Jonah 3 - New Perspective
Jonah 3
Dear Friends,
After spending three days and nights inside a watery, claustrophobic tomb, praying and crying out to the God he still believed in, Jonah was vomited out of that big fish and onto a beach. I can imagine him kissing the earth in gratitude to be alive, raising his arms up high and stretching out his sore back. Stumbling from hunger and seasickness, he looked around, hoping to find a nearby village he could rest in to reorient himself. As he settled into a local inn, he heard that word from God about Nineveh once again: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
I wonder if he felt new excitement about this second chance at life that God had given him, regardless of this old word from God. And as he began traveling, I bet he was full of praise and hope for those first few days. But as those days of traveling turned into a week, his excitement and fervor shifted. He had the message from God, but with every step he took, he remembered who this message was to go to—the most grotesquely violent people who certainly didn’t deserve mercy.
He probably turned around a dozen times throughout that month of travel, arguing with God the whole time.
Jonah had a message from the Lord, and since he was a prophet he would bring the message to the people because that was his job and he was given mercy from God.
When you read the other prophets and their writings of their messages from the Lord, they are long and filled with flowery language. Their prophesies contains specific details, weaving poetry, allegory, and stories together for the people. Some prophets even participated in guerrilla-type theater for dramatic affect and to make a point. But for Jonah, he probably spent his entire travels cutting God’s message down to the bare minimum, strategically sabotaging God’s words. He wondered, “How can I say what needs to be said with the least amount of words necessary.”
By the time Jonah arrived, he had perfected this message to five Hebrew words. He walked around the city for a few days and, like a broken record without any dramatic flair he announced, “In forty days Nineveh will be overthrown.”
Jonah didn’t mention God.
He didn’t mention why they would be overthrown.
He didn’t give details about what they should do to NOT get overthrown.
Or who would overthrow them.
But the king of Assyria took this brief message incredibly seriously. He stepped off of his throne, away from his authority and hierarchy and power to sit in the dirt. Sitting in the dirt gives a person a whole new perspective. You see the world differently and what matters most in the dirt. This king, covered in dirt and ash, then commanded his people and animals to do the same—to cover themselves with goat hair and stop eating or drinking anything because they were entering a time of mourning and repentance. Repentance means to stop going the direction you are heading and go a different way. It means to turn around. It reveals new perspective. For Nineveh, they ceased and stopped everything so they could discover this new direction and perspective.
This brief and vague message Jonah gave to the Ninevites was enough for them to stop everything and pay attention. And God’s response towards them was great compassion.
Jonah 3:10
“When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, God relented and did not bring on them the destruction God had threatened.”
The word for “relented” is “nacham” which means compassion, pity, and sorrow. God looked at Nineveh and how their leaders and people intentionally took off their robes and crowns, put on goat hair fleeces, and sat in the dust in deep mourning and God’s heart broke for them. God saw them with empathy and compassion because they were human beings created in God’s image. God knew they were more than the harm they had caused.
God saw them.
Friends, God saw Jonah in his irritated and frustrated state. God saw the Ninevites in their desire to change. And God sees you in your uncertainty and apprehension on the decisions you must make today.
Know that God looks at you with all the love and compassion. So be still for a moment. Step down from whatever throne you might find yourself on and come back down to the dirt. It’s here that you might see a new perspective and that begins with the truth that you are loved and you are seen.
With (love),
Bethany