Jonah 3:1-5,10, Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 21, 2018.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
The calling of Jonah
There are no Christians who don't know the story of Jonah. Children in Sunday school listen to Jonah without any hesitation. Because the story is exciting. Jonah is a prophet. The book of Jonah followed his name. According to Jonah 1:1, Jonah is the son of Amittai. One day Jehovah spoke to him.“Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” It means that the judgment of God is coming. Jonah should have answered 'Amen' and obeyed it. But Jonah does strange things. Let's read John 1:3. "But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord" Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh, which God had said. Jonah tried to hide somewhere. Tarshish is the furthest place on Jewish soil.
Jonah's boat to Tarshish is a trading ship that goes around the Mediterranean Sea. The wind and waves have risen greatly. People threw things inside ships into the sea to make them lighter. That hasn't solved it. The fear of being sunk captivated both the crew and passengers. They eventually decided to pick people and throw them into the sea. Jonah won. They threw Jonah into the sea, the wind stopped, and the big fish swallowed her whole. Three days later, the fish vomited Jonah on land and Jonah survived. It's a fairy tale.
Jonah said she prayed to God for three days in the belly of the fish. It's in Chapter 2 because it's Yoga. It's a prayer from a very deep sigh. So the verse 2:5 is like this. "Water has brought me to my soul, and deep has surrounded me, and sea grass has wrapped my head." This is the seventh verse. "When my soul was tired in me, I thought of Jehovah, and my prayer came to you and went mad at the temple of the LORD." This means that Jonah was trapped in the darkness of his soul and gained new strength through him. Jesus once told the story of Jonah (Luke 11:29-32, Matt. 12:38-42). When people asked Jesus to show them a sign, Jesus said there was nothing to do but "the sign of Jonah." Jonah's sign refers to three days of captivity in a large fish's belly and then surviving.
God's compassion
Jonah says he'd rather die than feel bad about the Nineveh people being saved from extinction. For Jonah, the last thing God gave him was the verse 4:11. And it fully contains God's heart. "And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?"' The text cites the number of strangers living in Nineveh. Furthermore, livestock is mentioned. This includes the fact that God is the one who created them. The Jews rejected the Gentiles, but God couldn't let them. God is trying to save them. This is the momentum that the exclusive and selective salvation of Jews extends to the inclusive and universal salvation based on God's compassion and mercy.
Jonah, who has barely survived, takes the word of Jehovah again in verse 3:1. The message is to go to Nineveh and proclaim the word of Jehovah, just like the first one. Nineveh is an ancient city on the coast of the Tigris River, which is relatively close to the Jewish land where Jonah lived. It became a major city in Asshur since the 12th century of B.C. It was said that Sennacherib, king of Asshur, used it as the capital and became the most cinematic and prosperous city in the Middle and Near East at that time. This time Jonah obeyed to the word and went to Nineveh instead of course went to Nineveh. But Jonah's message is very dry. “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”' (Jonah 3:4). He didn't even explain what was wrong with the people of Nineveh. Jonah didn't say that if they repent then Jehovah would save them. This means that Jonah came to Nineveh after receiving the second word, but he never wanted to declare God's word.
Jonah had a lot of complaints from the start. He could not understand God's will. It's similar to Job's story. Job also made a mutterous remark toward God. Furthermore, both of them struggled to die. This is Job 3:11. 'Why didn't I come out of my womb dead or why didn't I die when my mother broke up?' these expressions are repeated It's Job 7:15. "I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine." Jonah has a similar sigh in the fish's stomach. It's 4:3. "Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." Jonah says that again in verse 4:8. "It would be better for me to die than to live." Job and Jonah said in different circumstances, but the meaning is the same. It means that I am dying because I cannot understand God's will.
God's repentance
Job's feelings are understandable to us. It was hard to accept that even though he wasn't guilty, he encountered a catastrophic event and was sympathetic to and condemned by his friends. Jonah's case is a little different. According to section 4:1, Jonah is "very angry and angry." You can see what the reason is in the preceding passage, section 3:10.
