didn’t know if they actually loved her or not. And, she can’t face the possibility of being discovered a hypocrite.

And, that’s why we run too. We’ll do almost anything to avoid having to face the possibility of looking our hypocrisy in the face. We bail on accountable friendships because we really don’t want to hear the truth, even in love. So, we run. We don’t pray with our children, not because we don’t believe in it, but because we know how often they see us not living like it. We run instead. We skip church because we don’t want to think about God or the cross or even grace. We just want to run to Joppa or to Birmingham or to our TVs pretending everything is okay.

Are you running this morning? Are you running?

We have a “mistaken freedom”.

If we were to boil it down to one reason for Jonah, we’d say that he...

He ran for “freedom.”

Jonah 1:3 “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.”

If we were to answer honestly as to why we run from God, it’s because we really just want the freedom to do whatever we want to do without accountability or consequences. We want designer lives in which we can pick and choose our values, relationships, and decisions as we so want, and we want to be justified in doing so. That’s really why Jonah ran, isn’t it? But, Jonah, and really us too, we are really just following in the well-worn footsteps of a running heritage. You see....

He ran like “Adam.”

Jonah 1:10 “Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.”

Genesis 3:7-8 “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

Genesis 3:13 “Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.””

I want you to keep the Big Story in mind here. This isn’t just a story about Jonah. This is a story about us, and it’s a story about Jesus. You see, Jonah takes us back to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Jonah’s names can be used interchangeably here. Ours too. The author wants us to see that. Adam does the exact opposite of what God said too, didn’t he? And, how did he respond? He tried to cover himself, with Adam it was leaves and with Jonah it was in the bottom of a boat and for us it’s makeup or busyness, so that he could hide from God. That is, just like Jonah, Adam fled the presence of God. And as a result of both Adam and Jonah, for Adam it’s his descendants and for Jonah it’s the other sailors, other people suffer. And, here’s where the author really brings it together. The question that the men asked Jonah is word-for-word the exact same question that God asks Adam and Eve. “What is this that you have done?” In other words, why have run from me? How could you be so deceived as to believe that you can escape me?

And, what was the deception of the serpent? He handed them death shaped like freedom. Freedom is the carrot that Satan dangles to convince us to run ourselves toward death. And in both cases, it’s a mistaken freedom. So many college students run from God because they believe they have a chance to enjoy real freedom. And, then they spend their thirties in counseling trying to recover from the regret. Young parents see the chance to make real money and the chance to set up their children to make real money, and they give themselves entirely to it certain it will lead their family to freedom. So, we run from God so we can set up ourselves, always planning to return, but then we spend the next ten years trying to help our children recognized how warped their values have become. Empty nesters see their first chance to finally just do nothing for a while, and they run from God so they can just pick apples and coast for a while. But, they’re so often plagued by a sense of purposelessness and uselessness. It’s death shaped like freedom.

But, against the backdrop of the Big Story, we don’t just see who Jonah is like; we see who he is unlike.

He ran unlike “Jesus.”

Jonah 1:12 “He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.””

Jonah 1:15-16 “So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.”

The picture here is too beautiful to miss. Throughout the Scriptures, the sea is viewed as an instrument of God’s judgement. So, see the picture here. How is it that God’s wrath can be satisfied against Jonah? How is it that the mariners can be saved? Jonah must be thrown into the sea, into the midst of God’s judgement against him. But, as we’re going to see, this wasn’t just for the mariner’s salvation. It was salvation for Jonah and Nineveh too. Jesus is always in pursuit of his Runaway Bride. Oh, Jesus doesn’t run from you. He runs to you. He’s different than Jonah. He’s the true and better Jonah. Jonah says: “You’ll have to throw me over.” Jesus say, “I’ll lay down my life.” Jonah says, “Because of me, God’s wrath comes against you.” Jesus says, “Because of me, God’s grace falls upon you.” You see, one day soon, Jesus is going to make his final pursuit of his Runaway Bride and the sea of God’s wrath will never rage again. Revelation 21:1 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”

Are you running this morning? My goodness, turn around. And, you’ll see Jesus has been running after you every step.