By: Curtis Baker
One of my favorite childhood memories is the year we got to enter the big fish during our Vacation Bible School. We had a number of very creative people in my home congregation, and during that particular year’s VBS they had figured out how to create a large fish out plastic. At the base end of the fish was a giant fan that blew up the plastic fish into a small dome. With great delight, we children got to learn about the story of Jonah as we listened to our teacher from inside the fish’s extended belly.
The story of Jonah and the fish has long been a story that has captured the imagination of children. To envision a man living inside the belly of a fish for three days is enough to send any child’s mind into a frenzy of delight. Myself, I remember picture books of Jonah inside the belly, with a small oil lamp to see by. That picture doesn’t represent reality very well, but it was part of the fun of imagining what that experience must have truly been like.
But as captivating as that story is for children, we should not make the mistake of assuming this is a story for children. No, as a matter of fact, it is a very adult story.
There are several things worth noting about the book of Jonah from the very outset of our study. First, the book of Jonah is unique among the prophetic writings in the fact that it is a story. It is the only book among the prophets which presents itself in the form of a narrative. Most prophetic writings come in the form of poetry or oracles.
Second, the book of Jonah is a story of a prophet who does not want to carry out his ordained task. Rather than preaching to his own people, as most of the other prophets are called to do, God has asked Jonah to go and preach to the city of Nineveh, which happened to be the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire. Jonah has no desire to do this. At the outset of the story we are not altogether clear as to why Jonah refuses this task. Given the reputation that Assyrians had among the nations of the Ancient Near East, one wouldn’t be surprised to find out Jonah was simply afraid to preach to this wicked people. Next week we’ll discover the motivation is a bit more complicated.
But in the mean time, we want to pay attention to the other important elements of the story. Jonah’s reticence turns into action when he actually tries to flee from God. Rather than traveling east toward Nineveh, Jonah takes a ship going in the completely opposite direction. The text tells us he was fleeing toward “Tarshish,” which some say was the Greek city of “Tartessos,” which was found in southern Spain. If that is indeed true, Jonah is trying to flee to the farthest known spot in the world at that time. He is literally running to the ends of earth to escape God.
But as the story continues to unfold, we discover God cannot be escaped. Unlike the local gods of the ancient pagan world, Jonah served the God who was the creator of the whole heavens and earth. There is nowhere to flee from this God. When his fellow sailors discovered this truth, they were forced to throw Jonah overboard to calm the great storm that God had sent against their ship. It is at this point in the story that Jonah enters the great fish that we hear so much about, and spends the next three days contemplating his actions.
It is often assumed that the great fish is God’s judgment on Jonah for being disobedient. But a close reading of chapter 2 will quickly dispel that. The fish is not judgment…it is salvation. Jonah was going to drown in the sea, but the fish swallowed him up and eventually delivered him on dry ground. As we will come to see next week, this reoriented Jonah’s motivation in a profound way. But we have not seen the last of Jonah’s trouble with God. The most adult part of the story is still yet to come.
(Don’t forget to join me for A Message From the Heart radio program Sunday evening at 8:00pm on KJAK 92.7FM, or streaming live at www.kjak.com)
(curtisbaker@hotmail.com)
Write to: P.O. Box 157, Slaton, TX 79364
