Jonah 2 2 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying, I called to the LORD out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 3 You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. 4 Then I said, I am driven away from your sight; how shall I look again upon your holy temple? 5 The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O LORD my God. 7 As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the LORD! 10 Then the LORD spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land. 1
03.01.2015 Sea Change I realize that I ve been making a lot of literary references in my sermons of late: Moby Dick last week and the poem Ozymandias a few weeks earlier. I hope that no one is put off by that. I know that literature is not of interest to everyone. Let me just say that it could be worse. I could have studied mathematics and filled my sermons with references to calculus. Wouldn t that have been interesting! Let s see, forty days in the wilderness, divided by six days of creation, multiply by the ten commandments, add twelve disciples, subtract one, and the answer is Jesus! Believe it or not, I knew a pastor who did major in mathematics, but I don t recall him ever incorporating any formulas or equations into his sermons, which was for the better, I suppose. Although mathematics does not lend itself to explaining the Bible, calculus actually has some bearing on what I want to talk about today. Yes, calculus! Calculus is the mathematical study of how things change, and today we are going to look at the dramatic change in attitude that Jonah undergoes during his three days in the belly of the great fish. Yet to explore Jonah s change of heart we will not use calculus to chart it on a graph. Instead, we will look yet again to literature. (I have to stick with what I know.) We will turn to the master of English literature himself William Shakespeare. The title of today s sermon Sea Change comes from a stanza in The Tempest, one of Shakespeare s plays [SLIDE]. A sea change is a transformation, especially a sudden and dramatic one. The Webster s Dictionary provides two examples to explain the definition: 1. There s been a sea change in public opinion. 2. Her attitude has undergone a sea change in recent months. 2
In the first example public opinion has changed on a particular issue for example, moving from opposition to support. In the second example, the woman s attitude experiences a marked change. Both examples refer to some type of transformation. In The Tempest, one of the characters is said to have undergone a sea-change. Shakespeare meant this quite literally. That s because The Tempes takes place on an island, and the waters surrounding the island are enchanted by a sorcerer who lives there. He uses magic to bring about a great storm a tempest that causes a boat that was passing by to shipwreck on the island. One of the survivors of the shipwreck is a young man named Ferdinand. Ferdinand s father was also on the ship, but in the confusion of the storm they became separated. A spirit who lives on the island tells Ferdinand that his father is no more. He is not dead, necessarily, but he has been transformed. In the most famous passage from the play, the spirit tells Ferdinand [SLIDE]: Full fathom five thy father lies: Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. A fathom is a measurement of sea depth. It s about six feet, or 1.83 meters. Ferdinand is told that his father lies five fathoms below the sea. Yet he s not dead. Instead, he has undergone a transformation. His bones are now made of coral. His eyes are pearls. He has experienced a sea-change into something rich and strange. We can say the same of Jonah, who was also cast into the sea by a great storm. In chapter 2 of the book that bears his name Jonah is transformed from unwilling prophet to grateful servant of the Lord. He too experiences a sea change, as he is transformed while in the belly of a great fish in the middle of the sea rich and strange, indeed. 3
Let s take a look at what brings about this remarkable transformation in Jonah. As we saw last week, at the end of chapter 1 Jonah is swallowed whole by the fish. The interesting thing about this fish is not what type of fish it was, which isn t all that important, but that it was sent by God [SLIDE]. The last verse of chapter 1 reads, But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah (Jon. 1:17). The Lord provided the fish. That s an interesting choice of words, isn t it? Provided. The word in Hebrew literally means appointed, as in chose, selected. God appointed the fish for a particular task. The fish was part of God s plan to rescue Jonah. Thus, God provided the fish. Provided is a word with positive connotations. It suggests care and concern. The one who provides is concerned with the well being of the one who is provided for. This suggests that the fish is not part of God s plan to punish Jonah but to rescue him. God is not interested in punishing Jonah for his disobedience but in rescuing him from his own foolishness a foolishness that led him to a state of helplessness. Jonah had been hurled into the sea. The ship that he was on is sailing away, going as far as possible from him and the trouble that he caused the ship s captain and crew. Jonah is left alone, one man in the middle of the vast ocean. It s hard to imagine a more helpless situation in which someone could find themselves. Later, from inside the belly of the fish, Jonah looks back at his near-drowning experience, saying [SLIDE]: 3 You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me (Jon. 2:3). The intensity of Jonah s predicament increases as he sinks beneath the waves. The waters push him down ever further and the sea plants lay hold to him and threaten to strangle him. This sinking feeling is described in Jonah s prayer when he says [SLIDE]: 4
