Don’t hit your sister!  Stop kicking your brother!  Don’t make me come back there!  Sometimes it takes all the willpower we have as children to obey.  As adults – well I’m not sure it’s much different.  If we get frustrated as parents, as adults, how must God feel?  Many of us have an approach-avoidance response to obeying God.  Often we quite intentionally seek God’s guidance for spiritual growth and fulfillment.  Then when God’s intention and call conflicts with what our vision for our future is – we pull back.  We run away from God.  How like Jonah we are. 

If you were anywhere near a church when you were growing up – you heard the Bible story about Run–Away Jonah and the great fish.  But, if you were not that near to a church, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School and flannel board stories, or even a Bible – you still, no doubt, have heard about Jonah.   And perhaps what you have heard or remember could be a little dim Today and the next two Sundays we are going to get re-acquainted with Jonah, …and ourselves, and God, in a different way.  Mostly we will learn about God.  For, you see, this is a book about God, not a book about fish.

            The first ingredient listed in packaged food is the main ingredient – the one ingredient mostly used in the making of the product.  The first significant word in this Book of Jonah is the “Lord”.  “The word of the Lord….”  God is the main character or ingredient in this book.

So at the very beginning, God speaks to Jonah.   The passage never states that Jonah is a prophet.  This Book is about the common person – you and me, and God.   Jonah hears God tell him to go at once to the great city of Nineveh .  God tells him to “cry out against it, because their wickedness has come before Him.”  God has determined to judge the people there.

            Jonah certainly hears God.  But Jonah, turns tail, and heads immediately in the exact opposite direction from Nineveh .  As a matter of fact, he sets out to go as far away as he can.  Why does this called man of God go to such lengths to escape God’s call?

            We can say, that like us, Jonah was human.  I think we all try to escape God, His call and His plan at least once in our lives.  But I think there is something more going on here for Jonah.  Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian Empire.  It is the world power at that time.  It is a great city – in size AND in its evilness.

            The Assyrians – the occupants of the great city of Nineveh , are feared and dreaded by all the people of that day.  They are known as the cruelest nation of the ancient world.  They use very cruel methods of torture.  They can get information from their captives very easily.  They are so feared that on some occasions entire towns have been known to commit suicide rather than fall into the hands of the brutal Assyrians.  You do not need for me to give the gory details here.  Suffice it to say that beheadings and spear sticking were merciful acts.  The Saddam Hussain’s and Osama Bin-Ladin’s and others we read about and see on the news have nothing over the Assyrians.

When the Assyrians go up against a nation they want to conquer, they make a surprise attack on that city.  They take captive the women and then brutally kill the men and the children.   And so, it is reasonable to believe that the Assyrians had come down against Jonah’s hometown of Gath-hepher, in Northern Israel , at one time.  Perhaps they even came to his own home.  Jonah may have seen his own father and mother killed before his eyes.  We do not know.  One thing we do know is that Jonah hates the Assyrians – whether for historical, national or personal reasons.  He does not want them saved!  He wants God’s judgment to fall on every one of them.  Come hell or high water, he is not going to carry God’s message to them.  Therefore, he heads off in the opposite direction. 

            This past Lenten season many of us participated in the sermon and Small Group series, “Knowing and doing the will of God.”  Jonah’s actions tell us he hears and he knows the will of God.  However, he is acting outside of the will of God. 

I suppose either the pastor in me or just my humanness, I want to give him his due.  When Jonah goes down to the dock to buy that ticket, I wonder if he might be thinking if just maybe he is in God’s will.   Certainly, like us, he should have known he wasn’t.   Perhaps Jonah stands in line to buy the ticket to Tarshish, modern day Spain , when the ticket agent says to the man right in front of Jonah, “I’m sorry, but all space is sold.”  That man walks away.  Jonah is about to turn away as well when he hears the phone ring and the ticket agent says to a Mr. Goldberg how sorry he is that he’s not feeling well and that he’s not able to make the trip – to Tarshish.   Jonah stops and waits in anticipation!  The ticket agent hangs up and turns to Jonah and says, “Well, my friend, you are in luck!  I have just had a cancellation.”  Jonah feels lucky indeed.  He says to himself, “I feel more than lucky – maybe this means I am in God’s will.”

