Jonah is a strange choice to serve as the go-to sign for Jesus Christ. Certainly the time Jonah spends in the belly of the whale is a fitting sign for Jesus’ time spent in the grave. That, of course, is Jesus’ point in referring to Jonah. But Jonah teaches a lot about ourselves in relation to God’s gospel. In Jonah 1:1-3, we have the Lord’s call to Jonah and Jonah’s reaction to his call. It does not reflect well on Jonah, but not for the reasons we may, at first, think.
The Lord calls Jonah to preach to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was the great city of the Assyrians and the enemy of Jonah’s people. But the message was one of judgment and destruction (see the content of Jonah’s preaching in chapter three). You would think that the prophet would crave the opportunity to be the message of ruin for the enemy of Israel. So why does he flee?
Of course we might chalk up Jonah’s flight to a fear for his own safety. After all, prophets were sometimes martyrs. The Assyrians were cruel enemies. Peter, in fear for his own safety, would deny his Savior three times. Certainly we could relate to his fear, but it was not fear that drove him away from the presence of the Lord.
Jonah tells us himself what he was thinking in 4:2. He flees because he knew that the Lord is merciful and long-suffering. Jonah flees not because he was afraid, but because he wanted no role in the salvation of his enemies.
Jonah understands the Lord’s ways, he just doesn’t want to travel in those ways. Jonah understands that the Lord is merciful when he warns and when he chastises. The Lord could have simply exterminated the people of Nineveh. Did he give warning to Sodom? As Paul tells us in the opening chapters of his Epistle to the Romans, even the Gentiles give evidence that they know the law. But when the Lord makes his anger at sin evident, it is to humble sinners and call them to repentance. The knowledge of the Lord’s wrath is a revelation of his mercy. Jonah wants no part of it.
How are we different when we shut our hearts to the plight of sin-sick and lost? Are we all that better than Jonah?
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