When God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil ways, he did not bring down the disaster that God had said to them, "Go back to your will."
If the people of Nineveh had turned away from the evil ways so that God would not bring about the disaster he was about to bring down on Nineveh, Jonah, as a prophet who went to Nineveh and delivered the word, had to rejoice, because it was the result of the proclamation of God But Jonah was rather angry. God tried to persuade Jonah not to be angry, but she insisted. I'm not even sure if Jonah has collected her claims later. Why is Jonah so stubborn?
I often see people in 21st century Korean churches with similar attitudes to Jonah. They claim a self-righteous salvation view. They insist that there is no salvation outside the church. Furthermore, there is no salvation in the Roman Catholic Church, and there is no salvation in other Protestant churches. They are often accused of others being a liberal. The libertarians they speak of are the ones who cannot be saved. The closer they get to pseudo heterodoxy, the stronger they become to the closed of salvation. The so-called "Shincheonji" claims that the 144,000 people in the book of Revelation belong to their sect. The common practice of people falling into this closed, dogmatic and exclusive salvation is that they get angry and hate the way they live, even if their faith is a little different from theirs.
Jews in the Jonah era thought that God only gave the Jews grace and salvation. All strangers must be judged. But the Nineveh people suddenly became the ones who were saved by God. So Jonah had to say it was better to die than to accept this. It's similar to people who criticize homosexuals and those who demand alternative military service. Passion toward God can be reduced to madness. The difference between a prophet and a false prophet is also a piece of paper. It's not that Jonah is a false prophet. He tried to tell the Gentiles that God's salvation was declared and practiced, even through the performance he was destroying. In this respect, he is a real prophet.
Jonah explained this through theological concept, which is hard to accept as a Jew. In Jonah 3:10, he said, 'God changes his mind.' The attributes of God that we know are eternal. Paul also confessed that God had chosen him before eternity. Calvin said more famous things. "God has already double-scheduled those to be chosen by God and those to be abandoned by God." The tradition of the Exodus says God has been stubborn the heart of Pharaoh, Egypt's most powerful man. It was an unacceptable argument in the Jonah era that God, almighty and eternal, changed his mind in the middle. Jonah has now made a bold declaration of that enormous argument. It's revolutionary. Such a declaration would not have been easy to accept at the time.
Some of you may want to emphasize that the Nineveh people have repented in this story. It's not that important. If it were important, Jonah would not get angry, but rather cheer. The key point here is that God changes his will to save even the Gentiles. The basis for God's change of heart is his compassion. It was also the compassion of the person who recorded Jonah. And that's what we need today.
If the Gentiles can be saved, they can say that Jews, as God's chosen people, do not have to obey the law. In our case, it's possible to argue that you don't have to come to church now. These refutations come from still not knowing God's grace and mercy. More fundamentally, it's because it misunderstands redemption. Salvation is only God's remit, and is therefore given according to his will, not by our efforts. All we can do is do our best to save everyone. We have to hold on to the fact that God can change his mind, even if there are people who are forced to be ostracized, such as those who are shameless or have acted against humanity. And that's what we have to do. I'll explain in two ways what it's like to be.
The depth of universal salvation
One is the social dimension. The world in which we live said, 'You are excluded from salvation.' operates in a way. It's sociologically a otherizing phenomenon. Think about school education. School education is conducted in such a way as to exclude students who cannot study or cause problems. They are treated like strangers. The number of students who passed Seoul National University is evaluated by high school. Not just education, but society is being tamed in this way. These days, young people with school education and social experience view North Korea as having decided to participate in the PyeongChang Olympics. We're otherizing them in. These days, it's less, but not so long ago, there were a lot of people who said, "They're pro-North Korean leftists, so we shouldn't deal with them." They think inwardly that stranger can't be saved, I can't accept that happening, and I'd rather die than accept it. They don't say I'm going to die on the outside, but think it in their mind. On the other hand, the text says that God also changes his meaning. What an amazing declaration? The Church should take the lead in expanding this amazing manifesto to the world. If you're a person who actually believes in God, of course you should.
