The Journey

Jonah was written during the reign of King Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:23-25) which was roughly 800 years before Jesus was born. God was gracious to Israel during this time despite their idolatry and self-righteousness. Grace, that God works in us and through us despite us, is a major theme in Jonah and the rest of the Scriptures

Jonah is a man of paradox. His name means dove, but he is the son of Amittai (which means truth). He is from a small rural place, but is called to minister to a large city. He is a simple man as evidenced by how simple his writing is (Jonah is usually the first book translated in Hebrew 101), yet is called to speak on behalf of the great God of the universe to the greatest city in the earth.

The book of Jonah opens with God, who calls Jonah to be the only O.T. prophet sent to preach in a nation other than Israel; he is called to the great city of Nineveh, in the nation Assyria, on the east bank of the Tigris River. The Assyrians were a wicked people who were legendary for their pride (Isa. 10:12-13) and cruelty (the book of Nahum lists the many sins of Assyria). The Assyrians were known as a people who loved war. Their version of war was to destroy the men, rape the women and smash the children's heads against rocks. They were the superpower of the day and systematically dominated the nations around them. Consequently, they were bitter enemies of the Hebrew people (who had previously tried to wipe them from the face of the earth on at least three occasions).

Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was originally founded by the great warrior Nimrod--- as a side note, if you decide to give your son this biblical name, please make sure that he can also defend himself--- who was a descendant on Noah (Gen. 10:11). At the time of Jonah, Nineveh was a large impregnable city because of 100-foot walls that surrounded the city. The walls were wide enough on top for three chariots (think Hummers) to race side by side.

Jonah responded to God's clear call to go east to Nineveh and instead fled west to Tarshish, which was in southern Spain, literally the opposite direction to the end of the earth in that day.  It would be like if God called you to go to Chicago from St Louis and then you were to hop a plane to San Diego. Arriving at the port in Joppa, he found a ship headed for Tarshish (when we want to run from the Lord there will always be options). Throughout the Scriptures, the threads of sin and grace weave human history together. In Jonah, sin is shown as running from the presence of the Lord, and grace is shown as the Lord pursuing and overtaking the running sinner. We can run from God, but we can't outrun God.

God, who controls all of creation, then hurled such a violent storm that the ship headed to Tarshish, was nearly torn apart. This so frightened the sailors (who typically aren't so easily frightened) that they began to throw cargo overboard to lighten the load, and they cried out in desperation to their various false gods. Meanwhile, Jonah slept below deck (possibly from being depressed) until the sailors woke him, begging him to call upon his God for relief. Recognizing that some god must be angry with one of the men on their ship, the sailors threw dice to determine who was at fault and the lot fell to Jonah, whose sin had now threatened not only his life, but the life of all those around him (as is always the case with sin).

Knowing that Jonah was running from the Lord and that they would soon all perish, they asked Jonah what they should do. He replied that they should literally hand him over to the God who had appointed the storm by tossing him into the raging sea in order to stop the madness. But the pagan sailors, who were more spiritual and compassionate than God's prophet, tried to row back to land instead. Still, they were thwarted by the increasingly violent storm. Desperate for relief, the sailors relented and, crying out to the true God for mercy, threw Jonah into the sea, which then grew calm. And, in an ironic twist, God used Jonah to convert the pagan sailors who then worshiped the Lord and pledged themselves to Him, the very call that Jonah was running from.

God then sent a great fish to swallow Jonah, where he spent three days and three nights. While many liberal modern Bible scholars are critics have dismissed the account of Jonah being swallowed by the fish as a fable or a myth, Jesus does not. In fact, Jesus taught that if we are unable to believe that God put Jonah in a fish for three days and three nights, and then brought him forth alive, then we also will be unable to believe that He would die and be buried in the earth for three days and three nights before being brought forth alive as the One greater than Jonah, sent also to command all to repent of their sin and receive saving grace from Him (Matthew 12:39-41; Luke 11:29-32). If God can create the world from nothing, and Jesus can rise from death, surely seeing Jonah's story as literal is not much of a stretch.

Why does this book matter? Well, the response of Jewish people to this book on Yom Kippur give us a clue. Each year, the Jews gather in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement to read Jonah and then reply, "we are Jonah." This truth is essential if you want to truly "get" Jonah.

We are Jonah.

We are runners. Some of us are blatant runners who disregard God and his revelation in favor of our own truth. Some of us are less blatant, but still are running. We run because we are self-righteous, like Jonah. We run because we don=t think we need or truly understand grace. Jonah wrongly believed that because he was of a particular race, knew the Scriptures, and belonged to the One True God, that he was somehow better than the godless pagans whom he did not like and did not want to be a part of his spiritual family. We are Jonah when we wrongly believe that we are more righteous than other because we have suffered or not suffered, because we are young or old, because we are rich or poor, because we are black, yellow or white, because we are wise or foolish, because we are urban or suburban, because we are male or female, because we are educated or uneducated, or because we are a success or a failure.

We too have been sent to proclaim God and ask for repentance to a great but wicked city, filled with other self-righteous people who are spiritual, but are not in a vital relationship with the True God. We are called to help people see that they are runners (also called sinners) and that they need to be overtaken by the God who loves them (also called grace). We must stay in touch with the fact that the only thing that separates us from the people around us is God's grace, not our goodness.

Lastly, Jonah is the author of the book that bears his name. The events recorded in this book are the worst moment in his prophetic calling, if not his personal life. The Bible is trustworthy because it tells the truth about its authors. In Jonah, we see nothing in the author that would cause a whole city to repent and turn to God. We see nothing in him, but everything in God. As in all of God's story, called the Bible, God is the hero. It is God who pursues running sinners. We are Jonah, we are the sailors, and we are the Ninevites.
We all want to run from God's presence.
We all want God in the rear view mirror.
We all run for the same reason: we don't want to give God control, because we don't trust him
We all want God to bless us, to provide and protect us, but we resist giving him control
We all want to treat God like a dog, stay! I'm going over here and I'll be back later

We all run but God still wants us because the reality of grace is that God works in us and through us despite us. God is chasing us in order to get us to love Him and love others.

We are Jonah.