The book of Jonah in the Bible is a super short read. Just 4 chapters at 1082 words. That means it comes in at number 11 out of 66 in the shortest book of the Bible chart. Just a little Bible trivia for you…but anyway!

It’s a story that many of you will know regardless of your relationship with God because of the big fish, or as many have presumed, a whale, that features heavily in the story. The story starts with God calling Jonah, a prophet, to go to the city of Nineveh and “preach against it.” Nineveh (known as Mosul in Iraq today) was the capital of the growing Assyrian empire. While it was quite far away from Israel, especially in those days of no motorised transport or internet, it would have been well known to the Israelites who would have been worried about its growing threat. It wasn’t the kind of place you’d want to go, and as we know Jonah tried to avoid carrying out the task God had for him there (hence the intervention of the fish) but in the end, he goes to the city as he was asked.

Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Jonah 3:3-4

I’m not sure what we would have hoped for if we had been Jonah in this moment. The message he had to share wasn’t super encouraging, let’s be honest. I wonder if he was hoping to see a city wide repentance or was he looking forward to seeing the destruction of a place he most likely disliked strongly? It doesn’t take it long to find out because after he had preached his message against the Ninevites we read this.

The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. Jonah 3:5

Their repentance ran so deep that the King began to even change to rules of the city.

This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” Jonah 3:7-9

This is awesome………Jonah’s preaching was successful, and God thought so too.

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. Jonah 3:10

This is where the story gets interesting, and it’s now that we see the answer to our earlier question regarding what Jonah was hoping for. We get to see where Jonah’s true motivation lay.

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:1-3

He’s not taken it very well has he? My guess is that his hatred for this city, the people there, and the threat that the Assyrians had and would pose to his own nation, makes him angry that it wasn’t destroyed. Or perhaps he was worried about returning home and telling people he was the one who didn’t destroy Ninevah but allowed it to be forgiven. Either way he was not backing down because even when God challenges him about it he doesn’t apologise. God asks him pretty directly;

But the LORD replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jonah 4:4

Jonah’s anger continues however, and he goes into the wilderness and God decides to illustrate Jonah’s attitude through a plant that dies in the desert (you can read that part yourself). After all of this God finishes with this.

But the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?” Jonah 4:10-11 (NIV)

God, in His mercy, is showing Jonah that it isn’t Jonah’s right to be angry. Jonah never created or cared for the people of Nineveh, but they were God’s creation. God loved them even though the city had rejected Him, even though they were living for other gods, and had adopted some horrible practices. It was God’s greatest desire to see them turn back to Him, to watch them turn back to life, and so He forgave them like a loving Father does.

Ps. We don’t get to hear how Jonah responds after hearing all of this. Perhaps it’s better that we don’t.

This story makes me think about justice.

As people we love justice. We love the right thing being done. We like good behaviour being rewarded and poor behaviour being punished. We especially are fond of the list of what we deem good behaviour being rewarded and our list of poor behaviour being punished. It’s why we can find God’s mercy and grace quite difficult. We can struggle when those who we deem to have behaved well struggle in life and not get the reward we think they should. And we struggle when we see people flourish who we deem to have behaved poorly. We probably struggle with the latter more. Even if there has been true repentance with those people we can still struggle that they haven’t ‘suffered’ for the wrong they did. Deep down we know they deserve forgiveness but we don’t like them receiving that forgiveness too easily. It’s more of a “just us” attitude than a justice mindset. As long as we agree with the outcome we are happy.

Of course the irony in all of this is that God didn’t and doesn’t treat us justly at all. That sounds like a critique, like He owes us something, but I mean the opposite. Our sin and behaviour as humankind has been awful. We rejected God, we divorced Him, we cheated on Him and we still do it today.

True justice would mean death for us. No forgiveness, no second chance, no option to redo or repent. However, as we know, God chose not to give us what we deserve but instead chose Jesus to pay the price for our disobedience so that we could walk in freedom. In truth that’s nowhere near fair……but we got the best side of the deal.

I have to recall this truth often. I have to remember when I pray “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us” that it is a high bar of forgiveness that I must offer others. My bar is His justice not just what I would like. I have a long way to go!!

Thank you Jonah.