The other one is on a personal level. We're tamed by the way we deny the lives of strangers in our lives. The legal life has stuck in our lives. The idea of being unhappy when I'm poor completely dominates me. This idea pushes our lives through a very narrow gap. Like Jonah, there are many things that modern people hate and get angry They can't stand the sight of strangers in their lives. These days, as I get older, I feel that I should never do anything compared to other people. Because everyone has their own depth and fragrance of life. Life doesn't make sense only when it's like any other. In the case of a pastor, you don't have to have a big church pastoral to have a sense of meaning and pride. As long as you are ready to serve God, the big church is the big one, and the small church is the small one, and everything is the best and its pinnacle. So is your life. If you're in bad health, you're in bad shape, you're out of money, you're out of education, you have your unique depth of life. If we miss that depth of life and become strangers, our lives will be destroyed. God will accept your life not by the standards of men but by the standards of God, so let your heart rest.
It's not vague or romantic, it's real. For God is a man who is turning his will for us, and the light of salvation shines on us in an unexpected situation. No matter how dark it may seem, the light of salvation comes without fail. To give you a very extreme example, if a person diagnosed with terminal cancer lived a life-sufficient life in a nursing home for the rest of his life, he was the one who entered the light of salvation in life. Even before we fall into such extreme situations, we can experience the light of salvation. Just as God's salvation was in Nineveh.
What we need here is to realize and experience the holy compassion and mercy of God. That's what the writer of Jonah was trying to convey. Hold God's compassion for those who cannot discern the right or the left and the livestock, and God's mercy for them to change his will. If you actually do that, you'll see that the world and your life are filled with completely new light, just as the sounders feel in their own good. And that light we experienced most specifically through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the son of God, who has changed his will to save us from extinction. Those who believe in him will taste the light of life through God's holy compassion and mercy.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
The calling of Jonah
There are no Christians who don't know the story of Jonah. Children in Sunday school listen to Jonah without any hesitation. Because the story is exciting. Jonah is a prophet. The book of Jonah followed his name. According to Jonah 1:1, Jonah is the son of Amittai. One day Jehovah spoke to him.“Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” It means that the judgment of God is coming. Jonah should have answered 'Amen' and obeyed it. But Jonah does strange things. Let's read John 1:3. "But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord" Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh, which God had said. Jonah tried to hide somewhere. Tarshish is the furthest place on Jewish soil.
Jonah's boat to Tarshish is a trading ship that goes around the Mediterranean Sea. The wind and waves have risen greatly. People threw things inside ships into the sea to make them lighter. That hasn't solved it. The fear of being sunk captivated both the crew and passengers. They eventually decided to pick people and throw them into the sea. Jonah won. They threw Jonah into the sea, the wind stopped, and the big fish swallowed her whole. Three days later, the fish vomited Jonah on land and Jonah survived. It's a fairy tale.
Jonah said she prayed to God for three days in the belly of the fish. It's in Chapter 2 because it's Yoga. It's a prayer from a very deep sigh. So the verse 2:5 is like this. "Water has brought me to my soul, and deep has surrounded me, and sea grass has wrapped my head." This is the seventh verse. "When my soul was tired in me, I thought of Jehovah, and my prayer came to you and went mad at the temple of the LORD." This means that Jonah was trapped in the darkness of his soul and gained new strength through him. Jesus once told the story of Jonah (Luke 11:29-32, Matt. 12:38-42). When people asked Jesus to show them a sign, Jesus said there was nothing to do but "the sign of Jonah." Jonah's sign refers to three days of captivity in a large fish's belly and then surviving.
