Deep in the Belly    

Dr. Larry Thorson*
 August 23, 2009  

 

Jonah 1:17-2:10

 

17 Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

 

Today’s New International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society

 

After a five week break, we’re returning to our study of the little Old Testament book of Jonah. In June we looked at the first chapter where the Word of God first came to Jonah with an assignment.  That assignment was to go to the evil city of Nineveh, which I said was like Berlin, Germany in 1941, a brutal place and he was to preach against their evil behavior.  But of course Jonah didn’t want to do that and thought he had a better plan for his life than God.  Haven’t we all thought that from time to time?  So he gets on a ship going in the opposite direction from God’s desire for him and heads to Tarshish.

Then God sent a storm and Jonah’s ship started to sink.  So Jonah says to the men on the ship, "Throw me over the side," and eventually they had to throw him over or risk sinking themselves.  As soon as Jonah hit the water the storm stopped.  Do you think that was a coincidence?   

So five weeks ago we left Jonah sinking into the sea thinking he was going to die.  I probably shouldn’t have left him so long but hey I needed a break from preaching and he needed time to think about things.  But it’s time to get him out now. 

The verse we read says that the Lord provided a great fish to swallow him.  Another word for “provided” which is closer to the original Hebrew is God “appointed” a great fish to swallow him.  That word 'appointed' could be translated 'commissioned.' It is what a king would do if he was going to appoint an ambassador or a messenger or something. In literature this use of the language is a comedy.  The picture is kind of like God saying, "Hey Fish..." "Go pickup Jonah. Directions will be given on a need-to-know basis.” “This is important: Swallow him but don't chew… I'll tell you where to drop him off." The fish says, "Okay, Lord."  God appoints this fish. It is really an odd kind of story.

The point of Jonah is not that there really are fish that in ordinary everyday life, a human being, could survive in for three days. The point is it would take a miracle for that to happen, and the real question is... are miracles possible? And at the heart of our faith is this claim... there is an all powerful God who became a man and raised himself from the dead. This was a true historical event. So to God, nothing is impossible. If God can raise Jesus from the dead, I think God could keep a guy in storage in a fish for a few days.

Don’t get hung up over things such as what kind of fish it was or those kinds of details, because you will miss the whole purpose of the writer.  The point is a spiritual message that God is up to something great.

Now back to the story.  Note here that the fish is described as a great fish not a whale. God is described as doing something great in the story.  If the main word for God in this book is 'great,' the main word for Jonah, the one that keeps popping up, is the word 'down.' Jonah is going down. God says, "Go to Nineveh," and Jonah goes down to Joppa, this port city. Then he goes in a ship down to Tarshish. Then, in the ship, he goes down into the hold…the bottom of ship where he sleeps. Then he goes down into the water in the storm. Then he goes down into the fish. Jonah has hit bottom.

Guess what Jonah does at the bottom?  Let’s read 2:1, 1          From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2 He said: "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. 3 You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.

          4 I said, 'I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again     toward your holy temple.'   5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.  6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit.  7 "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.  8 "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit God's love for them.

    9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, 'Salvation comes from the LORD.' "

Jonah had gone a long time without honestly praying to God. When he had gotten a word from the Lord to go to Nineveh instead he goes down to Joppa. He doesn't even try to pray about going to Joppa. Then he gets on a ship to Tarshish but he doesn't pray about getting on the ship. He is not talking to God at all, not honestly. Until...he ends up down in the sea in a fish.

Why do you think Jonah prayed in the fish? He had nothing better to do. Think about it, what else are you going to do in a fish? He had nowhere else to turn. Do you know why in our world we so often have a hard time praying? Because we have so many other things to do. We have so many crutches, so many screens that we can turn on, so many noises that we can produce that allow us to avoid having to face what is going on in our minds. We just have other things to do.

God brings Jonah down, down, down, down to a place of desperation in a fish in the sea. The honest truth is he turns to God because he has no where else to turn. Think about it, the whole first chapter of the story of Jonah is about human action. Jonah makes plans. Jonah has resources. Jonah is going places…and it is a disaster. And then the storm hits, and Jonah's story grinds to a halt.

In the second chapter of Jonah, there is no human action at all. Just prayer, but then the good stuff starts to happen for Jonah. Jonah goes as low as you can go. That was the point of the story to the Israelites, the original recipients of this story.  It is all about hitting bottom. 

