Tuesday
The
book of Jonah (which we are studying this week) is unique in that it is
not primarily a record of the prophets words, but of the prophets
interactions with God. It is a story told in four parts/four chapters.
In chapter 1, Jonah runs from God because he does not want to go to
Nineveh. This chapter ends with Jonah being thrown overboard during a
terrible storm at sea, and being swallowed by a great fish (sent by
God). In chapter 2, Jonah prays. In fact, there is no plot action at
all in this chapter, it is just Jonah’s prayer, but what a great prayer
it is! He cries out to God from the belly of a fish in the depths of
the sea...and there in the depth, God hears Jonah. He hears him and
loves him and refuses to let him go. So God causes the fish to spit
Jonah back onto dry land, and Jonah is rescued from his own sin and
death.
God
is up to some great things in the life of Jonah, so it shouldn’t be too
hard to imagine what Jonah must now be thinking. “Ah-ha! I’m alive.
I’m covered in fish vomit, but I’m alive. God heard my prayer and he
saved me. I should do something about this. I should write this down, I
should write my spiritual memoirs, I’ll call it ‘Tuesdays with Jonah.’
But heck, why stop with just the story. I should build a church, right
here where God delivered me, on the beach. Beautiful location, there’s
lots of parking— wouldn’t that be a miracle. I’ll call it the Church of
Whales, because that won’t be at all confusing. And we’ll do baptisms
by throwing people off boats, and we’ll have testimonies from pagan
sailors,” and on and on and on...
It’s
not hard to imagine that Jonah wants to get started on his new life. He
wants to forget about all his past disobedience and move on to the
bigger and better things, which is where we pick up our story from Jonah
...Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the
great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” - Jonah 3:1-2
Does
that sound like God has moved on to bigger and better things? Not at
all. God has not moved on. God is not going to just forget it. God
calls Jonah a second time, “Jonah, I want you to go to the great city of
Nineveh.” Do you notice that the focus in the call of Jonah is not
really on the message (yet), it is on the word “GO”?
Unfortunately,
all too often we focus solely on the opposite word, “Stop.” I know too
many Christians who think God’s primary focus is for them to stop doing
this, stop doing that, stop, stop, stop. I hear this all the time when
people tell their story of coming to faith, and they say something like,
“I gave my life to Jesus and then I stopped...” and then give me the
list of sins they’ve tried to put off.
Don’t
misunderstand this, it’s a really, really good thing to put off habits
and behaviors that are sinful or harmful or not of God. But the heart of
Christian discipleship is not the word stop. If it was, we’d all be
better off just staying home and hiding in the basement. The heart of
Christian discipleship is the word “GO.”
When
God calls Abraham, he says, I want you to leave behind your city, your
family, your stuff.... and “Go.” When God calls Moses, I want you to
stop being a shepherd in Midian and “Go” back to Egypt. After his
resurrection, Jesus told his followers, “Just as the Father sent me, I am sending you.” In other words, “GO!”
At
the heart of Christianity there is a movement, an outward focus, a
going that we can easily forget as we face the demands of our lives, but
God doesn’t forget why he has called and saved Jonah... to go...And
where is Jonah called to go? To Nineveh, which, as you know, is not a
good place to be going.
God
says, “That’s where we are going.” And when you get there, God says, I
have a new message for you. If you remember back to the first time God
called Jonah, he told him to “Go to the great city of Nineveh” and
what... “Preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before
me.”
And
Nineveh, indeed, was a horrible place. This is the empire whose armies
ravaged the northern tribes of Israel and left the dead bodies piled up
along the roads. If any city in the world at that time deserved judgment
from a holy God, it would be Nineveh. But now God says, “Go to the
great city of Nineveh” and what... “Proclaim to it the message I give
you.”
Now
I don’t think this means God is getting soft on sin. But God is telling
Jonah, “I still want you to go to the Nineveh, but when you get there I
want you to stop and listen closely to me, because I have a particular
message for the people of Nineveh, one that you might not expect... one
that you might not come up with on your own... one that might surprise
you... because God is up to something great.
And so Jonah goes...and so we too go where God leads and speak the message God gives us - The Gospel!
Jeff Frazier
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