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The book of Jonah opens like a typical Old Testament prophecy. God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh, the great Assyrian capital, and call out against its evil. But what happens next is extraordinary and shocking.
When God says "Arise, go to Nineveh," Jonah does the unthinkable: he runs. He "rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Three times in verse three, we're told he headed for Tarshish—west, away from Nineveh in the east. Almost every detail spells out how Jonah did precisely the opposite of what God commanded.
Why does this matter? Because it's theologically illogical. Jonah himself declares that God is "the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." Yet this prophet thinks he can escape the presence of the one who made everything and rules over everything. It makes no sense—and yet, we all do this.
Before we dismiss Jonah as a complete fool, let's be honest: every Christian behaves inconsistently with what we profess to believe. We say God provides, yet live as if our security rests in our savings accounts. We say Jesus is Lord, yet refuse to let him rule certain areas of our lives. We claim to trust God's promises, yet act as if this life is all that matters.
We all run from God in some way. The big question is: why did Jonah run? We don't discover the real answer until chapter 4, so for now, we're meant to speculate. Was he afraid of the Assyrians? Imagine a South Korean walking into North Korea's capital and denouncing the regime. Or a Jewish person in Nazi Germany denouncing Hitler. It would be suicidal. No wonder Jonah ran from such a terrifying mission.
But this is not merely a Sunday school story about a man and a big fish. This is mind-stretching and heart-challenging stuff for adults. We are to take Jonah seriously, not write him off as a simple renegade.
Jonah ran, but the Lord wouldn't let him escape. "The Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up."
Notice the very first word of verse four: "But." This is not the action of an angry, vindictive god spitting out a tantrum. The Lord—Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God of Israel—is described throughout Scripture as "gracious and merciful and compassionate, abounding in love and slow to anger." This storm flows from love, not wrath.
God was being cruel to be kind. Like a loving parent who will do anything to bring back an estranged child, our heavenly Father ensures his people don't simply wander away from him. Sometimes he sends storms to bring us back to our senses.
If you're here today and wandering from the Lord—or running from him like Jonah—the difficulties in your life may be exactly that: the Lord in his kindness, bringing you back. That said, this storm had another dimension. Every act of disobedience to God carries consequences. And those consequences don't fall only on the guilty; they ripple out to those around them. Through no fault of their own, the sailors were caught up in Jonah's storm. Sometimes we suffer because of another's disobedience, and it's agonizing.
The crew fought desperately for their lives. "The mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god, and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it." They threw everything overboard—their precious cargo, anything they could lay hands on.
But Jonah? He was below deck, fast asleep. While the crew fought for survival, the prophet who had caused the storm was napping. The captain couldn't believe it: "What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps your God will give a thought to us that we may not perish."
There's deep irony here. The captain tells Jonah to arise—the very word God used in verse two when commanding Jonah to go to Nineveh. Now a pagan captain is telling the prophet to get up and plead with the Lord he was running from.
When the captain returned to deck, the sailors decided to cast lots "that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us." The lot fell on Jonah. To us it may seem random, but Scripture tells us that "the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord."
They interrogated Jonah: "Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?"
Jonah's answer was remarkable: "I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." He answered four of their five questions, but notably avoided one—his occupation. He couldn't bring himself to tell them he was a prophet. There's shame and embarrassment here; the inconsistency of being a prophet who refuses to obey God's word.
But here's the irony: Jonah refused to go to Nineveh to tell pagans about the Lord, only to find himself here on a ship testifying to pagans about the Lord. Despite Jonah's reluctance, God brought unbelievers to repentance.
As the storm grew worse, the sailors asked Jonah, "What shall we do to you that the sea may quieten down for us?"
Jonah told them: "Pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quieten down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you."
What happens next is stunning. Rather than simply sacrifice Jonah to save themselves, "the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them."
These pagan sailors were reluctant to throw an innocent man overboard, even to save their own lives. Eventually, overwhelmed by the storm, they called out: "Oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood. For you, oh Lord, have done as it pleased you."
Notice the transformation. In verse 5, each sailor called out to his own god. Now they're calling upon the Lord—using his covenant name. The moment they called out to the Lord and threw Jonah overboard, the sea grew calm.
Before we even hear what happened to Jonah, we're told what happened to the sailors: "Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows."
They had feared the sea and feared for their lives. Now they had a new kind of fear—they feared the Lord. They had seen his greatness, that he is the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. And they had seen that he is the Lord, the God of grace, mercy, loving-kindness, and forgiveness. They became real believers.
It's dripping with irony. The very people Jonah wanted to avoid telling about the Lord became his followers. And more than that—these pagan sailors are now acting far more consistently with being followers of the Lord than Jonah, who was an actual prophet of the Lord.
As we think of Jonah, we should think of another, greater than Jonah. One who, like Jonah, found himself in the midst of a raging storm and was fast asleep while others in the boat feared for their lives.
But unlike Jonah, this one was not the reason for the storm. He lived a perfect life in perfect obedience to the Father. He never rebelled against his God. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet was without sin.
When he woke up in the boat, he stood and calmed the wind and waves with just two words: "Be still." In doing so, he demonstrated that he was much greater than any prophet—none other than the Lord himself.
A few years later, he allowed himself, as it were, to be thrown overboard. But not because he was guilty. As he died on the cross, he died as the innocent, obedient, sinless sacrifice who absorbed in himself the storm of judgment and saved his people from the raging storms of a rebellious and broken world.
What a wonderful God he is. He is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. All praise be to Jesus Christ our Lord.
