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Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Monday, September 29, 2008

Jonah 4

God sent Jonah to preach to the inhabitants of the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the city of Nineveh. Though Jonah originally sailed away in the wrong direction, the Lord prevailed upon Him through the agency of a dangerous storm, a ship full of reluctant pagan sailors, and a very large fish. Jonah did eventually arrive on the scene and presented his no-nonsense message: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Amazingly, the people of Nineveh, from the highest to the lowest, repented. Good news? Not to Jonah. The prophet was very angry, and He expressed his anger to the Lord God in prayer.

In this prayer to God we begin to understand definitively why Jonah did not originally want to go to Nineveh at all. Why was Jonah angry? Jonah knew of the Lord’s character, that God was gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. Most of all Jonah knew that God might relent from judgment if the people humbled themselves before him. Jonah knew that the Lord God might even have mercy on Assyrians. It was his knowledge of this that made Jonah reluctant to answer the Lord’s call to go to Nineveh and to speak against the city. Jonah wanted to see the Lord’s justice come against the Assyrians, and he was unwilling to allow the Lord’s mercy to get in the way of his dreams. Now the worst had happened. The Assyrians had repented and the Lord would likely extend his great mercy. Jonah was so angry that he wanted to die.

God had a simple question for the prophet. “Do you do well to be angry?” It’s a good question. When God’s servants are angry, the anger is not always righteous. A prophet might do well to be angry. We are told in another place in the Bible to be angry. Specifically the instruction is, “Be angry, but do not sin.” Was Jonah sinning in His anger? The Assyrians were brutal, and treated Israel and Judah with oppression. Their leaders spoke against the Lord and His people with impunity. Jonah would have been right to be angry with that empire. But that was not the specific religious anger in question. Jonah was angry with God for showing mercy to repentant sinners who were part of an evil empire. He did not do well to be angry with God about the Lord’s mercy.

We have no immediate answer from Jonah to the Lord’s direct question, but this conversation was not over yet. Jonah takes his spot outside of the city and seems to wait for the unlikely event that he is hoping for, the destruction of Nineveh. In the meantime, the Lord causes the amazing growth of a plant in order to provide shade for his prophet while Jonah waits for good news of judgment. Jonah was very happy about the plant, but the joy of this provision was short-lived. God appointed a worm to destroy the plant, and Jonah lost his shade. The God turned up the heat and the wind on his prophet, and Jonah was very angry and ready to die over this indignity. God asks his question again, this time about the loss of the plant. “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?”

Now the Lord managed to provoke a response. “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” It is quite a statement to make. What are you angry enough to die over? Are you angry about some providence; a hot sun, a scorching wind, a loss of some comfort, too much mercy from God for the wrong kind of people? Are you angry enough to die about it?

The Lord spoke to Jonah in a way that suggested that Jonah had some mercy for the plant. Israel was God’s plant. She was raised up by the Lord, and she could be justly taken away by the Lord. It was right to care about Israel. It turns out that it was right for God’s people to also care about the other nations of the world, even the bad ones. It was right to be happy about God’s mercy in that generation for Nineveh. God relented concerning the destruction of that city for a time. He cared for the 120,000 children who did not know their right hand from their left. He even cared for the cattle.

Thus ends the book of Jonah. Here we are given the opportunity to laugh at a prophet who was angry about God’s mercy to bad Gentiles. Does it seem like an impossible story to you? Not just the fish and the plant, but impossible that someone zealous for the Lord would hate the fact of the Lord’s mercy toward the ungodly? It should not seem strange to those who know the history of the New Testament. When Christ came to die for the sins of His people, there were many who were offended by His statements concerning mercy to those who seemed to be unworthy. Later the Apostle Paul would face the wrath of his own kind of people, Pharisaic Jews. Some who had even become a part of the church did not approve of the notion that Gentiles could become true followers of Christ without attention to the ceremonial Law of Moses. These were not small matters to many Jews. The suggestion that righteousness could not come from the ceremonial Law made many people very angry.

Christ was angry, but He did not sin. He was angry with self-righteousness. He was angry with commercialism in the worship of God. He was angry with the abuse of the poor. He was so angry with sin that He did something about it. He paid the price for it, so that it could be utterly defeated for the Lord’s elect. On the cross the Lord’s perfect justice met His perfect mercy. One thing the Christ was not angry about was the gracious plan of God to save sinners. He gave His life for it. When those who claim to follow Him hate to see His mercy toward others with a horrible history of sin, the Lord is right to be angry with them.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 12:00 AM

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