Sermon Tone Analysis

This morning we’re finishing up our series through the book of Jonah.

This all started with the word of the LORD, the word of Yahweh, coming to Jonah to go and speak against the wickedness of the Ninevites.

But Jonah flees from the presence of God.

God brings Jonah to the end of himself, sending him this instrument of death, the great fish, which actually becomes an instrument of new life for Jonah, where he becomes awake to God’s presence, responding to the steadfast love of God in songs of gratitude, at least, that’s how it goes for a while.

So then Jonah begrudgingly obeys God and goes to Nineveh and preaches a five word sermon that conveniently leaves a lot of very important information out, and something that no one least of all Jonah, expects: the Ninevites hear this judgment of God, a judgment that springs from God’s love, and from the least to greatest turn to God, they repent of their evil ways, and believe God.

And how’s Jonah taking the news?

Look back at the last verse of chapter 3:

10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Okay, so the wholehearted repentance of a nation as significant and as wicked as Nineveh is a pretty big deal.

You would think that if you’re the prophet who helped bring this about, you’d be sitting pretty.

The most wicked and powerful nation in the entire world has turned to your God, giving him honor and glory, they are changing the trajectory of their lives, and you only had to speak five words.

This would be the pinnacle of any prophetic career!!

And yet, how’s Jonah taking it.

Verse 1:

4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2

You’d expect the prophet of God to see all that has taken place and to say, “Mission accomplished!

God is glorified and honored.”

But Jonah is livid!

He’s enraged at what’s happened.

The translation says that he was exceedingly displeased, but literally in the Hebrew it says that Jonah considered what had happened to be evil!

He’s ticked off, and he’s ticked off at God, and he lets him have it.

Verse 2:

2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country?

That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

So we remember, that Jonah didn’t flee from God because he was afraid to go to Nineveh.

He wasn’t afraid for his safety.

He fled because he hates the Ninevites, they are irredeemable in his eyes, not because they can’t be saved, but because Jonah does not want them to be, and he knows that God is gracious and merciful and patient and loving, and he didn’t want the Ninevites to be rescued.

You can just see the steam coming off Jonah here.

He is so angry at God.

.

4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey.

And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

So the ESV says “overthrown,” some other translations use words like, “overturned, demolished, destroyed, etc.”

So the Hebrew word is the verb, hapaq.

Now, just like in English, sometimes words in Hebrew have a basic meaning and then a more nuanced meaning.

For example, to say my house was demolished, we’re mean that the physical structure of my house was destroyed, and probably that was a pretty bad thing.

But we can also say, in the context of football, “we demolished them!”

And that’s actually a good thing!

Or next week, we’re all going to demolish turkey and dressing and all the other goodies we’ll eat during the Thanksgiving holiday.

So the basic meaning and the nuanced meaning have different connotations.

The word hapq is the same way.

The basic meaning is that something is to turn something over.

So the prophet Hosea uses the metaphor to describe Israel that they are a piece of baked bread that isn’t hapaqed, isn’t turned over, so its ruined.

So that’s using the basic meaning.

Now, when you apply hapaq to a city, especially one that is wicked and evil, it typically means what our translations say here, the city is turned over, overthrown, destroyed.

But hapaq can also mean to turn something from bad to good.

So in we see:

11  You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

you have loosed my sackcloth

and clothed me with gladness,

So here it’s something that’s bad that is transformed, turned over, into something that is good.

Now…which meaning of hapaq do you think Jonah intended when we was preaching this sermon?

But which meaning did God intend, and what actually happened?

God’s played a trick against Jonah!

Jonah was hoping and scheming that the Ninevites would be overturned to their death, but because of God’s incredible grace, they were overturned from death to life.

But theres a big irony in these word’s of Jonah.

Look at how Jonah describes God in verse 2.

But the irony continues and it’s so rich.

Look at how Jonah describes God here.

for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster

If this sound familiar, it’s because it is an echo of one the most repeated ways of describing God in the Old Testament.

It’s a description that God actually uses to describe himself.

We find it in the book of Exodus during the time when God gives the people of Israel the Ten Commandments, the first two of which are that they’d have no other God’s but Yahweh, and that they would not make any idols, or physical representations of God out of wood, stone, whatever, lest they’re attention be drawn away from God.

And what’s the first thing the people of Israel do after receiving these commandments?

Forty days go by, their at the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses has been gone all this time, granted the presence of God is still hovering over the mountain in this great cloud, but what to the people do?

They make a golden calf to represent God!

So God is going to bring judgment against these people, he’s going to essentially dump them as his people, but Moses intercedes on their behalf, and the text says that God relented from the disaster that he planned to do.

Relents from the disaster he planned to do.

Hmmmm.

Does that sound familiar?

Sounds a lot like the end of Jonah chapter 3, doesn’t it?

So he has mercy on the Israelites, and he renews the covenant with them, and then he explains who he is to Moses, and he says in chapter 34, I’m Yahweh, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

So the only reason that Israel exists as the people of God is because God is this way, because he’s been gracious to them, as undeserving as they are.

And the irony here is that Jonah is taking these words of God and he’s throwing them back at God, saying, “I knew you were like this! You’ve always been like this! ” He’s angry at God for being too kind, too loving.

But he would not exist as an Israelite if God weren’t like this!

He sounds ridiculous, and most likely we’re not sympathizing with Jonah at this point.

And that’s exactly what God is exposing here in Jonah.

Jonah is angry at the wideness of God’s grace.

The scandalous nature of God’s grace and mercy.

But the motivations of his anger are not foreign to us.

It’s one thing for me to admit my wrongdoing, to turn to Jesus, and he shows me his grace.

That’s awesome, and we’re all for it.

But then there’s the other side of God’s grace and mercy, it’s something that happens as Christians when we realize that Jesus is like that to me, but he’s also like that to people that I despise and can’t stand.

And then we’re like, “woah now, they don’t deserve to be shown grace and mercy, Jesus; don’t you know what they’ve done?”

And this is exactly what God is exposing in us in this story.

We love the grace of God.

The Israelites loved the grace of God.

The only reason we exist is because of the grace of God.

And so we sing songs about grace, highlight scriptures about grace.

We love it.

But there’s a scandalous side of God’s grace, when it’s wideness begins to include people that we hate, people that have wronged us, people that we believe don’t deserve it.

And then God’s grace becomes unsettling, disturbing, and outrageous.

Jonah looks ridiculous in this chapter, but he’s not as crazy as we might first think.

So what happens in the rest of this chapter is God tries to help Jonah understand his grace in a new way.

Verse 4:

4 And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there.

He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city

4 And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

So God asks if it’s right for Jonah to be angry that he’s shown grace to the Ninevites.