Hi Friends,
For Eastertide I will be a short sermon series through the Book of Jonah. Here is the first in the series.
Jonah 1.1-3
For nine days in October 1994, Susan Leigh Smith made international headlines as she stood before cameras and pled to the carjacker who had kidnapped her two young sons. Her youngest, Alex, was fourteen months old. His big brother Michael was three. Susan Smith claimed a black man had stolen her Mazda as she stopped at an intersection in Union, South Carolina. The carjacker drove away with her two boys in the backseat. She alleged. In reality, her two children were upside down in her car at the bottom of John D. Long Lake. She had parked on a boat ramp, put the transmission in neutral, got out from her seat, and watched as the water swallowed the car and its occupants. A recreation of the crime later demonstrated it took approximately six minutes for the Mazda to sink beneath the surface. She did the wicked deed in an attempt to win back a rich lover who viewed the children as an obstacle to their future.
A month later, on November 12, 1994, James Limburg preached a chapel service at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Professor of Old Testament stepped into the pulpit with the scriptures in one hand and the newspaper in the other hand. Looking out at the gathered students— future preachers of the Word— Limburg said, “Once in a while you have to call in the heavy-duty equipment. When an oil rig in one of the world’s oceans springs a leak, when there’s a blowout and the black crude stuff is belching out into the blue waters, somebody says, “better get ahold of Red Adair” and the call goes out to Houston and they fly him in and he looks around and knows how to put the cap on and gets things settled down. When there’s a major counseling crisis around here, when the structures of parish, seminary or church threaten to blow up, then somebody says “better get ahold of Bill Smith,” and the call goes out and Bill comes in and looks around and listens and knows how to put the cap on and gets things settled down.”
And then Professor Limburg pivoted to the story on the mind of the nation. “I wonder,” he said, “The tragic figure of the day, whose face is on a recent Time magazine cover, Susan Smith— I don’t know her. In her prison cell, says Time, she has only her eyeglasses, a blanket, a pillow, and a Bible. What if the chaplain there at the prison or the powers-that-be in the Department of Corrections think to themselves, “Now we have to haul in the heavy duty equipment.” And so they call in a preacher. They summon you. What Word would you bring her? What Word of the LORD would you proclaim to her? What might be God’s Word for her?”
Because if Christ is Risen, if Jesus is not dead indeed, if Mary’s boy and Pilate’s victim can never now be other than the Man for Others, if the Resurrection forever settles that the LORD is the Father of this crucified Son, then there is word of mercy— a promise— even for her.
In God’s word for those future preachers, James Limburg turned to the psalm assigned for the day, “Create in me a clean, O God.” But just as easily the Old Testament professor could have turned to a book of the Bible on which he had written a scholarly commentary, the Prophet Jonah.
The scathing French skeptic Voltaire delighted in skewering the improbabilities contained in the Book of Jonah. The philosopher Jacques Ellul— a believer— begins his commentary on Jonah by conceding, “it is easy not to take this little story seriously.” The so-called story of “Jonah and the Whale’ suffers the paradox of being the best and least known book of the Bible. In terms of vivid familiarity, Jonah and the Whale (actually, it’s a “large fish”) is on par with David and his Five Smooth Stones, Noah and the Flood, and Elijah and the Almighty’s Still, Small Voice. Paradoxically, most believers know very little of the narrative arc and the theological message of the Book of Jonah. Jonah is, in fact, no more a children’s story than the story of Susan Smith or yesterday’s news from the conflict with Iran.
According to the Book of Kings, Jonah was from Gath-Hepher, a village near Nazareth in the region of Galilee. His name and surname combine to mean “Dove of Truth.” Jonah is the only successor to the prophet Elisha in the Northern Kingdom, the kingdom comprised of the ten tribes which broke away after the death of Solomon. The Dove of Truth attempts to flee from his call at the same time the prophet Amos decries the greed and excesses of King Jeroboam II— whose forty-one year rule was the last “successful” reign in the history of Israel. Unlike all the other prophets in the scriptures, the word which comes to Jonah is not aimed at God’s elect people. Jonah is sent to pagans. Just so, there is no mention in the Book of Jonah of the covenant or its corresponding commandments, and there is only a possible, subtle allusion to the LORD’s temple in Jerusalem. As with all the other servants of the LORD, however, there is nothing distinguishing about the Son of Amittai prior to the Word of God visiting him. Despite its reputation as a cartoonish tale, the story of Jonah proceeds as if the Word of the LORD is unquestionably the most real thing in the world and that the rest of the universe can only catch up with its reality. Even the waves and a whale and a worm obey the Word of God. The Word is able to work repentance not only among the wicked but even in their beasts of burden.
