As we come to chapter 3 in Jonah, we see Jonah does end up going to Nineveh as God commanded him, and he proclaims, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” This short proclamation by Jonah changed the people of Nineveh. Verse 5 says the people believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. It even reached the king, who joined them and set a decree to not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing, and they all must be covered in sackcloth. He also called on everyone to call on God earnestly and for everyone to turn from their wicked and violent ways. And finished by saying, “Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” After Nineveh repented and turned from their old ways, we see that God did relent from bringing the calamity and did not destroy them.
At this point a lot of people stop with the account of Jonah, but there is another chapter. Chapter 4 starts by saying, “But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.” Jonah is now angry, because God showed grace and mercy to Nineveh, and claims he fled to Tarshish because he knew this would happen. Instead of rejoicing and praising God for being a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindess, and one who relents concerning calamity, Jonah get angry, and we must ask why? I believe the answer is pretty simple. Jonah only wants God to show these attributes to whom he (Jonah) finds worthy.
We looked earlier at how bad Nineveh was, and they were terrible, but they repented and it just took a simple message for them to turn from their ways and plead. Jonah on the other hand ran from God, and it took him being inside of a great fish to repent. But nonetheless God showed him mercy and grace. The key here is that both Jonah and Nineveh did not deserve this grace and mercy, but they received it. It has always been strange to me that Jonah seems to remain bitter that Nineveh was spared, but then I have to ask myself, is there someone or a group of people that I would feel the same way about? Do I look at others as less? Do you look at anyone as less than you, or undeserving of God’s grace?
Let us look at Jonah as an example of how to not look at other people who are not like us, but instead let us look to God, the creator of all to see how we should view all people. God created man and woman in His image, thus all of us (humans) are valuable and have dignity. So regardless of what someone looks like and how someone may act, everyone is created in the image of God, so we should care about them. With this being said, if our worst enemy comes to know Christ we should rejoice with angels, and not get angry like Jonah. With all of that being said, let us love one another and treat everyone with dignity, knowing that God’s grace and mercy can reach the worst of us… including you and I.
Thanks for reading!
Pastor Josh