God's compassion
Jonah says he'd rather die than feel bad about the Nineveh people being saved from extinction. For Jonah, the last thing God gave him was the verse 4:11. And it fully contains God's heart. "And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?"' The text cites the number of strangers living in Nineveh. Furthermore, livestock is mentioned. This includes the fact that God is the one who created them. The Jews rejected the Gentiles, but God couldn't let them. God is trying to save them. This is the momentum that the exclusive and selective salvation of Jews extends to the inclusive and universal salvation based on God's compassion and mercy.
Jonah, who has barely survived, takes the word of Jehovah again in verse 3:1. The message is to go to Nineveh and proclaim the word of Jehovah, just like the first one. Nineveh is an ancient city on the coast of the Tigris River, which is relatively close to the Jewish land where Jonah lived. It became a major city in Asshur since the 12th century of B.C. It was said that Sennacherib, king of Asshur, used it as the capital and became the most cinematic and prosperous city in the Middle and Near East at that time. This time Jonah obeyed to the word and went to Nineveh instead of course went to Nineveh. But Jonah's message is very dry. “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”' (Jonah 3:4). He didn't even explain what was wrong with the people of Nineveh. Jonah didn't say that if they repent then Jehovah would save them. This means that Jonah came to Nineveh after receiving the second word, but he never wanted to declare God's word.
Jonah had a lot of complaints from the start. He could not understand God's will. It's similar to Job's story. Job also made a mutterous remark toward God. Furthermore, both of them struggled to die. This is Job 3:11. 'Why didn't I come out of my womb dead or why didn't I die when my mother broke up?' these expressions are repeated It's Job 7:15. "I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine." Jonah has a similar sigh in the fish's stomach. It's 4:3. "Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." Jonah says that again in verse 4:8. "It would be better for me to die than to live." Job and Jonah said in different circumstances, but the meaning is the same. It means that I am dying because I cannot understand God's will.
God's repentance
Job's feelings are understandable to us. It was hard to accept that even though he wasn't guilty, he encountered a catastrophic event and was sympathetic to and condemned by his friends. Jonah's case is a little different. According to section 4:1, Jonah is "very angry and angry." You can see what the reason is in the preceding passage, section 3:10.
When God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil ways, he did not bring down the disaster that God had said to them, "Go back to your will."
If the people of Nineveh had turned away from the evil ways so that God would not bring about the disaster he was about to bring down on Nineveh, Jonah, as a prophet who went to Nineveh and delivered the word, had to rejoice, because it was the result of the proclamation of God But Jonah was rather angry. God tried to persuade Jonah not to be angry, but she insisted. I'm not even sure if Jonah has collected her claims later. Why is Jonah so stubborn?
I often see people in 21st century Korean churches with similar attitudes to Jonah. They claim a self-righteous salvation view. They insist that there is no salvation outside the church. Furthermore, there is no salvation in the Roman Catholic Church, and there is no salvation in other Protestant churches. They are often accused of others being a liberal. The libertarians they speak of are the ones who cannot be saved. The closer they get to pseudo heterodoxy, the stronger they become to the closed of salvation. The so-called "Shincheonji" claims that the 144,000 people in the book of Revelation belong to their sect. The common practice of people falling into this closed, dogmatic and exclusive salvation is that they get angry and hate the way they live, even if their faith is a little different from theirs.
Jews in the Jonah era thought that God only gave the Jews grace and salvation. All strangers must be judged. But the Nineveh people suddenly became the ones who were saved by God. So Jonah had to say it was better to die than to accept this. It's similar to people who criticize homosexuals and those who demand alternative military service. Passion toward God can be reduced to madness. The difference between a prophet and a false prophet is also a piece of paper. It's not that Jonah is a false prophet. He tried to tell the Gentiles that God's salvation was declared and practiced, even through the performance he was destroying. In this respect, he is a real prophet.
