Rejoice in God's Grace to others
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repentance is the path from death to life
intro me...
Today we’re thinking about that moment when all hope is lost. We’re looking at the famous story of Jonah from the bible, and we’re in the middle of it if you’ve just joined us. Last week, in the heart of an epic storm, we saw Jonah thrown overboard. The sailors were sure Jonah would die - they even pray about it: Jon 1:14 “do not let us die for taking this man’s life” they say to God, assuming they are taking his life by throwing him into the wild sea, far from land. All hope was lost.
I was thinking about that Chinese plane that went down so tragically and suddenly this week. And those facing death minute by minute in Ukraine, in other wars around the world. We’re going to read about a big fish when all hope seemed lost - no big fish for them. But I think today’s passage has a lot to say to us still about that moment.
Let’s read together from Jonah, and we’re starting at chapter one, verse 17, on page 928. Rachel’s going to be reading for us this morning. Page 928. Jonah chapter one, big one, verse 17, tiny 17. Let’s read together.
Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said: “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. 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. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 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. “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. 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.’ ” And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Last week we had verse after verse narrating the ship’s battle through the storm, the increasingly desperate steps the crew took. The increasingly ferocious waves. It was like the author was trying to bring us into the storm with them, to have us see, hear, feel the extreme situation.
This week, we get J5-quality prose continuing the story - and that’s being unkind to any J5’s here. No dramatic glimpse of the fish tail through the storm as the lightening flashed, an awesome fishy-roar echoing over the waters. No gaping teeth-filled mouth open rushing towards Jonah as he shrieks in terror. It’s just the bare facts of the matter.
The narrative which wraps Jonah’s prayer here is like revision notes, digested down to the absolute minimum: the Lord provided -or appointed- a big fish to swallow Jonah. He was inside three days where he prayed. The Lord spoke to the fish and bleugh! Jonah’s back on dry land. All the focus goes on to Jonah’s reflective prayer to God.
So that’s where we’re going to put our focus this morning too. If you wouldn’t call yourself a believer, though, I imagine you could well be having quite a hard time swallowing this story - if you’ll forgive the metaphor. Just a really brief word on that before we move on:
Some scholars argue this little book of Jonah isn’t meant to be read as something that actually happened - I mean, could anyone really survive in a fish, even a huge fish, for three days? They’d tell you it’s a picture of Israel turning away from God’s calling for them, and tells us how he’ll respond. And there are some reasonable arguments for reading it that way.
We’re going to approach it as a literal story of something that actually happened, though - because Jesus did: in Luke’s gospel, in chapter 11, Jesus refers to what happened to Jonah, and what happened to the people of Nineveh as a real historical event, a parallel to his own coming death and resurrection, also a real historical event.
It’s definitely extraordinary, no question. No-one is saying fish swallow people and then vomit them out somewhere else on a regular basis, it’s not a common mode of prophetic transport. Quite possibly it’d require an actual factual miracle, an alteration to some of the “laws of nature” inside the fish. But Christians do believe in miracles - Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the cornerstone of our faith. That is not natural. That does not happen in the normal flow of life. We believe in a God who can do stuff which just “does not compute” according to the normal order of things.
We’re not a bunch of fools who believe anything and everything we hear, tooth fairy included - there are some seriously educated people in this church - many of the world’s great scientists and mathematicians have been serious followers of Jesus. But we do believe in a God who can “break the rules” of his world if he chooses, one who sits outside of it, above it.
So if you’re struggling with a big fish, can I challenge you to try not to get too hung up on that at least at first, and to explore with us this morning some of the other things going on here - things our writer puts the emphasis on? We can talk more about big fish in the Q&R later if you like!
What we’ve got here in Jonah’s prayer is a record of his journey to the bottom. There’s a summary in that first verse - not so much a trailer as a spoiler: “I called to the LORD and he answered me,” delivered in classic Hebrew duplicate: “I called for help and you listened to my cry” - then Jonah fills in the details of what happened to him pre-fish.
[slide with v3 on the surface of the sea]
“You hurled me into the depths” - that’s a bit unfair since it was the sailors who threw Jonah overboard as we heard last week! But Jonah understands he’s in the deep sea as a result of God’s judgement on his disobedience, on his determination to go the exact opposite of the way God has told him to. He understands he’s going to die.
When we reed “depths” here and “the heart of the seas”, that might seem to imply that Jonah is immediately deep under water but that’s not quite right. “the depths” means something that has great depth - it’s the wild ocean, not a paddling pool. Jonah can’t touch the bottom is the point. The heart of the sea is simply the centre of it - far, far from land is the point. That explains why, thrown into the sea, but still on the surface for a moment, waves and breakers from the storm can sweep over Jonah.
[then add v5-6 under the dark sea]
But only for a moment. He’s going down. Verse 5 “the engulfing waters threatened me” - or more literally, as you can see in the footnote there, the waters were at his throat. He’s sinking - you have to imagine him spluttering as waves crash over him. Then suddenly he is engulfed by the ocean, swallowed by it, surrounded by it, under the surface, going down, down, down. That’s how I make sense of seaweed being wrapped around him in the middle of the open ocean: he’s approaching the ocean floor.
