Last week we started a sermon series on the life of the prophet Jonah. Independent Jonah, as we’re calling him for his I-know-what’s-best attitude, shares some similarities with the Indiana Jones character from the Steven Spielberg movies. Both got into their share of tight spots and both managed to get out of them in spectacular, if not unbelievable ways. For example in the second Indiana Jones’ movie, Temple of Doom, Indy and his friends hop into a miner’s car to escape the bad guys. They zoomed around the mine at breakneck speeds switching tracks, dodging gunfire, and even soaring over missing sections of track without as much as a scratch. That escape scene was exciting but hardly believable.
I suppose today’s Independent Jonah adventure seems like something Hollywood dreamed up. Last week we saw Independent run away from his mission to the Ninevites only to have God stop him in his tracks by sending a huge storm to batter the ship he had boarded for Tarshish, a city 5,000 km the opposite way God wanted him to go. Jonah admitted to the frightened sailors that he was the reason for the storm and directed them to throw him overboard promising that if they did, the storm would calm. The storm did subside when Jonah hit the water saving the sailors but what became of Independent? That’s what we’re going to find out in today’s adventure: Independent Jonah and the Rescue from Doom.
Once the storm subsided you’d think that Jonah would have been able to swim back to the ship having learned his lesson not to run away from God. But this was before life vests and if Jonah had been fully dressed in cloak and tunic, swimming, much less staying afloat would have been near impossible. Jonah himself describes what happened after he hit the water: “…the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me… 5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down” (Jonah 2:3b, 5, 6a).
If you’ve ever gone swimming in strong surf, you know how helpless Jonah must have felt. Even medium-sized waves can toss an adult around as if he was a rubber ducky. Add to that the terror of clammy seaweed wrapping around you to form a straight jacket so that you can’t kick, you can’t doggy-paddle, you can’t even do the dead-man’s float. It’s no wonder Independent started to sink to the bottom of the sea.
It seemed like the end for God’s prophet. Jonah certainly thought so. He cried out to God: “I have been banished from your sight” (Jonah 2:4a). Like a child who is sent to his room for misbehaving, Independent felt he had been expelled from God’s loving presence. Do you see the irony here? Isn’t this what Jonah wanted: separation from God? That’s why he had run from his mission to Nineveh. Well Independent was now getting what he had asked for but was quickly learning that it wasn’t what he really wanted.
Jonah learned a lesson that we would do well to take to heart. When we do things our way instead of God’s we’re declaring independence from him. It might sound exciting and liberating to go off on our own and ignore all those things our parents and Sunday School teachers taught us about sexuality, for example. After all, isn’t God too strict about his gift of sex? Enjoy it now in the prime of your youth. Don’t bother getting married first, says Satan. Get with the times! And who cares what God said about working to earn an honest wage. Get it by stealing or living off others. A lot of people you know are doing that already. Why not you? Think about yourself! Yet those who have declared independence from God find out, as did Jonah, that it leads to chaos and despair, not peace and happiness.
Independent deserved to drown but the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea did not become Jonah’s final resting place. As he sank the prophet recalled God’s mercy and remembered that it was never too late to turn to him for help. So Jonah prayed. While it’s never too late to turn to the Lord in prayer, we shouldn’t treat prayer as a last resort. When we do we show just how sinfully stupid we are. We huff and puff, grunt and grumble under the weight of our problems trying to fix them ourselves and failing, forgetting that a gracious God has invited us to address him as our heavenly Father and to come to him with all our problems no matter how large or how small. The Lord showed his fatherly concern for Jonah when he answered his call for help albeit in a most unusual way: God sent a large fish to swallow Jonah and then three days later spit him out onto dry land.
