Jonah 1

Introduction

I’m betting this has happened to you. You’re driving somewhere - somewhere you’ve driven to many times before - and after a while your mind kind of turns off for a bit, until suddenly you come to and you have no memory of the last few minutes. It’s amazing and terrifying what our brains can do - when we’re doing repeated familiar action, we can go on autopilot and descend into this semi-conscious mode of being where we aren’t all together there, and then we come out of it and are like, “How did I get here?” On more than one occasion, I find myself in the Kroger parking lot, thinking, “Why am I here? I’m supposed to be at Home Depot,” because I had checked out completely while driving.

But for some of us, we don’t just fall into this sleep mode of being while driving or when we’re doing menial tasks at home or at work, but we actually live our lives in this state, where we suddenly come to and we’re like, “Where the heck did this month go? What did I even do? How did I get here?” We sleep-walk through life, unaware really of what’s going on. This is what we’re talking about this morning as we dive into .

Background Information

So we’re diving into Jonah for the next few weeks, and first things first: this is not a children’s story, and this is not a story about a fish. If we reduce the story of Jonah to a story about a man miraculously surviving in the belly of a fish, we’ve completely missed the point of the book. This is an incredibly rich and sophisticated story that’s meant to punch us right in the gut. Jonah is supposed to make us feel uncomfortable, because it forces us to look in the mirror and wrestle with the truth that God and I often have competing visions of how my life is supposed to pan out. But Jonah is also a remarkable story of God’s scandalous grace and his abundant mercies toward even the worst of the worst. So let’s open our eyes and ears and hear what the author of this story is saying to us this morning.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

Who exactly is Jonah son of Amittai? Well he’s a prophet, he’s a messenger for God. Remember, when you see the word LORD in all caps, the Hebrew word is not a title of God, it’s his name - Yahweh - the covenantal name he reveals to his people. So Jonah is a prophet of Yahweh, and ironically his name means “Dove, Son of Faithfulness.” It’s ironic, because as we’ll see throughout this story, Jonah is neither innocent nor faithful - in fact, he’s the least faithful character in the entire book!

So Dove, Son of Faithfulness, Jonah son of Amittai, is sent to Nineveh. This is so interesting, because the only other time we hear about Jonah son of Amittai in the Old Testament is in the book of 2 Kings, where we learn that Jonah is a prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. If you remember, the Northern Kingdom of Israel is invaded and taken over by the Assyrian Empire, whose capital just so happens to be where? Nineveh.

Now Nineveh w

Now the Assyrians were absolutely brutal to the lands they conquered. And we see here that God has taken notice of the brutality and evil that was flowing out of this great capital city of Nineveh, and he calls for Jonah, his prophet, his messenger, to go and speak against it, to stand against the injustice and brutality and senseless evil that was in that city in the name of Yahweh his God.

Jonah’s sin leads to spiritual apathy.

And what does Jonah do? He runs. He runs from God, and from the life that God is calling him into.

English Standard Version Chapter 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.

He flees to Tarshish. Now, Nineveh was east of Israel, where Jonah lived. So God is calling for Jonah to go east. Tarshish, is as far west as you can go in the known world of that time. It was the last port in the west before you hit the Atlantic ocean. It was at the edge of the world, in the opposite direction of where God was calling Jonah to go. To say you’re going to Tarshish then is like saying you’re going to Timbuktu. It’s as far away as you can possibly go. And this is where Jonah is fleeing.

But what happens?

English Standard Version Chapter 1

4 But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.

Everything in the book of Jonah is big and over the top. One writer said it was almost comic book like - everything is huge and dramatic, so Yahweh hurls a huge storm at the boat, so violent that the ship was in danger of not sinking, but physically breaking to bits on the open water. So the sailors start chucking their cargo overboard. You know it’s bad, because they’re throwing out their livelihood! But what else are they doing? They’re praying, crying out to their pantheon of gods. These weren’t Israelites. These weren’t God-fearers. These were pagan sailors from a polytheistic culture, and they were praying. They saw something in the storm, they saw something in what was happening around them, that this wasn’t just any old storm, there was a divine hand in this, they were very so they were praying to their gods.

