August 14th 2022
Jonah 2: 1 - 11
Luke 11: 29 - 32
The sign of Jonah
"This generation asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah."
This is the second week of our summer mini-series on Jonah. Last week I suggested you might read the book all through and spend some time on reflecting how God might be speaking to you through it. I hope some of you have managed to do that. It not, there's always this week! Last week we were talking about comedy, and how God can use laughter as a way of puncturing our false sense of pride. I suggested that Jonah is a comic character, who can give us a mirror into our own soul. God’s Holy Spirit can speak to us through this story to remind us what God is like, and what it is to be human in God's world.
This week I'd like to focus on what Jesus calls "the sign of Jonah." We heard about this in our gospel passage today: in Luke chapter eleven we hear Jesus speaking out in righteous anger, against those who ignore and wilfully misunderstand him. Jesus has been calling people to repent and turn their lives around just like Jonah did, and yet this generation Jesus, says, is even more hard hearted and resistant to change than even the people of Ninevah, of Jonah's day.
Jesus quotes the Jonah story to highlight a scandal - Ninevah – part of present day Iraq - a Gentile, non Jewish city, turned to God - and yet, Jesus says, the people of Galilee who have firsthand experience now of Jesus - his healing, his forgiveness, his sharing of the Kingdom in word and deed - they still turn their backs. They still say no to the good news Jesus has come to announce. This is the stubborn resistance of sin that coolly looks God in the face and says, no thank you very much. No wonder Jesus is frustrated.
And yet, as Jesus says of himself "one greater than Jonah is here." How fascinating to hear Jesus’s reflections on the very book of Jonah we are studying today.
It reminds us that what we call "The Old Testament" were the scriptures of Jesus. The books of the law, the prophets, the wisdom writings and psalms - for Jesus, these were the holy scriptures, which he would listen to being read aloud in the synagogue and which formed his as a faithful Jew, and through which he came to understand his calling to be God's Chosen One. In a very real sense, reading the Old Testament can help us draw close to Jesus. We can allow the stories that shaped him to shape us.
Jesus is frustrated at the stubborn refusal of the people of Galilee to respond to the Good News – their refusal to repent. No sign will be given them, Jesus says, "except the sign of Jonah." The sign of Jonah. What does Jesus mean?
Let's rewind to Jonah chapter two. You’ll remember Jonah has run away from God, joined a ship and been thrown overboard, and swallowed by this giant sea creature.
Last week we were talking about what kind of writing the Book of Jonah is: that it is best understood as a short story that tells us truths about God, rather than as a record of historical events. If you've read Jonah this last week, you'll have noticed that chapter two, the one we heard read to us today - is different from the others. Chapters one, three and four are full of action and incident, but chapter two slows right down, and the tone changes too, becomes more serious. From inside the belly of the whale Jonah prays to God, a prayer of thanksgiving. It's a beautiful poetic passage, very like one of the psalms.
If you read the psalms - and I hope you do, they're a great aid to prayer - you'll know that often the psalms seem to switch mode half way through. The psalmist often starts off praying about the struggles of life - how God seems far off, how the psalmist's enemies seem to have the upper hand - and then as the psalm unfolds, the psalmist comes to a sense of God's redeeming love. Very often we find there's a movement in the psalm, from darkness toward light, from looking inward at oneself, to looking outward towards God.
And that's what we find here. Jonah has been on a journey downwards, away from God, onto the ship where he sleeps below deck, then down into the deep waters of the sea. In the world of Hebrew thought the sea a terrifying place, was the place of chaos. We read in verse “The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head." The vivid words of Jonah's prayer remind us of our experience of being in the depths, the depths of despair, at an all time low. And yet even at this point at which he is apparently beyond the reach of God, God's saving love provides the pivotal point which turns everything around. "You brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God." Jonah's prayer ends on a note of confident faith. "Salvation comes from the Lord."
So what we have is a movement down and a movement up. Jonah falls into the sea, into the mouth of the whale, and then is spewed up again onto dry land. Jonah travels inwardly into the depths of despair, and then upward to a realisation of God’s saving love. It's as though Jonah's falling and at his lowest point God catches him and lifts him up. This is what Jesus means by the sign of Jonah: the journey downwards, that God turns into a journey upwards.
Jesus by know knows that this will be his destiny. "The Son of Man must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things.... and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."
The disciples are shocked when Jesus unveils this programme to them. Who wouldn't be? We all like to play on the winning team. We say "Nothing succeeds like success." Jesus is telling us something truly unexpected. He wants us to know that success and salvation are not the same thing, but two very different things. Jesus does not come to assure us of human success. Jesus comes to assure us, rather, of God’s salvation.
Jesus will become a living sign, the sign of Jonah, he will take the journey downwards, the journey downwards of Gethsemene and Calvary and the tomb hewn out of the rock. He will undertake this journey downwards out of love for God's world, to show its full measure, the love that gives all and spares nothing. He will lie in the cold tomb for three days, just as Jonah was entombed in the belly of the whale. And just as God brought Jonah on a journey upwards so it will be for Jesus. The journey downwards of the cross becomes the journey upwards of being raised to new life with God.
The journey down becomes the journey up. Cross gives way to resurrection. This is the way God saving love works for us. This is the sign of Jonah, and it becomes the sign for every Christian. It's the sign we receive at our baptism: we are raised from the waters into the resurrection life that Christ has won for us. It becomes the pattern for our lives - dying to self and being raised to God through Christ's saving love. Not once and for all, but time and time again. That's the deal.
So often we forget this. We expect everything we do in God’s name to be a success and are surprised when our plans don’t work out as we had hoped. God does not promise us success. God promises us salvation. And there is no salvation without the journey down before the journey up. Our lives are marked by the sign of Jonah.
You have brought my life out of the pit, O Lord my God. Salvation belongs to the Lord.