What? Do you really believe a fish swallowed and saved Jonah, Pastor? I mean you said yourself it sounds like something Hollywood dreamed up. Actually I don’t think Hollywood would be as foolish to dream up something so ridiculous. Even Luther commented: “I wouldn’t believe it if it weren’t in the Bible.” Yet Jesus believed it to be true (Matthew 12:40). Jesus told the Pharisees as much when he said that just as Jonah had spent three days in the belly of the fish before being spat out so he would spend three days in the belly of the earth before coming back to life (not that Jonah died and was resurrected).
Do you see the comfort we can draw from Jonah’s experience? That large fish didn’t just happen to come along and decide to inhale the prophet. He was “appointed” by God to do what he did. This demonstrates that God is not just the Creator of earth and sea; he is their Lord. Some people are afraid that we’ll create computers so smart that we won’t be able to control them. God doesn’t have that concern with his creation. He governs the blue whale, the pine beetle, and the church cat, Frank. He orchestrates the cold fronts, the warm fronts and the weather they create. They all do God’s bidding. This means that when scientists wring their hands about global warming, or when your teenager goes for a drive on his own for the first time and it’s snowing, or when you are hiking in the backcountry during berry and therefore bear season, there is no need for sinful worry. God is controlling all things. He will not let any harm come to you. And if it does, God is minimizing and harnessing the hurt to work for your eternal good (Romans 8:28).
I suppose this is why Jonah didn’t seem to mind being trapped in the belly of a fish for three days. In spite of the stench of digesting seafood and the incessant throbbing of the fish’s enormous heart Jonah was thankful not irritable. Jonah prayed: “6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God. 7 “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. 8 “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. 9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD” (Jonah 2:6-9).
We might never spend time in such a stifling and stinky place as did Jonah but our world has plenty of dismal waiting rooms of its own. It’s not fun to have to sit in ER for 6-8 hours when you’re stomach kills you, or one day wake up in a nursing home room marginally larger than a walk-in closet. But don’t focus on your present discomfort. Focus on the final rescue that is coming. Jesus! Heaven! Strangely enough Jonah’s adventure assures us that this rescue is a future reality. You see, had God still been angry with Jonah, he never would have had the fish spit him out on dry land. He would have commanded the fish instead to digest Independent and fertilize the ocean floor with him. In the same way, had God the Father not accepted Jesus’ payment for our sins, he never would have let him out of his earthy tomb. But Jesus did come out of his tomb as surely as Jonah came out of the fish’s belly. Jesus is alive! Our sins are forgiven! And one day our Lord will reappear to take all who believe in him from this sin-stinky world to a paradise of perpetual pleasure.
So burst into thanksgiving as did Jonah. For just like Jonah we were as good as dead for our rebellious ways. Yet God rescued us of his own accord. There is no credit we can take for our salvation. We didn’t decide to trust in Christ anymore than Jonah decided to slither his way through the lips of that fish. I doubt if Jonah even knew a fish had swallowed him until he was inside. God continues to work that way. A husband comes to church because that’s what his wife wants him to do not because he believes this Bible stuff. But he keeps coming and the Holy Spirit keeps working on his heart until he not only converts the man, much to the man’s surprise, but also makes him into one of the most active members. This is why our Mum & Me program is so important. We know that many moms are bringing their children because they like the camaraderie, not because they want to worship the Lord. Still they’re hearing God’s Word every week they come through these doors. And the Holy Spirit is working on their hearts and on the hearts of their children as well. We pray that in time he will turn those hearts to the Lord. How exciting it is that God lets us play “big fish” to these modern day Jonahs!
They say that Harrison Ford suffered a severe spinal disc herniation during the filming of Temple of Doom. That’s not surprising considering all the action scenes he filmed. I wonder if Independent Jonah suffered any injuries during his time in the ocean and in the belly of the fish? If he did, it was worth it because it changed his attitude. He had experienced God’s grace and mercy anew and was energized now to tell the world, even the Ninevites: “Salvation comes from the Lord!” We’ll see Jonah do just that in a couple weeks time in an adventure entitled: Independent Jonah and the Life-Giving Crusade. Amen.