5 The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. That phrase, the roots of the mountains, describes Jonah s descent to the ocean floor. The ancient Israelites believed that the earth was supported by mountains whose base extended to the ocean floor. So for Jonah to be at the roots of the mountains is for him to be literally at the bottom of the ocean. Jonah s descent to the bottom of the ocean completes his physical descent that began before he even set sail [SLIDE]. Remember in chapter 1, rather than going to Nineveh as God commanded, Jonah went down to Joppa. Once on board the ship Jonah had gone down into the ship s hold. Once he began to sink Jonah ultimately went down to the ocean floor to the land whose bars closed upon him forever. In fleeing from God Jonah has experienced a continual downward spiral. But Jonah s descent is more than merely physical. Jonah also descends spiritually. In verse 4 he describes himself as being driven away from God s sight. He can t ever again imagine that he will find himself in the Lord s house, the temple in Jerusalem. The temple was the center of Jewish religious life. It was the place where one experienced God s presence. It was God s dwelling place on earth [SLIDE]. When Solomon, who oversaw the building of the temple, dedicates it, he declares to God, I have built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever (1 Ki. 8:13). When the prophet Isaiah is called by God to become a prophet, he has a vision of God s presence in the temple. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple (Isa. 6:1). But God s presence in ancient Israel was no more confined to the temple than God s presence today is confined to the walls of the church. No matter how high the ceiling, no matter how beautiful and expensive the stained glass (I know we don t have any stained glass, but use your imagination), no matter how many seats fit in 5
the sanctuary, God will not be confined to brick and mortar, stone and concrete. There are no walls high enough or strong enough to contain God. In the midst of his despair, while he is at the bottom of the Pit, Jonah at last begins to learn this. Last week I talked about how God pursued Jonah. Although God allowed Jonah to go his own way, still God pursued him by sending the storm that led the sailors to throw him overboard. This week we are seeing that more than simply pursuing Jonah, God met Jonah in the pit of his despair. God was not waiting in the temple for Jonah to repent, as though repentance were a condition for God to respond to Jonah s prayer. It doesn t work that way. God takes the initiative. Repentance is Jonah s response to God s saving work. Before Jonah utters a word of remorse God provides the fish to swallow him to swallow him so as to rescue him to keep him from drowning. I said a moment ago that Jonah is beginning to learn that God is not confined to the temple, nor to Israel, but he doesn t yet fully appreciate God s go-anywhere nature. This is seen in verse 2, wherein Jonah believes that God comes to him only in response to his cries [SLIDE]: I called to the LORD out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice (Jon. 2:2). Sheol refers to the underworld, i.e., the realm of the dead. Ancient Israel did not conceive of the afterlife in terms of heaven and hell. That idea became fully developed only years later and within Christianity. For the ancient Israelites, Sheol was the place for all who died. It was a sort of gray shadow realm for all the departed. The Psalms are full of references to Sheol. Psalm 89 speaks of its power over everyone that lives: Who can live and never see death? Who can escape the power of Sheol? (Ps. 89:48). 6
Yet, as powerful as Sheol is, there is one thing even more powerful. There is one thing that has the power to rescue souls even from Sheol. Once again, the answer is found in the Psalms, with the Psalmist who declares[slide]: But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me (Ps. 49:15). God alone possesses such power, the power over death itself. If he had not known it already, Jonah learns this truth as he contemplates his own death. He says in verse 7: 7 As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Jonah may have remembered the Lord, but even more so the Lord remembered Jonah. Jonah had fled from the presence of the Lord, but unbeknownst to Jonah, the presence of the Lord went with him. God pursued Jonah so as to rescue him. I don t think Jonah ever fully understands how God had pursued him. He seems set in the belief that God came only in response to his prayer. But the storm and the fish prove otherwise. This goes to show that Jonah still has much to learn, as we will see in chapters three and four. Nevertheless, the reality that God s love reached even beyond the gates of death causes a sea change in Jonah s attitude. Jonah moves from lament to praise, from despair to gratitude, and from indifference toward God s command to obedience. All of this is reflected by what Jonah says in verse 9 [SLIDE]: 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the LORD! (Jon. 2:9). Deliverance belongs to the Lord because God s love is stronger even than death. God s loving presence is not confined to the temple or to heaven but descends to the 7
depths of human experience. Once again, the Psalms testify to this truth. A few weeks ago this passage appeared in the call to worship, and here it is again reminding us that there is no limit, no boundary, no barrier that can limit the love of God [SLIDE]: Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast (Ps. 139:8-10). As Jonah learned, even at the farthest limits of the sea God is still present, God s hand still guides, and God s love still rescues. There was nowhere he could flee that was beyond God s jurisdiction. As it was for Jonah so it is for us [SLIDE]. God is not sitting back in heaven watching us and waiting to see whether we will repent. God is not withholding his love, grace, and forgiveness until we make the first move. If you think this way, because many do, I must tell you you re mistaken. If you were taught to think this way, let me be more blunt and say simply that whoever taught you this was wrong. Fortunately, they were wrong. Fortunately, God does not wait for us to act. In Jesus Christ God has already made the first move, and the only move that matters. Through Jesus Christ God already came to rescue us when we were drowning in ignorance, fear, and sin. And through the Holy Spirit God continually comes to us, reminding us that we have been saved not by our words or actions but by the love and grace of God. May the knowledge of God s love, a love that descends to the very depths of human helplessness and despair, descend also into the depths of our hearts and bring about in us a sea change. May we respond to God s saving grace with repentance, gratitude, and renewed commitment. 8