Fishy Grace
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Finding Joy
Finding Joy
Many of you know, I work at Faithlife as a Software Developer and I lead the sermons team. We work on tools to help pastors write sermons… which is great for me because I am a pastor writing sermons. We have this tool I had to show you because it made me laugh this week.
This is our “Emotional Tone” analyzer. There’s a few things like this.
It found last week’s sermon really joyful. Which makes sense, we talked about redemption and repentance. There is lots of joy there. Then I dove in to see what it saw as joyful about last week’s sermon.
Can you see there at the bottom where it found the most “joyful” phrase in the whole sermon? “Tiglath-Pileser flayed victims alive and made great piles of their skulls.” Yikes.
And the “dark orange” color indicates that it was REALLY super joyful.
People find joy in some weird places!
I actually brought this to the team thinking it might be a bug, but they pointed out that it clearly gave “Tiglath-Pileser great joy” so…
Again. People find joy in weird places.
Jonah Recap
Jonah Recap
Where did we leave our friend Jonah?
He knew what God wanted him to do… and he went the opposite way. And God sent the storm.
15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.
17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
What was the fish?
Lots of argument here. Arguing… could it be a “whale?”
Could be a whale, sure. The Hebrew word is generic. Swimming thing. No scientific classifications at that time on swimming mammals vs fish fish.
There are thousands of whales in the Mediterranean.
There are books, studies on people who have survived being swallowed by fish and survive. They are generally horribly disfigured, but whatever.
If Jonah was swallowed by a whale, like a huge one with a huge stomach like a sperm whale. Stomachs are for what? Dissolving the food.
There is no situation in which this sort of “makes sense.” It’s a miracle.
It would make the most sense, really, if Jonah had died and God just brought him back to life on the shore. We know God is a God of resurrection… and indeed the “sign of Jonah” is used by Jesus as a model for his own death and resurrection.
39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
And yet, there is something strange here… Jonah is conscious in the belly of the fish.
We know that because of this crazy verse:
1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish,
For how long he was in there, don’t know.
What kind of fish? Don’t know. Big enough to swallow the Jonah… that’s a big fish.
I can tell you what it looked like. Close your eyes… that’s pretty much it, probably.
Here is my crazy assumption. It was awful. Tight, maybe as the stomach muscles flex and move, not only as the fish moves but as the stomach tries to digest you. Maybe even painful as the stomach acid tries to dissolve you. Claustrophic.
Not quiet, either, all the sounds of the water around magnified… and the sound of a very very nearby giant fish.
If it is a whale, maybe it’s making those sounds, complaining because something it ate just isn’t sitting right.
Where is Jonah getting air? Even if it is a whale, the air doesn’t go in the stomach, it goes in the lungs. There are pockets though, especially in fish or whales that breach periodically, so maybe gasping for borrowed breaths.
A miracle however you cut it… but a desparate painful gross, slimy, likely painfully acidic and horrible.
Now that we have spent way too much time imagining ourselves in the belly of a fish… how many of you are happy to be there?
Yes, this is GREAT! Better than the cruise to Tarshish, this is wonderful. What would be your prayer from the belly of the fish?
Get. Me. Out. Of. Here! Save me, Jesus, from this fish! This is the absolute worst!
Hear Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish:
1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish,
2 saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.
Out of the belly… not of the fish, of Sheol. The grave. The Ancient World saw the grave as below the floor of the ocean, and Jonah was close because he was drowning in the ocean.
3 For 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; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’
5 The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about 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.
all of that language, is of him drowning, the bottom of the ocean, the seaweed all around...
7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.
8 Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!”
Not the prayer we expected!!!
The fish is Salvation!
“The belly of the fish is not a happy place to live, but it is a good place to learn.”
The fish isn’t punishment, it is salvation. It is an act of grace. It is a place to learn.
When does Jonah say “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” When is he grateful for God’s salvation, for grace and rescue, for “steadfast love?”
Not after he is on dry land. While he is still in the belly of the fish.
After Jonah has learned some wisdom, then his time in the fish is done.
10 And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.
Not “spit”. Vomited.
And that grace leads where?
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying,
2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”
3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth.
Right back into where God had called him in the first time. God knew what He was about.
Mercy and Grace
Mercy and Grace
We talk a lot about grace. Mercy and grace. As we should.
Justice is getting what we deserve.
Mercy - not getting what we deserve.
Grace - getting what we don’t deserve.
These go hand in hand.
Jonah disobeyed His Lord, His God. What does he deserve? A peaceful cruise to Tarshish?
(The American idea of freedom and self-direction argues yes. That’s idolatry and hedonism, by the way.)
He deserves death. The wages of sin is death. The fish is mercy...
Grace is the second chance he doesn’t deserve. The opportunity to reflect on what he has done… and then the chance to do better.
Fishy Mercy. Fish Grace.
Jonah doesn’t get a lot right, to be honest. He isn’t a model of obedience, he isn’t a model of missional compassion, he doesn’t get a lot right.
But Jonah recognizes grace when He’s in the belly of it. Fishy grace.
That takes some wisdom. He has some perspective because he has a very clear picture of where he would be without it. Dead. Drownded. He was all but dead, or maybe actually dead, and he recognizes the belly of the fish as Salvation. Salvation comes from YHWH.
Do we recognize the grace of God when we see it? When we live it? When we are in the belly of grace?
Grace doesn’t have to be pretty. Doesn’t have to be easy. Doesn’t have to feel good and like a warm summer day.
Think of it this way:
Why did Jonah’s “salvation” have to be so fishy?
Why did Jonah’s “salvation” have to be so fishy?
Where was Jonah when he was ready to admit he needed salvation? Not back in Israel. Not on the boat. Not until he was drowning in the sea, the seaweed wrapped around his head.
Where was Jonah when he needed salvation? At the bottom of the sea.
So where was God’s salvation? Right where Jonah was. Right where he needed it. God entered in, “appointed” or “ordained” the means of salvation right where Jonah was.
And Jonah was saved.
That’s why salvation is usually so messy. Because we are messy… and we are the ones being saved.
What is the ultimate symbol of the grace of God?
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
Bloody grace!
The “grace” is messy because it meets Jonah where he is at.
Grace meets us where we are.
Grace is as messy as it needs to be, goes wherever it needs to go… even to death and shame on a cross.
So. Where are you at?
No matter how gross it has gotten… or how complicated… or how messy… Salvation is the Lord’s.
You have this option, always, in the midst of even the worst of your suffering. You can dwell on the pain and torment. Plenty of examples of people crying out to God in their suffering. Songs of lament, that’s real.
But you can also make the choice of Jonah, the wisdom of Jonah, pray the prayer of Jonah. To see even “this” as the grace of God.
For isn’t God “working all things together for the good of those who love him?” It doesn’t mean that being in the fish is awesome-super-great. But knowing that “Salvation is the Lord’s” and his grace is meeting me right where I am.
Meeting me there… and then bringing me in the right direction. Not leaving me in that place. Carrying me, redirecting me back into His Perfect Will.
This is the work of the prophet: to see and declare the grace of God. Salvation is the Lord’s.
We do this in all circumstances.
We can do this for one another. See the fishy grace of God. See that God is here, even now, in the belly of the beast.
God’s already there. Jesus has already, is even now, will always save you.
Mercy and grace upon you.
God, let us learn to see your mercy and grace. Your mercy and grace for today, even in the midst of circumstances that may not be comfortable, let us see your provision, your salvation.
And above all, let us see your cross before us, mercy and grace for the salvation of all.