The Story of Jonah (part 5)

This story is the continuation of the Jonah story. See the first 4 parts to fully understand what in the tarnation is going on.

Then the king held a meeting with his muckity mucks. The king said to the gang, “Ya know we have been plunderin all over the world and takin everybody for granted for a long time maybe we crossed the line.” One of his Lieutenants said, “I don’t know king. “I’m not so sure we did anything wrong because I’ve read up on Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory and I think we have acted well within our rights to do what we have done.” Then another kingly advisor says, “Ya know king you may be right. “We haven’t been showin a whole lot of mercy and compassion and things like that.”

So the king ordered them that they should all pay heed to Jonah’s warning. The king called for a fast and told everyone to put on sackcloth and ashes and ask God to forgive them. By now they pretty much figured they were either gonna be spared or toasted; there seemed to be no in-between.

Jonah wasn’t real happy about the whole thing because it was day number 40 and the sky was clear and blue. He just figured that there was gonna be a hail stone storm, or some other delightful act on God’s part to show these pesky Ninevites who was boss. He figured because it was day forty there would be some indication of it by now. So Jonah goes into a coffee shop and starts watchin the news. He asks one of the servers to change the channel so he could watch the weather forecast. Once that happened Jonah could see for himself there wasn’t so much as a drop of rain or anything else in sight. If God was gonna destroy Nineveh he was gonna do it some other way.

Finally, Jonah goes up to a hill overlooking the city and starts looking around to see if there be any good news. Nothin. It was the fortieth day and the sun was high and Jonah told God that the heat and the frustration of everything was really gettin to him and he wanted to die. So God appointed a really fast growing plant to grow up and cover Jonah to protect him from the searing sun and dry wind. And Jonah was real happy about the plant because it was as hot as blazes where he was sittin.

Later that evening J decides to crash for the night. While he is lying there he figures his math calculation may be off by a tad. God may have actually been givin the Ninevite people forty days to write their wills and then he was gonna blast em. Using his new math calculation he now figured that Nineveh was gonna be destroyed the next day, that bein day number forty-one. So he gazed up to the stars and smiled figurin that tomorrow God was gonna toast these people but good.

The next morning J wakes up with a smile and stretches and looks down over the city and sees…nothing. In one fleeting moment J figures God killed every one of them in their sleep. But no sooner then he could jump for joy at that though he noticed someone walking slowly down a street covered with sackcloth. Then he began to notice some farm animals covered with sackcloth. J thinks to himself, “That’s not something you see everyday.” J was puzzled by these events and wondered why everyone was in morning, even the cattle. They usually don’t morn over their dead. Then it slowly began to dawn on J that if everyone was wearing sackcloth there must have been a kingly order requiring such conduct.

Now he was really steamed and told God that he wanted to die because God wasn’t gonna do what he said he was gonna do. Now God steps into the picture and says to Jonah that the true nature of God desires repentance and forgiveness. Two things Jonah has been lacking. God also accused Jonah of not caring about anyone but himself and scolded Jonah for not having any compassion on the children who would have perished.

In the bible the story of Jonah ends as abruptly as it begins. There is little mention of Jonah outside his book and it is not even clear who wrote the story. Since the entire reference is in third person it gives evidence that the story was written by someone other than Jonah.

The people of Nineveh repented and were spared but the story has a deeper meaning. The story brings to light God’s plan for the gentiles, those who did not have an inheritance of God’s mercy as the Jews. Jesus was the next Jonah to walk the planet. Jesus brought the message of hope to everyone and removed forever the curse of darkness that had plagued all non-believers.

That’s why Jesus referred to Jonah when he said that he would be three days in the heart of the earth like Jonah was three days in the belly of a fish. Because the same thing was going to happened when Jesus got out of the grave as when Jonah got out of the fish; salvation.