Accordingly, the most important part of this forty-eight verse story is its opening clause, “And the Word of the LORD came to Jonah.” The first word in English might be the book’s most important word, the coordinating conjunction, ‘And.” Notice, the Book of Jonah begins in media res— in the middle of things; as in, this is but one instance of the Word’s activity in the world. As if, Jonah is unique but Jonah is not alone. As though, the Word coming and going with the Ninevehs of the world in mind is just what the Word does.
Or who the Word is.
At the end of the story, the reluctant prophet explains to the LORD his anger and escape attempts, “I ran from your call because I knew you are gracious and merciful.” How did Jonah know the Word which came to him would lead to grace and mercy? What the Word commands Jonah to preach is not obviously good news. The Word summons the prophet to the city of Nineveh, “Call out against it, for her evil has come up before me.” How did Jonah know that word of law would yield to gospel? Jonah could only expect such an outcome if the Word who came to him had a face.
A woman I know, Nesteron, lives in Iran. She grew up in an observant Muslim family, yet one day the Risen Jesus appeared to her.
“What was it like?” another friend of mine asked her.
“It wasn’t like an audible voice,” she said, “but it wasn’t like a voice in my head either. It was something altogether different but altogether real.”
Unbeknownst to Nesteron, at this same time, her sister, who was studying in Europe, had received the gospel from a classmate and been baptized in Christ’s body. Jesus later appeared to her and told her that she needed to go back home and share the gospel with Nesteron and their family. When Nesteron’s sister arrived back at their family’s home in Iran, Nesteron greeted her by saying, “I know—you’re here to tell me about Jesus. I believe in him. I’ve met him. He spoke to me. And I’ve seen his face.”
The Word who comes to Jonah, son of Amittai, has a face.
But, quite simply, the face of the Word belongs to a body.
Where is that body now?
On the first Sunday after Easter, the church traditionally reads John’s report of the Risen Jesus appearing to his disciples a week after the resurrection. Where has Jesus been in between appearances the Gospels give no indication. Once again, eight days after Easter, the Risen Jesus appears in a locked room. He invites Thomas to touch the wounds in his hands and his side; his resurrected body can be tactile. And then, John proclaims, Jesus leaves as he had arrived— he vanishes.
Luke tells us the same thing happened on the road to Emmaus. The disciples who accompany Jesus do not recognize him until they sit down at table. Watching Jesus take bread and break bread, in an instant, they recognize him. And just as suddenly, he disappears from their sight. Luke does not say, “He walked off into the distance.” Luke says, “He vanished from their sight.” Until he appeared the next time.
An odd body indeed.
Just so, the question:
What happened to the body of the Risen Jesus?
And where is it now?
In between his appearances, whither did he go?
A body that can be touched by Thomas requires a place. That locatability is precisely what distinguishes a body from a ghost. The Risen Jesus was not a ghost — he had wounds, he ate breakfast with his friends, Mary could cling to him. But he was also not renting a room in Jerusalem. Nor was he glamping in Galilee.
He vanished.
Then he came back.
And then he vanished again.
The Word comes to the Dove of Truth.
And then the Word comes to Amos.
Where was he in the interim?
The old answer was simple. Heaven was a location “up there.” Heaven was a location in the cosmos. The Father with their Spirit raised Jesus from death and up into heaven to sit at his right hand. Then Copernicus ended that accommodation. Revising the church’s ancient metaphysics, the theologian Robert Jenson offers a better answer to the question, “Whither the body?’
Or rather, it is not a where question but a when question.