And there he lands: at the roots of the mountains, down to the seafloor beneath the deep. As Jonah reaches the bottom, he thinks he has gone down and he is staying down - Jon 2:6 “the earth beneath barred me in forever”. That’s the picture: Jonah’s life is being snuffed out. There is no hope for him at all, abandoned in the middle of the open ocean. He has only moments to live as he sinks down towards its floor, water pressing on him more and more. His life is ebbing away. He is beyond any rescue.
But hang on - remember our spoiler? Jonah called for help and God listened. Jonah’s prayer of distress, of desperation from the midst of a wild ocean reaches God’s ear. And this is where we find the first application of what we’re reading for you and me, here today. It seemed like there was no hope for Jonah at all - but it’s never hopeless with God. There’s always reason to hope.
The sailors on the ship above, drifting happily over the now-calm ocean would be forgiven for thinking there was absolutely no hope for Jonah. It didn’t seem like there was - dumped in the heart of the deep without so much as a life ring. But there’s always reason to hope. Most likely, they never saw Jonah again - most likely they never knew how things ended.
I think there’s comfort for us here as we think about people in desperate situations, people taking their last breath, even. Perhaps people we’re not personally connected to, just we know their situation is desperate, that the end is nigh. Perhaps it’s someone close to you, someone running away from God just like Jonah.
When at our very last glimpse there doesn’t seem to be any hope left, this story teaches us it’s never hopeless with God. We do not know how things ended. We just don’t know. What we do know is rescue is possible - that God could respond to a cry for help from the very last breath, from the bottom of the ocean. Probably not a big-fish-style rescue, that’s a one off. But as Jonah tells us here, salvation comes from the LORD - and the LORD can hear a cry for help, and save forever at the very last moment.
I think there’s another thing for us here today too: we also see it’s never too late with God. Do you feel like you’re overboard in a storm, perhaps a storm of your own making? Is your life totally out of control, do you feel utterly helpless as waves crash over you? Or do you feel like you’ve already sunk? That you’re drifting down towards the bottom? That your life is utterly hopeless from here on, and only death is ahead?
It is not too late for you. It’s never too late with God. It’s not too late to call out to God for help. It’s not too late for him to turn things around.
Maybe it’s not you in the storm, maybe it’s someone you love. It is not too late for them. It’s never too late with God. There are countless stories of people who seemed so far from God, so lost in the storms of life, that the only end we would imagine was a continued sinking down and down, a spiral leading only to the grave. And then God turned their life around. I’ve had the privilege of knowing some people personally where that’s their story. It’s never too late with God. So don’t give up hope.
But there’s another key lesson for us about the path from death to life in today’s passage - one you have to look a little closer, a little deeper to see but it’s absolutely critical.
Jonah cries out to God in his distress v2 and God hears him. There’s fair reason for distress, too: abandoned in the open ocean. But actually there’s more to Jonah’s distress. Look at what he says - perhaps out loud, perhaps just inside his head, as he recalls it in verse 4:
I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’
“I have been banished from your sight.” He’s been forcibly driven away from God’s presence. Driven away from God, and taken into captivity. Look at the language in v5: seaweed is wrapped around him - that same word is used for tying someone up, arresting them, capturing them, imprisoning them. See in verse 6, the earth bars him in forever, imprisoning him.
This is what the bible calls exile. This is the judgement God threatened his people with if they turned away from him. Something that happened to the whole nation of Israel through the Babylonians - something that’s happening to Jonah individually here. Because he has turned away from God, he is separated from God, and taken into captivity by the enemy, here the sea.
Understanding he’s in exile helps us make sense of Jonah’s last recorded words here: “yet I will look again toward your holy temple.” Why is the temple particularly on his mind in that last moment before he sinks beneath the waves? What does he meant that he will look again towards it? This could just be Jonah confidently declaring he’s not going to die, that Arnie-style “I’ll be back”, back to the temple - but the rest of his prayer hardly exudes that confidence!
So why does he look to the temple? I think the key is found in King Solomon’s ancient prayer as he dedicates the temple after building it. Come with me back to that moment, in another book of the bible called First Kings: “Yet I will look again towards your holy temple” - why, Jonah? Think about that question as you listen:
“When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to their enemies, who take them captive to their own lands, far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly’; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy;
See, Jonah understands he has been banished, that he’s going into exile, into captivity. He knows why: he’s turned away from God so God has turned away from him. And I think what we have here in his last words is a change of heart, a turning. What the bible calls ‘repentance’. That’s the look towards the temple - just like Solomon set out, a cry of repentance, a cry for forgiveness and mercy. That’s Jonah’s call to God as his life ebbs away.
Repentance is the path from death to life for Jonah - and it’s the path from death to life for us, here, today, too. Now it’s important we’re clear here about what repentance is and what it’s not because this is serious: it’s a matter of life and death just like it was for Jonah - but even more, it’s a matter of eternal life and death.