But what is Jonah doing? In all this chaos with the storm and the yelling and the throwing things overboard, the messenger of Yahweh is in a deep sleep, completely unaware of what’s going on around him.

Now, the author of Jonah is using a fascinating wordplay throughout this first part of the chapter. The very first word of God’s message to Jonah is “Arise! Get up!” But the author repeatedly tells us that instead Jonah keeps going down. He goes down to Joppa, he goes down into the ship, he went down into the inner part of the ship, he laid down, and went down into a deep sleep.

So in contrast to the pagan sailors who were very aware of what was going on around them, very aware that there were divine forces at work in their lives, we see that the messenger of God, the prophet of Yahweh, Dove son of Faithfulness is slowly descending down, down, down, into a literal and spiritual slumber. What’s happening is Jonah’s sin has led him into this numb, deadened, and apathetic state, such that he’s not even aware of what’s going on around him.

What a powerful image of spiritual apathy. God has invited Jonah to be a part of something absolutely spectacular, as we’ll come to find out as we read on in this story. God has called Jonah to be a part of standing against injustice and confronting people in their sinfulness and offering grace and mercy and forgiveness. And Jonah ran from that. And listen, it wasn’t because he was afraid of the Ninevites or afraid of what might happen to him. We learn in chapter 4 that he simply just hates Ninevites, and he knew that God would find a way to bring them to repentance and forgive them, and Jonah does not want to live in a world where the Ninevites receive the mercy of God. Ultimately, Jonah thinks he knows better than God, and he acts accordingly.

God had called him to be a part of

But what happens is this choice causes him to descend down, down, down into a numb, stupor, where he’s sleep walking through his own life, he’s less human, he’s growing further and further form God, to the point that he’s unaware of what’s really going on around him, unaware of what God is doing in his own life.

Jonah’s spiritual apathy has real consequences.

And Jonah’s apathy has serious consequences.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

6 So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”

This is amazing and tragic. The pagan captain has to remind the prophet of Yahweh to do something as simple as pray. Jonah is so unaware and so distant from God that he’s got to be reminded to pray.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 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?” 9 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.” 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.

Again, look at the contrasts here. These pagan sailors are doing all the action in the story. They’re praying, they’re throwing over the cargo, they’re calling for Jonah to pray, they’re asking all the questions, they’re casting lots, they’re trying to discern what’s going on, what is God doing? They are so keyed in, whereas Jonah is, you can almost imagine him yawning while the sailors are questioning him.

So they ask Jonah who he is, and he gives an answer that we as the audience are almost supposed to just throw our hands up and yell, are you kidding me?! Who are you, they ask, and Jonah replies, “I’m a Hebrew, and I fear Yahweh, the one who made the sea and the dry land.”

So, to fear someone in this way, is to have a sort of reverent respect for someone to whom you are accountable. So remember in Ferris Bueler’s Day Off, his best friend’s dad had this really nice sports car that was his pride and joy. This kid had a fear of his dad with regards to this sports car - he knew that if his dad ever caught him in that car, or even saw that the odometer was different - he was very aware that he was accountable to his dad.

So Jonah says that he’s a Hebrew, a member of the God’s covenant people, and that he fears Yahweh, and we say, “Are you kidding me?” No you’re not! This is nothing more than religious babble. These are meaningless words, because we can clearly see the disconnect between what Jonah is saying, the belief claim that he is making, and how he is actually living. There is a deep contradiction between what he says and the choices that he is making.

And the moment we start feeling superior to Jonah, we fall into the author’s trap. The moment we start thinking, how could Jonah possibly say that he fears God when he’s making the choices that he’s making and living the life that he’s living. And that’s when we realize that the author isn’t really talking about Jonah - he’s talking about us. He’s holding up a mirror to our lives, and to all the ways that our lives are in contradiction to what we claim to believe.

And the sailors respond with some of the most tragic words in the Scriptures: “What is this that you have done.” These are the very same words that God uses in the Garden of Eden in when he confronts Adam and Eve after they sinned for the very first time, when they thought they knew better, when they chose their way of life over God’s, and when the consequences of their disobedience sent ripples of pain and sorrow across all of creation.

