God’s Way

 

“Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” Jonah 1:17.

Jonah was given a mission. He had to go to Nineveh and warn its inhabitants that their iniquity would bring God’s judgement upon them.

It is not easy to bring bad news or to preach the truth. Paul asks the Galatians, “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” Galatians 4:16. The truth can sometimes be like a double-edged sword. Jonah knew this and he tried to escape his responsibility. He took a ship that was sailing in the opposite direction from the one God had sent him.

His disobedience to God’s command was the reason for a terrible storm at sea that put in danger the life of many who were sailing on that ship. It often happens that when we do something contrary to God’s will, when we run in the opposite direction from God’s commandments, the consequences of our action ends up harming others. How careful we should be with the decisions we take daily in our life!

Jonah’s disobedience was a curse for many innocent people who were travelling in the ship. But that storm, that unexpected problem, turned the people’s eyes to heaven. Each one addressed his own god, which proved to be dead idols, that could do nothing to take them out of that terrible situation. Isaiah describes them as gods that have ears but do not hear, that have a mouth but do not talk.

When the people in the boat discovered that among them there was one who, instead of praying to his God was sleeping, the captain went to him and asked him; “What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will, think upon us, that we perish not.” Jonah 1:6.

When people are in a desperate situation, they try everything and finally they turn to the real God.
What kind of a God did Jonah have? They wanted to see whether maybe his God would do something. But for the true God there is no “maybe”. His promises are Yes, and Amen.

Jonah acknowledged his guilt. He had been disobedient to God and as a consequence he had put others in a very difficult situation. He was now ready to pay for his guilt and he asked the men to throw him into the sea.

Jonah, who at the beginning of the story appeared to be a coward, since he tried to run away from his responsibility because he did not want to bring bad news to the people, now takes the responsibility of his wrong decision upon himself. A real child of God may be weak, may fear and react cowardly, but at the end he will acknowledge his guilt. To recognize our fault requires sincerity, courage and humbleness.

“So they took Jonah and cast him forth into the sea; and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows.” This situation was a great experience for all those who were travelling on that ship. They came to the knowledge of the true God or at least so it seems.

“Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

What a terrible experience must have been to be swallowed up by a fish, probably a whale! Inside the belly of the fish it was dark, wet and slippery and in his despair, the prophet cries to the Lord. “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.” Jonah 2:2.

It often happens with us, when we act according to our own understanding, following our own feelings, that we have to face one problem after the other. Some of them make our life stormy and may lead us to despair. Different thoughts and emotions can rob us of our peace and at the end we may be swallowed up by an even greater problem that makes us forget all others and turn to God with our whole heart.

“Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. These were days of much meditation, exploration to God, solemn prayer from the darkness of his cell. Paul had also the experience of spending three days in total darkness before he could come to the knowledge of the true God of love and mercy.

Was God indifferent to what was happening to His child? Was the fish a punishment because Jonah had been disobedient? By no means! The fish was God’s way of salvation.

Jonah acknowledged that he was guilty for all that happened at sea, that his decision not to go to Nineveh had brought up the storm, endangering the life of both the crew and the passengers. But instead of praying to God and ask Him for forgiveness, He decided to pay for his own guilt, and be thrown into the sea. In the middle of the sea, the only thing that he expected was death, and “the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23.

Sometimes we are very hard on ourselves. We do not believe enough in God’s mercy and love; we forget the great sacrifice made for us at the cross of Calvary and we punish ourselves for our mistakes. The men said to Jonah: “What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us?” Jonah 1:11.

This question implies a condition to calm the sea. Something had to be done with Jonah. We have to remember that in pagan religions man had to offer sacrifices in order to calm the anger of the gods.

The story of the war of Troy between the Achaians and the Troyans is a clear example of this. Menelao, the king of Sparta, had captured the beautiful Helen, the wife of king Priam’s son, Paris. A war broke out between mainland Greece and the famous city in Asia Minor. When Agammenon, the king of Mycene, Menelao‘s brother, had all the ships and their crew ready to sail to Troy, there was no wind. This led him to sacrifice his own daughter Ifighenia to the gods so that the wind would blow.

To sacrifice people in order to calm the anger of the gods or get their favour was a daily ceremony among the pagans of the old times.

“What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us?” Jonah answered according to what the men expected from him. “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you; for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” Jonah 1:12. Does it sometimes happen to us that we act according to what we think others expect from us instead of according to what God expects from us?

The sea was a god, the Poseidon of the Greeks, the Neptune of the Romans, and according to those men’s belief, his anger could be abased only with a human sacrifice. Jonah, God’s prophet, God’s child, was among pagans and influenced by their way of thinking and belief. Instead of kneeling down and asking his heavenly Father for forgiveness, he decided to take the guilt upon himself and punish himself. He did not act according to his faith in a merciful God who can forgive all sins no matter how terrible they are when we just come to Him with a humble attitude and a contrite heart. Sometimes, it is already enough of a punishment to see the consequences of our sins before us, in some cases for our whole life.

Surely Adam suffered his whole life seeing how nature died out and man perished as a consequence of his almost insignificant act of disobedience, eating a fruit from the forbidden tree. There is no small or big sin for God. Every sin has a negative influence upon others, but every sin can be forgiven when repented of. Adam did not die, the Lamb of God died for him. Jesus died also for our sins, to set us free from our guilt. He paid a high price for our transgressions and disobedience.

Jonah was right, he deserved death, but he forgot that God and his Son had made a plan to set him free from the punishment and the guilt of his sins. His decision to follow the men’s expectations and be thrown into the sea was not the best testimony of a merciful God. The men “feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord….”, but were they really converted? Did they realize that the God of Jonah was merciful and forgiving or did they just think that He was more powerful than their gods and was satisfied with the human sacrifice offered to him?

Our merciful God did not want Jonah to die. That was not His purpose with His beloved child. He had prepared a fish to swallow him up. The fish was Jonah‘s salvation.

God can prepare for us a second great trial in order to save our life, when we get into trouble due to the way we act according to our reasoning and feelings instead of following His commands and living by faith. The fish was the result of Jonah’s second wrong decision: to be thrown into the sea, to take the punishment of his sin upon himself. It is incredible the problems that we can create in our own life when we try either to save or to punish ourselves.

May the Lord help us to understand His great mercy and keep our eyes fixed on Calvary.
AMEN

Teresa Corti