The Gospel According to Jonah

Prayer

The Story of Jonah, Part 1

Before we dig into the book of Jonah, our first foray into one of the books of the prophets, let me take a minute to establish the historical setting so we have an idea of the timeline when it comes to the nation of Israel. Let me just say I know it’s overwhelming, so many names here, they’re so similar. It’s confusing. But, no worries, we’re just trying to hit the highlights and get a sense of the overall history.

Kings of Judah: Ahaziah (killed by Jehu) - grandmother, Athaliah (daughter of Ahab) - Joash (the boy-king who repaired the temple) - his son, Amaziah

Kings of Israel: Jehu (destroyed Ahab’s family) - his son, Jehoahaz - his son, Jehoash - his son, Jeroboam II. As we move into the prophets, it’s during Jeroboam’s reign.

Let’s start with 2 Kings 14:23-25 - In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit. 25 He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.

So it’s here, in the long reign of Jeroboam (41 years) that we start to see a number of prophets who emerge to bring the word of Lord to the nation of Israel, to speak against its continual wickedness. That will include the prophets Hosea and Amos, we’ll get to those books over the following weeks.

But the prophet we want to look at this morning is quite unique among the prophets, is one referenced here in 2 Kings 14:25, Jonah, son of Amittai, prophet from Gath Hepher. This is the reference that gives us an idea of when the events that we see in the book of Jonah happened. Turn to that story now, looking at the first two chapters (we’ll cover the second half of the book next week.

So, Jonah 1. Jonah is called by the Lord to preach against the Nineveh, a large city in Assyria, because of its wickedness.

Jonah 1:1-5 - The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. 4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

Jonah gets the call from the Lord to go preach - and what does he do? He runs. He heads in the opposite direction from Nineveh, going as far west as he can towards the Mediterranean Sea, port of Joppa, from there catching a ship bound for Tarshish, which was believed to be in what’s now southern Spain.

We see the utter futility of his efforts when the Lord sends a violent storm. The sailors are panicked, trying everything they can to escape the danger, each of them crying out to their gods, throwing cargo overboard. And what’s Jonah doing while all this is happening? He’s taking a nap.

Jonah 1:5-10 - But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.” 7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” 9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)

So the sailors cast lots to figure out who’s responsible and it falls on Jonah. So they grill him - what’s going on, what did you do? Where ya from?

Note his response, because Jonah says all the right things, but he’s clearly not doing the right things. He affirms Yahweh as the Lord, the God of heaven - and - the one who made the sea and the dry land. Ironically, he recognizes the Lord as the one who made the sea, and yet he thinks he can run from God by taking a ship across the sea the Lord made.

So, back to Jonah 1, vv. 11-16 - The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” 12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” 13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.

So the Lord puts the pressure on, stirring up the waters even more, to the point that all of them are in dire danger. They ask Jonah what they should do? He tells them straight out, throw me overboard, it’s all my fault.

You can see why the sailors resist this, they don’t want the blood of an innocent man on their hands. But the sea gets rougher and rougher. So pleading mercy, they throw Jonah into the sea, to what seems to them a certain death. And immediately the raging sea goes calm. Here we see echoes of the story in the gospels of Jesus calming the violent storm that had arisen on the Sea of Galilee.

Note the sailor’s response - they worship the Lord, making a sacrifice and vows to him. Sailors’ behavior offer a strong contrast to Jonah in this story - they take the Yahweh as Lord much more seriously than Jonah. They respond with humble reverence, Jonah did not.

The Gospel According to Jonah

If this story wasn’t wild enough, it goes to a whole new level as we come to the very last verse of Jonah 1, verse 17, Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Note something very important here, because it’s easy to miss the aspect of the story, and that’s to think that this fish that swallowed Jonah is Jonah’s punishment, a sort of death dungeon from which Jonah prays for mercy. By the way, the Hebrew word used here for fish, is very general, it can refer to any sea creature, so it could be read as a huge fish or a whale. I’m going to stick with fish since that’s what this translation uses.

But back to the point of the fish swallowing Jonah - note that it says that the Lord provided the fish for Jonah. Being swallowed by the fish is not Jonah’s punishment, it’s his salvation! It’s the sea that’s the danger, the sea is the certain death that Jonah faces if he’s not rescued in some way.

Which is why Jonah prays a prayer of praise, which is what we find in chapter two. He’s praying from inside the whale, because he recognizes that the Lord is saving him from death. Let me share some of the prayer with you:

Jonah 2:2-6 - “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. 3 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. 4 I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ 5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6 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.”

You can hear the language here, Jonah referring to the danger and death that the sea, the depths represent, currents swirling around him, the waves and breakers sweeping over him, seaweed wrapped around his head. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit. You saved me, Lord - by this fish.

That’s why Jonah proclaims at the very end of his prayer the salvation of the Lord, Jonah 2:9, 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.”

Chapter two ends with this funny little note, after three days and nights in the belly of the fish, Jonah 2:10, And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. That must have been a sight to behold.

Book of Jonah is unique among all the writings of the prophets. What truly distinguishes it is its content - all the other prophetic writings are the prophets being faithful, sharing the word of the Lord (which mostly consists of warnings against the unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah and even other nations), as we’ll see as we make our way through those books.

