The Sleeper
Jonah 1:5 – “But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep.”
But Jonah
We just read the part of the story where the sailors are struggling to keep the ship afloat and save their lives, by disposing of the cargo, so as to lighten the ship, but here’s another scene on that same ship – one that is amusingly strange. Jonah, the one who is the real cause for all this chaos, fear and loss of property, is totally oblivious to the situation around him. The words, “But Jonah,” says a lot. It says that Jonah was in no way perturbed by the situation around him. It says that he was disconnected from the reality around. It says that though he was the cause of the trouble, he did not seem to care about anyone or anything but himself.
Similarly, the world is in turmoil right now. In more ways than one, and I personally believe that we The Church are responsible for what’s happening around us. We have not been the people of God that we were called to be. We have not been the reflection of the Lord to the world; instead, we’ve allowed the world to permeate The Church. The Lord has given us the responsibility to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, but we have become anything but salt and light. Overall, we're hardly adding any taste and light to the world.
Young people are leaving the church at an alarming rate today, like never before. They are becoming disillusioned with Christianity and are seeking other faiths - or no faith at all. Christian families are splitting at such a pace that we are becoming models to the rest of the world of what it is to separate and continue to live as though nothing is amiss. No wonder the Bible says that God’s name is being blasphemed among the gentiles because of us. This might seem like a very hard statement to make, but it’s true all the same. Buildings where churches used to meet are being sold off for other purposes. Parents are no longer passing on their faith to the next generation. The Church is seeking the world more than the world is seeking the world – and sadly, very often, we’re doing it all in the name of the Lord. I myself have been guilty of this and have had to repent of this sin. But there’s a lot more repenting that needs to be done by us The Church across the globe. We are in the last days, and the signs are there for all to see – even a non-Christian seems to know that the world is very near it’s end. It’s time we stopped and repented of our negligent, self-centred ways and sought God and His ways with all our heart and mind and lived what we profess with all our bodies.
Had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship
We already looked at the fact that Jonah had chosen to go down into the ship and now we see a little more detail given as to the reason for the choice of his location on the ship. Jonah seemed to be very familiar, not only with the structure of the ship, but also with the workings of the ship. He knew where the best spaces were, and which was the most comfortable. He seemed to know something about Physics; that the lower in the ship you are, the less the swaying and tossing around; and for one who sought to sleep his way to Tarshish, that’s the kind of place he needed. So good was his choice of his sleeping spot, that even a tempest did not disturb him.
Let's look at ourselves as The Church. Have we chosen the choicest comfort zones with the hope of never being disturbed by anyone, including God? Have we rejected God’s call on our lives to be His witnesses in the world? While on the surface it seems very smart of us to choose comfort over calling, we need to realise that running away from God is certainly not a smart thing to do. That kind of comfort, cosy as it may seem, will be short-lived. Though we may have forgotten the reason why we were called to believe in Jesus, the Lord hasn’t forgotten the reason He called us - and He never will. To those of us who are in such comfort zones, this message may not sit very well with us, but the purpose of this message is not to add to our comfort, but for us to come to grips with the reality of who we The Church are and how far we’ve gone from being what we were called to be.
Had lain down and was fast asleep
For many of us those words, 'lie down,' sound very welcome words, especially after a hard day’s work. It provides the much needed rest to the body to rejuvenate us for the next day's work. Depriving oneself of sleep can have really drastic effects on one’s body and mind as well.
Jonah had chosen a comfortable, stable place at the bottom of the ship where he could lie down and sleep and that’s exactly what he did. He fell into a deep sleep - deep inside the ship while it was battling the winds and the waves in the deep Mediterranean Sea. Everything was going according to his plan and that must have excited him until he fell asleep and became oblivious to the storm that was raging around him.
When we The Church make choices that are self-centred, and when we make plans that include none but ourselves, and spare no thought for God’s will in our lives, things might go smoothly for a while – so smooth that we can drop into a deep sleep. That’s exactly where we are at present. Despite this global pandemic, nothing much has changed in The Church globally. The Church, to a large extent, is deep asleep and this, despite the storm that’s raging outside. The world is in a turmoil, not only because of the infection of the virus, not only because of the way it’s taking lives and affecting livelihood, but also because it’s affecting the minds and emotions of people in a way that they're finding it hard to handle. While many are putting up brave fronts, that’s not the reality of what they are facing inside. The world is looking for ways to understand what’s happening; they’re looking for ways to cope with this new normal. They are looking for answers, and we The Church do have the answers, but we’re too busy taking care of ourselves that the cares of the world around don’t seem to concern us at all.
This is not the time for us The Church to be ‘sleeping’ – this is the time for us to be awake and actively engaged in connecting with the world around, offering them all the support we can in the form of prayer, hope, financial assistance, jobs, advice, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on and more. It is by God’s amazing grace that we are not seeing as many people in the church infected and dying from this virus as we initially imagined we would see. Let’s not only thank the Lord for His amazing protection on our lives, but let’s also do all we can (while we can), to be a blessing to those outside. This is the time for us to wake up, and if we don’t wake up we will be woken up rudely to the reality of the situation around us. Let’s save that for the next devotion.
Michael Collins
