“A Lesson About
Grace”
Jonah 1:17-2:10
Jonah had learned some hard lessons
that day on the sea. He had tired to
flee from the presence of the Lord. He
had tried to separate himself from those not like him. But in the end, he discovered that is efforts
were in vain. In the end, Jonah
discovered that it was because of him that the mariners were in trouble. His disobedience and arrogance had put them
in jeopardy. They were the ones who
exemplified courage and compassion, prayer and work. In the end, he could no longer look at these
mariners as a group to be hated and despised, as persons, as persons in need of
deliverance, divine deliverance. In the
end, these outsiders had turned and worshiped the Lord. In the end, they had been saved. But at the cost of Jonah’s life…or so he
thought. But, God was not yet done with
Jonah.
For as long as I can remember, the story of Jonah has always
been about Jonah and a whale. This old,
familiar story still captures our child-like imaginations wondering how it was
possible for a man to live for three days in the belly of whale. But if the only thing we remember about this
story of Jonah is what we learned in Sunday school as a child, then we will
have missed something much more profound, much more powerful, much more
wonderful.
If our story had ended with Jonah cast into the sea forever
lost in its depths, the story of Jonah would not have ended up in the Old
Testament canon. Instead, it would have
been relegated to a story of legend and myth, a tale to be told to those who
defied God’s word, a warning to those who thought they could flee from God’s
presence. “Don’t be disobedient and
unfaithful. You remember what happened
to Jonah don’t you?” But the story of
Jonah is in the Bible. It is God’s word
to us and for us. It is the story of
God’s good news of salvation.
There is no telling how long Jonah had
been in the water. It was only a matter
of time before he would succumb to fatigue and sink to the bottom of the
sea. We can only wonder what was going
on through his head. Did he think about
his life and the choices he had made?
Did he regret his lost opportunities, his indecisions, his misguided faith?
We cannot be sure. But what we do
know is that God acted. What we do know
is that God appointed a big fish that swallowed Jonah, and for three days and
three nights Jonah was in the belly of the big fish. What had been the inevitable had become a
renewed hope. What had been lost had now
been found. Jonah had discovered the
gracious mercy of God.
In the belly of this big fish, Jonah
prayed. He remembered just how far down
he had gone. He had left the pinnacle of
God’s presence to go down to Joppa, then down to the belly of the ship, then
down to the depths of the sea. The
darkness of the deep had swallowed him.
The darkness of God’s absence in his life had completely consumed
him. Jonah had been cast in the sea, the waves had swallowed him up. In the murky deep, Jonah knew he had come to
the end, and he knew that he had been cast from God’s presence, and he longed
to see God again. He had descended to
the lowest point of his life. The weeds
of disobedience and unfaithfulness, the roots of prejudice and hatred had
wrapped around his head. The bars of
separation, of human sin and arrogance, had closed upon him.
But God had acted.
God had rescued him and brought up his life from the pit. As his life was ebbing away, he had prayed
for God’s rescue, and his prayers had been answered. He had turned from his own misguided loyalties
and realized the error of his ways, and God had saved him. He would never forget God’s amazing grace in
his life.
Through Jonah’s psalm of thanksgiving, he had remembered his
own distress and hopelessness, and he had remembered what God had done for him
and he would never ever again forsake his loyalty to God again. Jonah has now stood in the shoes of the
mariners. He has now been where they had
been, learned what they had learned, and experienced what they had experience
of the salvation of God at work. And he
too would once again pledge vows and make sacrifices to the God who had
delivered him from the clutches of destruction and death, for deliverance
belongs to the Lord.
There are those whose life has been
shipwrecked, who have come to the end of their rope. There are those who have descended down to
the depths of human pain and suffering, who have experienced crisis and
conflict, who have sunken to the bottom of human
oppression and pain, who have known only heartache and absence.
We cannot hear this story and not remember the depths to
which all of humanity has fallen. The pain and suffering, the crisis and conflict, the oppression and
heartache, the absence of God that is found in our world around us. Wars, famine, poverty, terrorism, crime –
they are the fruit of our broken relationships, the fruit of our prejudices and
hatreds, the fruit of our disregard for the welfare and care of others, the
fruit of our attempts to flee from God’s presence.
We look out at our fellow human beings and we see many
faces, faces of those who are different from us, who come from different
origins and backgrounds, different cities and nations, different religions and
philosophies. We look out at our fellow
human beings and we see the death and destruction that sinks us to the depths
of darkness and encloses around us the bars of the pit. These fellow human beings are not some
distant and disconnected group from us.
They are us. In those deep
recesses of our hearts and minds, in the depths of our soul we hear our own
story in the story of Jonah, our own story of deliverance through God’s
grace. We too know without God we would
only find ourselves in the darkness of the deep. We too know that we would be lost in the
weeds and roots of hopelessness and despair.
We too know that we ourselves are in need of God’s rescue and
deliverance. But God acted. But God acted! But God…!
What profound, and powerful, and wonderful words these two
words are for us. They would be the same
two words Paul would us in his letter to the Ephesians, “but God, who is rich
in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead,
through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have
been saved.” (2:4-5). The story of Jonah’s deliverance is
the story of our deliverance and salvation, of our yeshua. A word in Hebrew that reminds us of what the
angel announced to Mary, that she would have a son, and that she will name him Yeshua, Hebrew for Jesus, for he would save his people from
their sins. We cannot help but hear in
this story the story of salvation through Jesus, the Messiah, the savior of not
only us, but of the whole world. We
cannot hear this story without remembering God’s own act of grace in our
lives. How God brought us up from the
depths of sin and brokenness and is at work even now to renew in us the purpose
of our creation and calling and establish us in the kingdom to the glory of
God’s holy name.
Jonah was now prepared for his mission. He had learned the hard lessons of life. He had witnessed God’s grace at work. His own personal experience of others not
like him and the work of the mercy and grace of God in his life would be the
impetus of his renewed mission, they would be the drive that would turn him
around and lead him toward God’s calling, they would be the resources that
would sustain him on the way as God’s messenger.
Has the runaway prophet now become the faithful
prophet? Has Jonah finally grasped the
purpose and vision of God’s call? Has
Jonah finally gained the wisdom of knowing God’s grace and mercy and compassion
and steadfast love toward those who were considered outsiders? We shall soon see. Amen.