Jonah comes to realize that what looked so bad…hitting bottom... the wind, the storm, getting thrown overboard...was actually the best thing that ever happened to him because it brought him back to God, and God was doing great things.

Jonah gets delivered on the third day. Now the third day is a big day in Bible stories. In the Old Testament, often when there was a dramatic rescue on the part of God, it would come on the third day. So a reader would expect in a normal Bible story that Jonah is going to get some dramatic rescue event... a

visitation from the angel Gabriel, fly home on a chariot of fire, get beamed up through a prayer, something like that. That is not how it works, not in this story.

Jonah 2:10, "And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land." Is it just me, or is that a little more detail than we really want? This is like the middle school version of this story, because that is an important word when you are doing ministry with middle schoolers.

If you wonder why the English translators of the Bible did not choose a more dignified, churchier, more Presbyterian word than vomit, it is because in the original inspired text, the Hebrew word is even more graphic than that word. The writer is hitting us over the head. The writer wants to make sure the reader gets this. Jonah did not get dropped off by an angel. The whale vomited. 

Jonah thinks he is going to drown, and God sends a fish, like an Enterprise rental car pickup/delivery thing for him. And in case anybody hasn't caught on yet, the writer throws in a regurgitation scene, and the point of all of this is that Jonah thought he was dead. This is the worst. To Israel, this is the worst. To end up in the heart of the sea, running away, depths of the grave, going down. Then it turns out that when human beings are going down, down, down...God is up to something great, and from God's perspective, death and the grave and Sheol are not a problem at all. Human stiff-necked, rebellion, stubbornness, is not

a problem. God laughs at it all. God laughs at death, laughs at the grave. Jonah ends up getting vomited onto the shore.

One day, we will understand that Jonah is a joy book because when our life is over joy wins. The book is comic in the most sublime, transcendent, wonderful sense of that word because there is another character between every line in this book. 

Jonah, we are told, is from a town called Gath-hepher, which is a short few miles away from Nazareth. Does anybody remember another prophet who came from Nazareth?

Jonah was asleep on a boat in a storm when everybody else on the boat panicked and woke him up and by his actions, the storm is stilled. Does that remind you of anybody else in the Bible?

Jonah's name means, "the dove," which is a name that

means, "was given to a beloved one." Does anybody else remember someone who went down into the water, came up out of the water, and a dove descended, and a voice says, "This is my beloved Son…"

Jesus said toward the end of His life…He had one sign to give this sorry tragic world, and He called it the sign of Jonah. "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish (hit bottom, at the lowest there) so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth."

And then comes the third day.  See, the message of Jonah is a little foretaste of the victory of Jesus who comes to meet us at the lowest place and says death loses, sin loses, sorrow loses, sadness loses…joy wins. "Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Grave, is your sting?" God gets the last laugh. This is the story of Jonah.

        John Ortberg writes about a Jonah he knew who made tons of money when he was still in his twenties. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, had a penthouse in San Francisco, fast cars, fast women, life in the fast lane. He lost it all in a real estate bust back in the 90's. And worse, he had been involved in quite loose financial practices, and he ended up in San Quentin.

From the penthouse to San Quentin.  He wanted to die. He crawled into a fetal position and wanted to die, but there were some guys in San Quentin who wouldn't let him. They were lifers. They had received life sentences, and they found in San Quentin that God was there. They got a hold of this Jonah, his name is Bill, and they wouldn't let him quit.  They told him that God loved him, that Jesus loved him. He started getting up at five o'clock in the morning to pray. Now why would you pray in San Quentin at five o'clock in the morning? Because you have nothing better to do, because you have nowhere else to turn. This Jonah, who was such a success, was so grateful that God brought him all the way down, because he met God, and he learned that the dangerous place wasn't the bottom; the dangerous place was the top.

        That's the story of Jonah. That's why what looks like a tragedy ends up a comedy, and that's your life…if you want it. That is the sign of Jonah. Jesus comes and says, "If you'll let Me, I'll meet you at the cross. I'll meet you at the tomb. And the third day is coming, if you'll meet Me."

 

*Adopted by a sermon called “Desperate for God” by John Ortberg preached at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church on November 16, 2008.