At the moment of resurrection, Jenson argues, Jesus is translated not to a place but to a time — to the first moment of the new creation, the eschaton, the End toward which all things move. As the Apostle Paul announces, the Risen Jesus truly is the first fruit of the new creation because he has been raised into the future— the Last Future. The appearances of his risen body are incursions from that future into this present, which is why they are bodily and yet strange, tangible and yet vanishing, recognizable and yet somehow different than before. He comes from the end of all things to meet his disciples in their locked rooms and on their dusty roads, to a Muslim woman in Iran and on our table in bread and wine.
And this— this— is how the Word who comes to the Old Testament prophets and patriarchs is none other than Pilate’s victim. The hand that inscribed the law for Moses had a hole in it. And the face to whom Nineveh’s evil has come is a face Mary of Nazareth would have recognized. The Word who comes to Jonah comes from the future, and he carries with him a death for sinners, enemies, and the ungodly already accomplished.
The son of Amittai knew the Word who came to him would be merciful to the Ninevites because Jonah knew that Word was Jesus.
Because the South Carolina jury sentenced Susan Smith to life imprisonment rather than death by execution, under state law she is eligible for parole every two years. At her last parole hearing in 2024, Smith acknowledged the gravity of her evil. “I know what I did was horrible,” she said, pausing and then continuing with a wavering voice. “And I would give anything so I could change it. I’m sorry…I know that’s not enough; I know it’s not.”
Finally, Smith appealed to her Christian faith. “I am a Christian and God is a big part of my life and I know he has forgiven me and I know that is by his grace and mercy…And I just ask that you show that same kind of mercy as well.”
In South Carolina, a decision to grant parole requires a two-thirds vote of parole board members. Susan Smith would be more likely to persuade that many of them to hop aboard a boat bound for Tarshish.
Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire. Located in modern day Iraq, Nineveh was only a couple hundred miles across the border from Nesteron’s home in Iran. In the time of Jonah, Ninevites were more than mere foreigners and they were far worse than pagans. Terror was their preferred mode of offense and oppression— flaying captives alive, impaling conquered prisoners on stakes, exiling entire populations. The Assyrian Empire actually did erase civilizations. Ninevites tortured their captives with a violence so depraved it would make Hamas cringe. Nineveh then celebrated their cruelty in the art and architecture of their mighty city. As the Old Testament prophet Nahum catalogues Nineveh’s violence and evil, “Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear— hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end; they stumble over the bodies.” This is the city to which the Word sends the Son of Amittai. A city upon which Nahum utters the verdict, “Woe to the bloody city, full of lies and plunder. Upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?” As the LORD himself utters at the conclusion of the Book of Jonah, “In that great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left.” That is, they do not know the difference between wickedness and justice.
No wonder Jonah responds to Jesus’ call by trying to put as much water between himself and Nineveh as possible. Never mind pious stanzas like “Here I am, LORD, send me.” Tarshish was in modern day Spain. Called to go east, Jonah goes west. Summoned to travel over land, Jonah runs to the shipyard in Joppa. Deployed to the evil empire, Jonah buys a one-way ticket to escape to the end of the world where, he hopes, JESUS IS NOT. It’s in the midst of this attempted escape from Christ’s call that Jonah suffers the only part of the story you likely know.
Of course, the joke is on us. A whale swallowing up Jonah and then spitting him up in the direction whence he came is not nearly as ridiculous as Jonah endeavoring to avoid a Risen Jesus who appears to us from the future. Jonah can no more slip loose of Christ’s summons upon him than the disciples could have resisted his command to come and become fishers of men.
It is not a story for children. It is a story for calling in the heavy duty equipment. The Israelites hated the Assyrians as much as Gazans hate Israel today. The Jews hated the Assyrians as much as Iranians hate Israelis today. To them, the Risen Jesus says, “Go.” And because of them, Jonah says, “No.”
The son of Amittai is no coward. He is repulsed. Jonah goes AWOL from Christ’s conscription of him not because he fears engaging the enemy but because he wants no quarter for them. Jonah is not afraid; Jonah is angry— righteously angry. Like Pharaoh’s horses and riders in the Red Sea, Jonah wants to see Assyria swallowed up by God’s epic fury. Like Jericho, Jonah wants to see their city’s walls fall down. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, Jonah wants to watch as someone calls in the heavy duty equipment and razes Nineveh to rubble and ash. But the Word that comes to Jonah has a face. He has a face Mary would have recognized. It’s a face that belongs to a body, a body that bore the sins of the world upon a tree, a risen body that was crucified for those who were yet his enemies.