But here we have a prophet who is unfaithful, who resists God, flees from him - and in spite of that, the Lord saves him. It’s a story of salvation, his salvation (and as we’ll see next week, the Lord’s mercy on the Ninevites as well). And it’s a story that is pointing us directly to our salvation, which comes to us through Jesus. We see all the elements of the gospel, the good news, in this story.

First of which is the futility of our sin. As we look at Jonah, you can’t help but think - really, you’re going to try to flee from the Lord? You think catching a ship going in the opposite direction, knowing he is the one who made the sea and the dry land, is going to work? Apparently he forgot what Psalm 139:7-10 teaches, Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

Now before we judge Jonah too harshly, we ought to recognize that our sins are no less futile. The whole nature of sin is essentially deciding that God doesn’t know what’s best - but I do. So I’m going to live my way instead of his. I’m going to defy how he created and designed all of us to live by defying his commandments, and think that somehow that’s going to work out just fine. In fact it will be better for me that way. Now, we don’t think that consciously, but that’s what our actions reveal - the same futility that Jonah displayed.

Futility of thinking we control more than we do. Or that the world should revolve around me, what I want. That I can live just fine without abiding in Jesus. That it is better to receive than to give. That holding grudges works well, not forgiving others. Valuing things more than God himself, that’s going to make my life better.

Our capacity for self-deception, self-justification, seems almost limitless. It should be a sobering reminder the lengths the Lord has to go to in order to get Jonah’s attention here - a violent storm. Even then, he just sleeps through it - the Lord, really, as an act of mercy, keeps ratcheting it up, making the sea rougher and rougher with the only solution is for Jonah to be tossed into the sea, seemingly to his own death.

As a rule, I think, we resist repentance, that willingness to turn away from the futility of our sin toward Jesus. We resist surrendering to Jesus. Our tendency is to staunchly hang on to our will, our way. If repentance were easy, everyone would be doing it. It’s open to all, but so few of us embrace it.

I think we resist repentance because of this - it’s exactly what the story of Jonah points us to - repentance is a form of death. Requires a dying of self. Jonah in this story realizes that he has to be tossed into the raging sea - he fully expects to die in doing so. In a way, he’s embracing this dying of self. He knows he will be utterly helpless, his only hope would be the mercy of the Lord. His prayer reflects this - it’s from the depths of the sea, from waves breaking over him, that he looks to the Lord, crying out to him. But it’s only in the dying of self that repentance requires that we can receive the salvation, the life that Jesus wants to give us.

Here’s where we move from the futility of our sin to the foolishness of salvation. Not that its foolish that we’re saved, but how we’re saved. Again, the heart of Jonah’s story here - saved by a humongous fish! Swallowed up and stuck in the belly for three days and three nights. That timeframe may ring a bell for you: Matthew 12:40, Jesus speaking: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Just as seemingly foolish it is that Jonah is saved by being in the belly of a fish for three days and nights, we put our trust in seemingly foolish act of God himself, coming to us in human form, dying for our sake, a terrible and humiliating death on a cross, being laid in a tomb, only to rise again to new life on the third day. Jonah’s version is not so beautiful, he gets vomited back onto dry land by fish.

Paul acknowledges that foolishness in 1 Corinthians 1:18, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. As foolish as it seems to say that the Lord used a fish to save Jonah, the cross even more so. What God, who made the sea and the dry land, who can stir up a raging, life-threatening storm, who is Lord of all, would willingly lay down his life in the most excruciating way for the very beings he created, to whom he gifted life, even as they flee from him? Even as they do everything they can to resist and rebel against him?

What God would be that foolish? Only a God whose love knows no bounds. Only a God whose grace and mercy are measurable. Only Jesus Christ.

So, I hope and pray that in this wild story of the prophet Jonah, that you can see the good news of Jesus. That you can see the futility of our sin - and the beautiful foolishness of the cross, of Jesus’ death for our sake. And that if you never have, that you’d take the leap, jump in with both feet, giving yourself over to him, willingly trusting Jesus by dying to self and living for him.

Spiritual Discipline - How do we put into practice what our Lord is teaching us this morning? First, of course, is to respond in faith, to give your life to Jesus Christ. But I also want to point out the response of both the sailors and Jonah - they offer a sacrifices and make vows, commitments. Exactly what Paul encourages us to do in Romans 12:1, Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship. Note the motivation here - we don’t do this to try to please God, but “in view of God’s mercy”, in other words, out of gratitude, a response of love to God’s love and mercy toward us.

Offer yourself as a living sacrifice - willingness to serve and obey Jesus. Power of making this a daily habit for yourself, continual act of willingly offering yourself in love and obedience to Jesus. Pray this verse daily.

Make a vow, make a commitment to the Lord - I will. Power of a commitment, even as we talked about a few weeks ago, VIM, Vision-Intent-Method. Commitment is the intent aspect. We make vows to Jesus. What may be something in your life you’ve been thinking about - or you know isn’t consistent? Make a commitment. To Sunday morning worship. To be intentional about loving a neighbor, inviting them to church. To serve in ministry. To daily Scripture reading and prayer. Pray that commitment to Jesus.

Closing Prayer - Time of Reflection