Jonah’s Fast
Notes
Transcript
Who is Jonah?
Who is Jonah?
One of the twelve ‘minor prophets
Son of Amittai of Gath-hepher near the city of Azotus, on the sea-coast in the land of the Philistines
According to an apocryphal tradition taken up by Pseudo-Epiphanes (Lives of the Prophets 17) and included in the Synaxaria, Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath resurrected by the Prophet Elijah
Jonah’s fast comes before the holy forty days carrying many meanings and symbols from the Theophany to death on the Cross
And the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, “Rise, and go to Nineveh, the great city, and announce in it that the outcry of its evil has come up to me.”
Nineveh (Nineve), Ninevite. One of the capitals of the Assyrian empire and at the height of that empire one of the great cities of the world. Nineveh was situated in what is now northern Iraq and is represented today by the mounds of Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunus to the east of the Tigris River and opposite the main part of the city of Mosul.
And Jonah rose to flee from the face of the Lord to Tarshish. And he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish, and he gave his fare and boarded it to sail with them from the face of the Lord to Tarshish.
Jonah’s Travels
Why did Jonah flee?
Why did Jonah flee?
And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, were these not my words while I was still in my land? On account of this I anticipated to flee to Tarshish because I knew that you are compassionate and merciful, patient and very merciful and willing to reconsider evils.
He knew God to be merciful and forgiving and was afraid that he would have compassion and forgive Nineveh
He was afraid if they repent Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians would wipe the Israelites from the face of the earth
Foreshadowing of Christ’s sojourn in the bowels of the earth
Foreshadowing of Christ’s sojourn in the bowels of the earth
Jonah is a living symbol who by his person represents Christ. The baptism of Christ led Him to the holy forty days, and the forty days to the Cross, and then to the Resurrection. In the same way, Jonah descended into the water, then went to Nineveh preaching repentance and saying that the city would perish after 40 days- as though an implicit sign that these 40 days are important in the determinations of God- as if it is the passing of the maximum period for destruction (the flood); but the Lord passed it and spent it in His 40 days of fasting on behalf of mankind.
Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
Here a mystical thing occurred, as though the descent in the water- Jonah’s baptism- is the passing of death and resurrection for Nineveh.
How wondrous are these eloquent signs; the Church which is capable of true touches determine a particular fast or a specific feast. All these determinations are inspiration and revelation for he who wishes to hear or see, and not like the scribes and pharisees who said to the Lord: “We want to see a sign” overlooking what previously occurred. The Church has placed this book before our eyes during these days that we may comprehend it for ourselves: first through Jonah and secondly through Nineveh. For Jonah and Nineveh are two messages for us in our lives. Jonah places the steps for the coming of Christ from far away. Nineveh causes us to weep bitterly: “The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgement with this generation and condemn it…An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign and none will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
But Jesus answered, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given to this generation except for the sign of Jonah the prophet.For just as Jonah the prophet was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.The people of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, someone greater than Jonah is here!
For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, the Son of Man will also be a sign to this generation.
What is the Sign?!
The Sign is Nineveh’s (OUR) Repentance
The Sign is Nineveh’s (OUR) Repentance
It is not by a sign from heaven or earth that humanity repents or his iniquities are pardoned, nor does it come haphazardly but by humility, fasting, prayer, and humiliation of the heart before the almighty God!
Nineveh places for us a simple model of repentance which by its violence is capable of opening the doors of heaven, to gain complete pardon for the entire city and its families, the one who was written in the Bible that they do not know their left hand from their right!
For Jonah exhorted with death and repentance, but Christ offers us His death as a living power, life-giving, able to raise from sin and death!!
We are proceeding to the holy forty days. We need a heart like the heart of Nineveh’s king and the Ninevites
It is good for you, o my soul, in these holy forty days to put in order all your senses, the animalistic and beastly of them, and do not think that you are the daughter of the great city that knows its left hand from its right
If there is time read Jonah’s Prayer