Repentance isn’t just being sorry about where you’re heading when you’re going the wrong way. Imagine being on a train part way through a journey, then realising you really shouldn’t be going where it’s going, admitting that you’re headed the wrong way, being sorry you got on, sorry you’ve been going towards the wrong destination. That’s regret, not repentance. Do you regret things you’ve done, the course you set, the way your life is going? All well and good - but that’s regret, not repentance.
Repentance is choosing to get up out of your seat, to get off that train at the very next stop, and to get on one heading in the other direction. It’s action. It’s turning around.
And repentance is always an option, no matter how far down the line you’ve gone, right up until that final stop, until you reach your destination. You might not like where you find yourself when you get off, having gone the wrong way for so long. You might have a very long way to come back - it might take your whole life. But you can always turn around. It just takes a moment, a moment of decision, then getting up to you feet and changing.
Jonah’s turning here is him accepting God’s heart for lost people, even the hated Assyrians of Nineveh. God’s heart, set out for us in verse 8, is love:
“Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.
God has love even for people who’ve turned away from him, who cling on to worthless idols. Jonah didn’t want to believe God loved them, didn’t want the people of Nineveh to know of God’s love for them, didn’t want them to hear God’s call to turn around, to turn away from the wrong way they were living, to repent. But Jonah changes direction. He says he will go, he will speak. Jon 2:9
Jonah 2:9 (NIV)
What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’ ”
And spoiler alert: he does.
Jonah 3:3 (NIV)
Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.
Jonah repents.
We’re going to follow this story further in the coming weeks and, spoiler upon spoiler, we’re going to see Jonah’s repentance leaves a lot to be desired. Sure, he will go to Nineveh - but there’s a limit to the change in his heart; it’s not become like God’s heart.
Tim Keller, a big name in some Christian circles says “Even our repentance needs to be repented of” and what he’s getting at there is that anything and everything you and I do is tainted, imperfect - just like Jonah’s repentance here is imperfect. No matter how often you or I repent, and choose to turn back from wrong ways we have been going, we’ll never arrive all the way back on the perfect right track - not in this life, at least.
And yet there is still hope for us. Even our imperfect repentance can lead from death to life, like Jonah’s imperfect repentance here does for him. How so? Did Jonah, and do we, fool God? No.
Because there’s another who was hurled into the depths, who descended deep into the realm of the dead. There was another who was taken captive by death, who, it seemed, would be barred in forever there.
Because there’s another for whom all hope seemed lost. Where everyone concluded the grave was his final resting place. Where no-one thought there was any chance of another ending to the story.
And yet, after three days in the grave, pictured by Jonah’s three days in the fish, it turned out that no-one and nothing could hold him - not even death. Rather than death swallowing Jesus, Jesus swallows death, the bible tells us.
1 Corinthians 15:54 (NIV)
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
This is why, even as our repentance is always less than wholehearted, and never sees us truly and perfectly on the right track, we still are right to hope for forgiveness, for reconciliation with God: on account of Jesus - who walked the perfect path, yet faced the separation from God which should have been ours. He did it for us, in our place.
And this is why, even when all hope seems lost, Christians still have the right to hope: because in Jesus’ resurrection we see the truth that life is not just ours when it’s snatched out of the depths at the last moment, inches from the grave. Not just when we see a remarkable deliverance at death’s door - like that big fish for Jonah. Life is ours even beyond the grave, even out of cold, hard death. Even when, according to this world, all hope is extinguished and there is nothing left to hope for.
That’s our hope when all hope is lost: life even out of death. “Salvation comes from the LORD.”
So let me close:
Perhaps.. perhaps today you’ve run out of hope. Let the story of Jonah, and the greater story of Jesus, give you hope again. For those you don’t know. For those you do. For those you love. For yourself, even.
no-one’s ever in too deep for God
it’s never too late to call out to God for help
with God, there’s always reason for hope - even down to the last moment
with God, there’s hope even beyond death
Perhaps.. perhaps today is the moment you know you’re going down and you need to repent, to turn around.
Then get up. Get off that train. Change your direction. It’s not too late - no matter what. There is life for you still.
Do it now. Tell God. Tell someone else what you’re doing, too. They can share the journey with you, encourage you when it’s hard, help you when you just don’t know the way to go.
Perhaps.. perhaps you’ve repented again and again, turned around so many times you’re dizzy - and you are beginning to lose hope because you see more and more that, like Jonah, each time it’s so flawed, so limited, so insufficient.
Then hear today the message of hope built on Jesus, the true and greater Jonah. After all hope seemed lost, God did not abandon him to the grave, but raised him from the dead. God heard his cry and answered him and brought his life up from the pit. He wasn’t swallowed by death - instead he swallowed up death. “It is finished” he said - and it is. Your hope, and your life, rest on him, not you. And he is able.
Thirty seconds to reflect, and then we’ll pray together, and use a song to reflect.
… 30s ...
… pray ...