Christ in Jonah

Jonah 1 is the chapter Jesus reached for when men asked Him for a sign. The prophet is told to arise, go to Nineveh (v. 2) and instead rises to flee from the presence of the LORD (v. 3) - the one flight Scripture says cannot succeed, for whither shall I flee from thy presence? (Ps. 139:7). The God he runs from answers with a storm, and here a careful shadow begins to fall across the page: a man is given up to the raging sea so that others may be spared, and at his casting…

Jonah 2 is a prayer offered from the one place no prayer should be able to leave - the belly of a fish, at the bottom of the sea - and it becomes the very picture the Lord Jesus reaches for to speak of His own death and rising. I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice (v. 2). The prayer sinks with Jonah through the waters: thou hadst cast me into the deep… all thy billows and th…

Jonah 3 is the chapter Jesus reached for when He wanted to shame His own generation into hearing Him. A single reluctant prophet walks into a vast pagan city, preaches eight blunt words - Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown (v. 4) - and the whole city turns: So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them (v. 5). The king himself rises from his throne, lays aside his robe, a…

The book of Jonah ends not on the rescue of a city but on the heart of the God who rescues it - and on a prophet who cannot bear that heart. Jonah is very angry that Nineveh was spared, and he names the reason as the very glory of God: I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil (v. 2) - the self-revelation first given at Sinai, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abun…