“Go to Nineveh that great city,” Jesus orders him.
Jonah therefore heads to Joppa.
He flees Christ’s call.
Jonah is no fool. If the LORD Jesus can come to Jonah from the Future, then he can certainly find Jonah in the bowels of a pagan boat. Jonah is not attempting to escape an omnipresent God. Jonah is trying to avoid complicity with God’s gracious will. The son of Amittai who gets swallowed up by a whale cannot stomach a God who justifies the ungodly.
Grace is less amazing when it is your enemy on the receiving end of it.
“It wasn’t like an audible voice,” Nesteron said, “but it wasn’t like a voice in my head either. It was something altogether different but altogether real.”
My friend nodded at Nesteron’s testimony.
“That sounds like Jesus,” he said, “the LORD refuses to respect the borders we draw and he loves to work behind enemy lines.”
Spoiler Alert:
Once Jonah relents to God’s stubborn call upon him, the reluctant prophet walks a day into the depths of the city of Nineveh. In an empty parking lot, Jonah stakes up a big revival tent. He sprinkles saw dust on the ground, arranges rows of wooden benches, puts a big, black Bible on the podium and rents a sound system.
In hostile territory the enemy preacher gets a crowd. They come by the thousands with their children and their servants and their elderly parents. Even the King of Nineveh shows up with his Secret Service entourage.
Jonah, still reeking of whale vomit, simply mops his forehead, taps the microphone, clears his throat, and makes the speakers squelch. And then Jonah says, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
That’s it— an eight word sermon. It’s just five words in Hebrew. But those little words fell them all. Everyone and everything repents on the spot. The King orders a fast and leads them all to put on sackcloth and ash. Even the cows and the goats and the cats— and maybe that whale too— they all repent. They all cry out mightily to the true and living God. “Because who knows, “the King reasons, “the God of Israel may relent and change his mind about our judgment.” And that is exactly what Jonah had wanted to avoid so badly he attempted to make himself a needle in the haystack of the world.
“We had to celebrate! Your brother was lost but now he’s found!”
That’s the problem with a Risen LORD.
A dead Jesus can be kept safely away from our politics. A dead Jesus can be conveniently conformed to our cultural values and worldviews. A dead Jesus can be easily accommodated to our lifestyle and livelihood. But you cannot outrun a living and loquacious God.
If the tomb could not hold him, you are never going to fit him into your politics!
Jesus Christ died to save sinners.
And he who died is indeed alive with death behind him.
Resurrection means God is going to get what he wants.
Whether you like it or not.
Here’s the thing:
The sincerity of the Ninevites’ repentance is every bit as suspect as that of Susan Smith. At best, the repentance of Nineveh is short-lived. At worst, it was feigned all along. Approximately forty years after Jonah reluctantly preaches the people of Nineveh into the pardon of God, the Assyrian Empire invades the Northern Kingdom of Israel, obliterates it, and exiles the survivors back to Nineveh, never to return. Like the Word who comes to him, Jonah works mercy for sinners who eventually do him in.
Which is but a reminder that Christ calls his peculiar people— not the President, not the Pentagon, the church— to love their enemies not because loving our enemies is a strategy to make the world less violent. Rather, in a world of war, Christians are those people whom Christ has called to bear witness to him by loving their enemies and proclaiming absolving Word to them. Like Jonah, Christ calls us to attempt lives that make no sense— no sense at all, if it is not true that God raised Jesus from the dead. In a world of sin and terror, violence and evil, the heavy duty equipment God calls in is you.
You are the face of Jesus.
I don’t know what this means for you.
I only know you cannot outrun him for long.
Look, I know this is an impossible call. It even got God crucified. If you’re not going to hightail it to Joppa, you’re going to need help.
So come to the table.
You are the face of Jesus. But no less than the body Thomas touched, the loaf and the cup are him. In bread and wine he feeds you himself. This is God’s heavy duty equipment.
