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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
One Sunday last October, our Education Hour focused on the Old Testament account of Jonah, especially the intended repentance of the Ninevites at the accounts’ end. However, as we tonight consider Jonah as our fourth “snapshot of repentance”, our attention is directed to the account’s beginning where we find what appears to be the resulting repentance of both Jonah and the crew of mariners on board the ship going to Tarshish. Like our other “snapshots of repentance” this Lenten season, this account tonight provides us examples of both repentance and forgiveness of sins, examples that not only instruct us about our repentance over our sin but also comfort us as God forgives our sin by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
We do not have to know all the historical context and details to get the basic idea that the word of the Lord told the prophet Jonah (confer 2 Kings 14:25) to go east to Nineveh, in order to call that great city to repent, but instead Jonah went the opposite direction, in order to flee at least from the Lord’s commission to preach to Nineveh, if not also from the very presence of the Lord Himself. Other prophets might have shrunk from their calls and protested them, but the Bible records only Jonah’s at first refusing the call as he does, trying to travel almost out of the world, paying the fare to go by ship to the at-that-time westernmost city of the known world. And that, Jewish Jonah says later, all because he knew that God was gracious and merciful and so would relent from the disaster that threatened the Gentile Ninevites when they repented (Jonah 4:2).
Does what Jonah thought, said, and did seem familiar? All too often we think, speak, and do similarly. The Word of the Lord tells us what to do, but instead we may do the opposite. We may think that we can and so try to avoid the judgment of the Lord, maybe by staying away from church and the Bible. We may know that God is gracious and merciful and relents from threatened disasters when people repent, but, like Jonah, for whatever reason, we may not want other people to be forgiven. Maybe we ourselves cannot forgive what other people have done to us in the past, maybe we are afraid of what they might do to us in the future, or maybe we think that, if God forgives them, then we might lose what we might think of as our special relationship that we have with God, or our special place in His Church or in this congregation.
As we heard, the Lord hurled a great wind, a mighty tempest, upon the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Jonah’s actions apparently had put the lives of others at risk! The frightened crew of mariners knew enough from nature that something was wrong, and so they tried to resolve it, first by crying out to their own gods and, when their false religions did not work, by hurling the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. The ship’s captain ordered Jonah to call out to his god on the off chance that he might care and keep them from perishing. The captain and crew cared more for Jonah than Jonah cared for anyone else! When the Lord worked through the crew’s casting of lots (Proverbs 16:33) to reveal Jonah as the one on whose account the evil had come upon them, the Lord finally brought forth from Jonah a confession of both Jonah’s sin and Who the Lord was. Jonah told the crew that they needed to hurl him into the sea, the crew tried to row back to dry land, but the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. With some sort of repentance and faith, the crew was then led to call out to the Lord, arguably confessing their sin of hurling Jonah into the sea and seeking the Lord’s forgiveness for doing so. God likewise works to bring forth from us confessions of both our sin and Who He is, and, when we so confess, then He forgives us our sin—all of it, whatever it may be—for Jesus’s sake.
The Divinely-inspired account of Jonah does not say, and commentators, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, debate what Jonah was thinking would happen to him after the crew hurled him into the sea. Was Jonah’s surely certain death another attempt to flee from the Lord’s commission to preach at Nineveh? Or, did Jonah recognize death as a consequence of any and all sin and just try to bring it about sooner rather than later? Or, was Jonah consciously acting to save the ship’s crew and captain, giving his life to death so that they would not die? Could Jonah even have trusted that the Lord would deliver him somehow? Of course, if you know the account, you know that the Lord did deliver Jonah! The next verse tells how the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah and that Jonah was in the belly of the fish at least parts of three days and three nights. Jonah is the only prophet Jesus specifically likens Himself to, and it is those three days and three nights that are the point of comparison. Jesus takes the account of Jonah literally and confirms its historicity! As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, Jesus says, so the Son of Man, Jesus Himself, would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:39; 16:4; Luke 11:29). But, Jesus is greater than Jonah! Jonah may have acted to save the ship’s crew and captain, but Jesus acted to save the whole world, Jew and Gentile alike! Jonah deserved death himself, but Jesus had done nothing deserving death. Jesus went to the cross for the sins of the whole world, including your sins and mine. Unlike the ship’s captain, we do not have to wonder about God’s disposition toward us: He more than gives a thought to us; He loves us, and He gave His son to die for us. Jesus was our substitute: He died so that we do not have to die, and, because He rose again, we know that we also will rise again.
Strikingly, the Lord then used even the sinful but forgiven prophet Jonah’s words in order to bring the crew of mariners to faith, and, in expounding the book of Jonah, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther even saw, in Jonah’s taking sole responsibility for the tempest that had come upon them, Jonah’s absolving the crew (AE 19:58, 65). Just so the Lord today uses sinful but forgiven pastors to read and preach His Word, to baptize, to individually absolve, and to distribute Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. Not the waters of the sea that covered Jonah, but, as we sang in the Office Hymn (Lutheran Service Book 616), baptismal waters cover us as we plead for God’s mercy in seeking individual Holy Absolution, feeling the Lord’s hand and hearing the Lord’s voice through the Pastor’s. Our daily contrition and repentance drowns and kills our “Old Adams” (our sinful natures) so that a “new man” (a redeemed nature) daily emerges and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity forever (Small Catechism IV:12). As food for body and soul through this life to the next, we seek and receive bread that is Jesus’s Body and wine that is Jesus’s Blood, which our Opening Hymn (LSB 433) called “precious” and described as having grace and life eternal.
After the sea ceased from its raging, the crew of mariners feared the Lord exceedingly, offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. The whole thing had been a learning experience for them, as it also was for Jonah, and as the “snapshot of repentance” that is Jonah and our afflictions also are learning experiences for us. We obey willingly or bow unwillingly (AE 19:46). We do not try to flee from what God’s Word tells us to do but, repenting and believing, we live under His law and His Gospel, His judgment and His salvation, sharing His and our forgiveness with those with whom the Holy Spirit brings us into contact. As we will in the Closing Hymn (LSB 883:6), we invite them to join us in praising the God from Whom we cannot flee but Who is with us to save us from the heights of the skies to the depths of the seas (Psalm 139:7, 9-10).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +