Tonight at Rivendell, we finished up the book of Jonah. I have really enjoyed this study for two reasons. One, it's entertaining. Two, I can relate to Jonah. I laugh at the end of Jonah when he FINALLY does what God tells him to do, then runs out and builds himself a booth from which to watch the destruction of Nineveh. He doesn't want them to repent. He's hoping that God will NOT change His mind but will follow through with the destruction. Instead, the people immediately repent. The king orders everyone to fast from food and water for three days hoping to pacify God. I can't imagine going three days without anything to drink!
God is merciful and doesn't destroy them. Jonah is on the sidelines watching and waiting. He longs for Nineveh to be destroyed and rightly so. He'd probably seen relatives brutally murdered or tortured by these people. He hated them and expected God to be on his side. But God didn't do what Jonah wanted. Instead, God brought to Jonah's attention that he cared more about the shade tree dying than he did about the people whom God could potentially destroy.
Jonah is so much like me. I listen for God to speak to me but then run when He asks something of me that I feel is unreasonable. What is He thinking?! I also have times of looking at others just as Jonah looked at the Ninevites and believe they deserve what's coming to them. But when I'm in the "hot seat", I beg and hope for mercy, just like Jonah in the belly of the great fish. (It always amazes me that it took him three days to repent. I think I would have been praying right away. But then again...)
I love the book of Jonah. He gets angry with God, just like me.
P.S. What is the deal with all the "3's"? He was in the belly of the fish for three days. The city of Nineveh was so large that it took three days to walk through it. The Ninevites fasted for three days. Of course Jesus was in the tomb for three days, so is there significance in the actual number three? I just thought of another one, the trinity.
2 comments:
i enjoyed hearing pastor share about the book of Jonah several years ago. I think it was an evening sermon at the other church, but I remember it pretty well. what always gets me about this book is how much like Jonah I can be about some of the people in my life - I don't want the best for them, especially if I see them doing wrong, I feel like they deserve punishment. I love how the book ends pretty abruptly with God's question to Jonah concerning the vine and Nineveh, which seems to just act as a rhetorical question for all of us. It leaves you without a real answer from God or Jonah and no idea as to what happens to Jonah after that question. It's very deliberately contemplative.
And, I rejoice to see God's mercy to a people apart from the Jews - it's a taste of the mercy to come for the entire world.
Beautifully said, Janiners. I like that rhetorical part too.
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