He ran as far away as he could, boarded a ship and went down as far below deck as possible and fell asleep. The ship he boarded would go as far west as any ship had been. Jonah boarded a ship that would go to Tarshish. Who cares and what does that mean? He was in Israel and called to Nineveh which is today’s modern day Mosul, Iraq-to go North East. He jumped on a ship intending to sail West across the Mediterranean Sea, through the Straits of Gibraltar, in to Tarshish in southern Spain as far away as you could go in that day. It was literally the edge of the world.
His mission was to go to Ninevah and preach a word of repentance to the Assyrians in Nineveh. He hated them, did not believe they were worthy of God’s grace and mercy, and went the other way. God would have none of it and a fierce storm arose with Jonah in the bowels of the ship uncaring. As the terrified crew threw off all the excess cargo to lighten the ship and try and turn it, the waves were splitting it apart. The fearful crew hustled down below check, jerked Jonah from his sleep and all cast lots (drew straws) to see who was responsible for angering this god of the sea. Jonah drew the short straw. They hurled questions at him amid thunder, lightning and howling wind. The waves blasted against the ship throwing salt and sea over the rails. Jonah screamed to them that his God was over the sea, the wind and the waves which terrified them even more! What were they to do to appease this God? “Throw me over the rails into the sea and the storm will go away.” In other words, just let me drown, just let me die. Jonah’s desire to escape and run from God so dire, he wanted to end his life. The crew did their best to throw over more cargo but in the end, they threw Jonah over and the storm immediately subsided.
Jonah drifted down content to drown. He would have the last word until a big fish swallowed Jonah whole. Once again, now in the bowels of a vast cavern, dark, with fish guts, bile and the stench of all that might be in a stomach floating around him, Jonah sat. In utter darkness with only the sounds of stomach slush around him he sat for three days. Finally, Jonah prayed out to God.
How many times have we caught ourselves running from the fierceness of the love of God? Do we see the ways God is pursuing us? Do we comprehend a love that goes so deep God will use a storm and a fish? Funny twist-the Assyrians in Ninevah worshiped a fish god. None of this was easy for Jonah but what he came to know was a God who was not going to let him go and not going to give up on him. Jonah’s mission was to share God’s redemptive love with a group of people hell bent on pursuing everything but God.
For those who don’t know God, He loves you so much he will pursue you with a reckless abandon. He is asking you to put away all the distractions and things you value that separate you from Him and the love and connection He wants with you. There are Jonah’s He wants you to hear! For those of us who follow, God will use some hard things to sometimes get our attention when we are not obeying him especially when it means serving and loving others in God’s name. Which one are you?
It may be a virus, it may be a storm, but through it all God is provoking us to serve and to love even those people we do not think deserve it. No matter what, I pray we can go love. And I leave you with the prayer that Jonah prayed as this fish took him back to Israel and vomited him on the beach so he could get a fresh start…
A Psalm of Thanksgiving
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying,
“I called to the Lord out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
You cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
how[a] shall I look again
upon your holy temple?’
The waters closed in over me;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the Pit,
O Lord my God.
As my life was ebbing away,
I remembered the Lord;
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.
Those who worship vain idols
forsake their true loyalty.
But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”
10 Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.
Grace and peace,
Lisa
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