Jonah explained this through theological concept, which is hard to accept as a Jew. In Jonah 3:10, he said, 'God changes his mind.' The attributes of God that we know are eternal. Paul also confessed that God had chosen him before eternity. Calvin said more famous things. "God has already double-scheduled those to be chosen by God and those to be abandoned by God." The tradition of the Exodus says God has been stubborn the heart of Pharaoh, Egypt's most powerful man. It was an unacceptable argument in the Jonah era that God, almighty and eternal, changed his mind in the middle. Jonah has now made a bold declaration of that enormous argument. It's revolutionary. Such a declaration would not have been easy to accept at the time.
Some of you may want to emphasize that the Nineveh people have repented in this story. It's not that important. If it were important, Jonah would not get angry, but rather cheer. The key point here is that God changes his will to save even the Gentiles. The basis for God's change of heart is his compassion. It was also the compassion of the person who recorded Jonah. And that's what we need today.
If the Gentiles can be saved, they can say that Jews, as God's chosen people, do not have to obey the law. In our case, it's possible to argue that you don't have to come to church now. These refutations come from still not knowing God's grace and mercy. More fundamentally, it's because it misunderstands redemption. Salvation is only God's remit, and is therefore given according to his will, not by our efforts. All we can do is do our best to save everyone. We have to hold on to the fact that God can change his mind, even if there are people who are forced to be ostracized, such as those who are shameless or have acted against humanity. And that's what we have to do. I'll explain in two ways what it's like to be.
The depth of universal salvation
One is the social dimension. The world in which we live said, 'You are excluded from salvation.' operates in a way. It's sociologically a otherizing phenomenon. Think about school education. School education is conducted in such a way as to exclude students who cannot study or cause problems. They are treated like strangers. The number of students who passed Seoul National University is evaluated by high school. Not just education, but society is being tamed in this way. These days, young people with school education and social experience view North Korea as having decided to participate in the PyeongChang Olympics. We're otherizing them in. These days, it's less, but not so long ago, there were a lot of people who said, "They're pro-North Korean leftists, so we shouldn't deal with them." They think inwardly that stranger can't be saved, I can't accept that happening, and I'd rather die than accept it. They don't say I'm going to die on the outside, but think it in their mind. On the other hand, the text says that God also changes his meaning. What an amazing declaration? The Church should take the lead in expanding this amazing manifesto to the world. If you're a person who actually believes in God, of course you should.
The other one is on a personal level. We're tamed by the way we deny the lives of strangers in our lives. The legal life has stuck in our lives. The idea of being unhappy when I'm poor completely dominates me. This idea pushes our lives through a very narrow gap. Like Jonah, there are many things that modern people hate and get angry They can't stand the sight of strangers in their lives. These days, as I get older, I feel that I should never do anything compared to other people. Because everyone has their own depth and fragrance of life. Life doesn't make sense only when it's like any other. In the case of a pastor, you don't have to have a big church pastoral to have a sense of meaning and pride. As long as you are ready to serve God, the big church is the big one, and the small church is the small one, and everything is the best and its pinnacle. So is your life. If you're in bad health, you're in bad shape, you're out of money, you're out of education, you have your unique depth of life. If we miss that depth of life and become strangers, our lives will be destroyed. God will accept your life not by the standards of men but by the standards of God, so let your heart rest.
It's not vague or romantic, it's real. For God is a man who is turning his will for us, and the light of salvation shines on us in an unexpected situation. No matter how dark it may seem, the light of salvation comes without fail. To give you a very extreme example, if a person diagnosed with terminal cancer lived a life-sufficient life in a nursing home for the rest of his life, he was the one who entered the light of salvation in life. Even before we fall into such extreme situations, we can experience the light of salvation. Just as God's salvation was in Nineveh.
What we need here is to realize and experience the holy compassion and mercy of God. That's what the writer of Jonah was trying to convey. Hold God's compassion for those who cannot discern the right or the left and the livestock, and God's mercy for them to change his will. If you actually do that, you'll see that the world and your life are filled with completely new light, just as the sounders feel in their own good. And that light we experienced most specifically through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the son of God, who has changed his will to save us from extinction. Those who believe in him will taste the light of life through God's holy compassion and mercy.
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