            Pastor Dave preached on this issue back in March.  It is possible to be out of the will of God AND still have circumstances appear to be working on our behalf.  Just like Jonah, we can rebel against God and still have that false sense of security of everything falling into place, including a good night’s sleep.  Even when Jonah boards the ship, heading for Tarshish, although acting against God’s will, he is still deluding himself.   Jonah goes down in the hold of the ship.  Apparently he immediately falls asleep. 

            Not so fast!  The Lord also acts immediately!  God causes a great wind on the sea!  This is so great a storm it is nothing like the captain and sailors have ever seen!  Jonah snores.  The sailors hold a prayer meeting.   Jonah snores louder. The sailors throw the cargo overboard. 

            This past May when Richard and I were on sabbatical, we experienced something of what those sailors did.  We were crossing Lake Michigan on a big ferry.  The wind came up!  It was not a pretty picture.   People were physically falling all over and getting hurt.  Richard hurt his elbow.  I prayed!   Others were, how do I say this delicately, puking all over the place.  I was praying!   I did note however, the captain of the Ferry did not order cargo or people to be thrown overboard. 

The captain of Jonah’s ship knows this is a supernatural storm.  That’s why he goes down below to wake Jonah.  He wants Jonah to pray to his God hoping this will keep them all from dying.  Then these superstitious sailors decide to cast lots – gamble, if you will, to decide whose fault this storm is.  God uses their superstition for His own purpose.    When the lots falls to Jonah the frightened sailors demand to know more about their passenger.  “I am a Hebrew.  I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

            It is fascinating to me that these pagan sailors know about the one true God – and God’s mighty power.  They become even more afraid and say to Jonah, “What have you done!”  They cannot believe that a person of God would go against God.  You see then as now, you and I are held to a higher accountability.   Non-believers know this, just like those sailors.

            In the end Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard and they will all be saved.  Amazingly, the sailors actually try to get the ship closer to land – for Jonah’s sake.  But they are unable to do so.  Then they have their second prayer meeting.  This time to the one true God.  They actually ask God that the disobedient Jonah be spared - as they throw Jonah into the swirling, dangerous, angry sea. 

            Immediately the storm ceases to rage.  The sailors once more call on God.  They make a sacrifice and apparently make personal vows to God.  No, I do not know how they made a sacrifice since they threw the entire cargo overboard.  Did they keep an animal?  Did one of the sailors keep one baby goat?   Did they promise that once they reached dry land they would sacrifice properly?  We do not know.  What we do know is that in their hearts they revere God.  They vow they will now serve God.  It is through this horrible and frightening experience they now turn to God.  God can and does turn our mess ups to His glory.

            In the meantime, Jonah is falling deeper and deeper into the sea.   Yes, away from God; yes, to his watery death.   Merciful God is prepared.  God provide a huge fish to swallow up Jonah.  And that is where Jonah spends the next three days and three nights.   Jonah realizes this is his grave – a hellish grave at that. 

            In all of Jonah’s actions outside God’s will, Jonah knows God.  He knows God to be a loving and forgiving God.  That’s what he’s been afraid of all along.   He does not want God’s grace and mercy to fall on the Ninevites.  But he does want it for himself.  Jonah prays.  For he knows God will hear his prayer.  Jonah prays like he has never prayed before.   Jonah dies; if not a physical death, certainly death from God. 