Because what’s the consequence of Jonah’s spiritual apathy? Who’s suffering because of Jonah? Everyone around him. His sin, his selfishness, his knowing better than God and his acting accordingly, has brought him to the point that he is unaware of the people around him, even though he is bringing ruin upon them. You know how in the cartoons, you turn on the hose outside, and the hose starts writhing around, spraying everything around it, getting everything wet? That’s what Jonah is in this story, he’s this writhing hose, ruining everything around him, but he’s so dulled by his spiritual apathy, that he’s completely oblivious to how he’s affecting those around him.

This first chapter of Jonah is an honest and brutal look at what sin does to us, how it leads us to become sleep-walking zombies, insensitive not only to what God is doing in the world around us, but also oblivious to how we are bringing disorder and injury to people around us by the choices we are making.

The Bible and the world disagree on this. The world wants us to believe that the choices that we make only affect us. Our moral choices are personal and individual, and as long as we don’t go out of our way to hurt others, our choices have no effect on others. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas - it’s your private decision; it doesn’t involved anyone else.

But the Bible exposes this paradigm as wildly naive and simple. The world doesn’t work like that at all, and is demonstrating that for us. Jonah’s decisions are not just his own decisions. What started out as just a private decision between Jonah and his God, ends up bringing havoc and chaos to the lives of others, and the tragedy is, that Jonah is so checked out, so numb, so spiritually apathetic that he doesn’t even realize it.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 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.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 14 Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you.” 15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.

So nothing is working, and the storm is getting worse, so they ask Jonah what they should do, and Jonah tells them to throw him overboard. Now, this isn’t some noble gesture from Jonah. If Jonah truly wanted to save the sailors, he’d repent and resolve to obey God and go to Nineveh. This is Jonah continuing to run from God, and how much further can you run than death?

But the sailors don’t want to, but there’s no other option available to them, so they called out to the Lord, and this is remarkable. These pagan sailors have come to recognize that the greatest God, the only God who can rescue them, the only God who is mighty to save, is Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the first prayer in the story of Jonah is spoken not by the religious man of God, but by the pagan sailors. And afterword, they go to shore and worship and make vows to this God who saved them.

Now, Jonah was the absolute worst witness for God in this story, but was God limited by his unfaithfulness? No. Despite the hypocrisy of God’s man, he is more than capable to bring people to himself. But the tragedy of this story is that Jonah in his sin and spiritual apathy misses out on being a part of this story of redemption for the sailors. Jonah misses out on seeing God at work in amazing ways all around him because he’s checked out and so focused in on himself. He misses out on the glory and wonder of his Rescuing God.

This is exactly what spiritual apathy does to us, and its tragic. Not only do we miss out on the ways God invites us to be a part of his rescuing the world around us, but we actually wither as a human being, drawn in on ourselves.

God uses an instrument of death to give Jonah new life.

Now if Jonah was a one chapter story, it would indeed be a terrible tragedy. It’s be such a bummer story, because it ends with terrible, terrible news.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

17  And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

If we didn’t know the rest of the story, we’d hear that last line and think that that was the end for the rebellious, hypocritical prophet of Yahweh. But then we see in chapter 2, Jonah is very much alive, and very much awake actually, because he’s writing poetry, and at last turning to God in prayer from the belly of this fish.

You see, Jonah was falling and falling further away from God. He was descending down, down, down, and at this point in the story, he’s gone as far down as possible. He writes in chapter two that he was down at the roots of the oceanic mountains. He can’t go any further down. He’s hit the bottom, and God sends this instrument of death to swallow him up, but what we find is that this instrument of death, this great fish, this instrument of death doesn’t destroy Jonah, but it’s becomes an instrument of grace, that brings about a new life for Jonah, that wakes him from his sleep. Do you see Jesus in this?

When the scribes and the Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign in , Jesus replies that he wouldn’t give them any sign other than the sign of Jonah. He points to this very moment in the story. Just like Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, Jesus says that he will be in the grave for three days and three nights. He sees this moment of God swallowing up his people in death because of their sin, this moment where they can’t go any further down into sin, and God meets them right there at the bottom, but this moment of death becomes a moment of new life, and Jesus says that this is exactly what he’s going to do.

An instrument of death becoming an instrument of new life: this is the cross of Christ.