The Sign of Jonah

When the Jewish people asked for a sign, Jesus referred them to Jonah: “As the crowds increased, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.” Luke 11:29-30

What is this sign of Jonah? We tend to gravitate toward the idea that just as Jonah was three days inside the whale and then was returned to land, Jesus would be three days inside the tomb and then returned to life bringing salvation to all who repent. It is easy to go there and stay at the three days because from little on up, we are taught the story of Jonah as the miracle of his surviving three days in the belly of a great fish or whale. We tend to skim over the rest of the story. But I wonder if Jesus had more in mind than the three days comparison.

First, it is helpful to understand that the Ninevites were the worst of the worst people in the minds of the Jews. In Jonah’s day, they were a very threatening power to be reckoned with. Later, they gained even more power over the Jews which the Jews in Jesus’ time would have experienced as their history. After the time of Jonah, Assyria attacked and took captive Israel. Then they threatened Hezekiah and the kingdom of Judah. But God came to their rescue and sent and angel to kill the army of Sennacherib and freed Jerusalem from his siege. “So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.” II Kings 19:36

Jonah was asked to go to the people of Ninevah and preach against their wickedness. It is no wonder that he refused. He tells God why after God changes his mind when the people of Ninevah repent. “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee 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.’” Jonah 4:1-2

Is it possible, then, that the sign of Jonah is that God is a compassionate and gracious God, forgiving even his enemies when they repent? Just as it was a hard pill for Jonah to swallow, it also was a hard pill for the Jews in Jesus’ day to swallow. If Jesus was their Messiah, surely he would get rid of their oppressors and their enemies and return the splendor of David’s and Solomon’s kingdoms to them. For Jesus to say that even their enemies were included in God’s compassion was unthinkable!

Yet, Jesus instructed them and us to, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:44 “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” Luke 6:35

Since I am not oppressed by a foreign government, it is easy to say I have no enemies. So this seems to either be an easy instruction to follow or it doesn’t apply to me. But if I open myself to God’s scrutiny on this one, he begins to point out to me people that I don’t like to be around. We might not shoot guns at each other or even throw punches, but we may shoot comments, tell others how terrible each other is, and avoid each other. Those may be the very people God is calling me to ‘love’ and ‘do good to’. I find that when I become willing, God softens my heart toward those people in my life. Sometimes it is a whole group of people that I classify as undesirable. And God graciously helps me to get to know individuals that fall into that class and softens my heart toward them. As I spend more and more time with my Father, he teaches me how much he loves others and teaches me to love them and have compassion for them as well.

So for me today then, the Sign of Jonah is that God is love, that he is a compassionate God who loves even the wicked, and that he forgives all those who repent. And he wants me to learn to be like him – to love my enemies, be compassionate to even the wicked, and forgive just as he forgave me.