            Yes, history and documented reports give us stories about people and dogs and other critters that survive being in the body of whales or large sharks.   Besides the April airing of the television show, CSI: Las Vegas, which showed that a rat lived for at least two days inside a man’s drowned body; a Cleveland newspaper quoted an article by a Dr. Ransome Harvey who said that a dog was lost overboard from a ship.  The dog was found in the head of a whale six days later - alive and barking.  Also, there has been documented that a 15 foot shark was found in the stomach of whale, alive.  In the late1890’s a famous French scientist, M. De Parville, writes of a sailor named James Bartley, who was believed to have drowned in the region of the Falkland Islands near South America .  Two days after Bartley’s disappearance, the other sailors made a catch of a whale.  When the whale was brought on board their ship and cut open, imagine their surprise when they found their missing friend – alive.  He was unconscious, but alive, inside that whale.  Bartley, who appeared to have yellowish-brown skin (who wouldn’t?), revived and lived to tell his resurrection story for more than 30 years, until his more natural and final death. 

Indeed, these reports do demonstrate the fact that a person can live in a great fish.  Here the greater miracle than Jonah being kept alive – for certainly God could do that - is that God raised Jonah from the dead!   Whether from a physical death or certain spiritual death, this is certainly in keeping with the theme of resurrection for this book, and God’s power.  

Jonah himself tells about more than his being trapped in the fish’s belly.  He tells about his own life ebbing away, that he was “cast out of God’s sight,” that the “depth closed about him.”  Was that a physical death or a spiritual death – a black abyss and separation from God?  Either way he is saved.  Indeed, Jonah is redeemed.  He rejoices.  He expresses thankfulness for his salvation – his resurrection - to the Lord. 

            Jonah’s  rejoicing and thankfulness is what Em read in Chapter 2.   I believe Chapter 2 is one of the most beautiful prayers of thanksgiving in the Bible.  This entire prayer of thanksgiving teaches us of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

So we have Jonah reaching out – he cries out to the very God from whom he was running.  Jonah wants help.  He wants forgiveness.   Jonah wants life from the very God who wants to give life to his enemies.  Jonah says he appealed to that God, to His mercy.   It is during this time that he finally recognizes that salvation is of the Lord.  Salvation is God’s work for us.  Salvation was never and is never our work for God.  God cannot save us by our works, because the only thing that we can present to Him is our imperfection.  When we get saved, it is because salvation is of the Lord.    What a merciful God we have.

Through His mercy, God has changed Jonah’s mind.  The fish vomits Jonah onto dry land.  Jonah  vows that he will now go to Nineveh !  God deals with each of us in the way that is best for us to be changed.  I believe the vow God wants each of us to make is “I will listen to you.  I will obey you.  I will do your will.  Help me Lord!”

You and I do find our way to our own Tarshish, don’t we?  We can so immerse ourselves in this seemingly godless society that is all around us, as we run away from God.  And as we live our lives at jobs, our gyms, our own interests and activities quite possibly the name of God is never spoken except in profanity and the works of God are never talked about.  We can go in the opposite direction of worship, avoid all faith communities and faith learning.  We can black out God from our thoughts, our deeds, our devotion, our total view of the world.  We can forget about God and live in “Tarshish.”  That is not where God wanted Jonah.  That is not where God wants us.

            God, of course, is not absent even from such a place as Tarshish or even places like Ninevah.  God, who sustains each life and the order of the universe is never absent.  Sure, we can run away.  We can forget God and His word and works.  We can live as if He does not exist.  Yet God tells us that is not what God wants for us.  Certainly He wants our obedience. 

But God is not coerced by goodness or obedience, or repentance or piety or even by evil and disobedience.  It is in God’s overwhelming mercy and love that He wills to save.   As we will see in coming weeks, God wants to save our enemies.  He wants to save wicked people, declared enemies of God.   God also wants to save run aways.  Even if He needs to present a great puking fish, God also wants to save sulking, angry, stubborn, deluded, self-willed you and me.  He sent His Son Jesus for that incredible resurrection purpose of His boundless redeeming mercy and love for us.