The Reluctant Messenger
My brother is name Jonah. But it wasn’t until I was in Seminary and married, when I had the opportunity to make an email address for my brother, that Amy helped me come up with the perfect nickname for him. Whalebarf. Where was Amy when I needed to pick on him when we were younger?
But I digress . . . When I read the Jesus Storybook Bible version of the story I was laughing at her version of the story. In her version of the story she quotes Jonah as saying “Run to him! So he can forgive you!” However, in the actual version of the story, he says, “forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown!” These are comically different to me. I cannot even call it a paraphase.
And yet, that is exactly what happens isn’t it. The actual result of Jonah’s message is indeed God’s forgiveness. The people do run to God. And the city is overthrown, but not like Jonah may have wanted. The city is overthrown in repentance.
She compares Jonah to Jesus, both of them being God’s messenger. But the biblical character I am want to compare Jonah to is John the Baptist. Jonah seems a lot more like him than Jesus. When the poeple come to the Jordan to be baptized, he does say something like her version of the Jonah quote. “Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.” But he also says something much more Jonah in the bible too. “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath!”
So, I think of them both as messengers, but perhaps reluctant ones. Men who knew that God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. That god is a forgiving God. But men who perhaps held on tightly to their own animosity about the people God was forgiving. And I wish she had said that . . . that though we are imperfect when offer forgiveness, or even talk about God’s forgiving nature, Jesus wasn’t. Jesus is God’s forgivness heaven to earth come down. And that is true good news!